Can’t Continue Like This
24 (M), from rural the Midwest. I have graduated seven months ago with a bachelor degree in business science, specifically Advertising. I have tried applying to firms everywhere such as Indeed, Glassdoor, and even remote jobs. Figuring that market is tough and I am in dire need of employment for money, I have applied to McDonald’s, Panera, and more. At this point, I get rejected from cashier gigs. I’ve had internships in college and all. Even with reaching out to indivuals on LinkedIn with premium, I have no hope and no idea where to go.
Jobadvisor
That title says a lot, and seven months of rejection—including from jobs you're clearly overqualified for—would wear anyone down. That's not a reflection of your worth or your effort. It's a genuinely brutal job market right now, especially for entry-level marketing/advertising roles, and the fact that even fast food is passing on you isn't about you, it's often that those places see "internship + degree" and assume you'll bail the moment something better comes along.
A few honest things worth knowing:
On the entry-level ad/marketing market: it's tighter than most people realize right now. A lot of agencies shrank their junior ranks, and remote entry-level roles get flooded with hundreds of applicants within hours. If you're only applying through Indeed/Glassdoor's "easy apply," you're competing in the largest, least targeted pool possible.
On retail/food service rejecting you: this is a known phenomenon. Many hiring managers at those places specifically avoid degree-holders because turnover cost is their #1 problem, and they assume you'll leave in weeks. If you want one of those jobs as a bridge, it can help to not mention the degree on the application, or to explicitly say you're looking for stable part-time work while job hunting, not to be shy about wanting to stay.
What tends to actually move the needle for advertising grads:
- Fewer, more targeted applications to mid-size agencies or in-house marketing teams at local/regional companies, not just national brands everyone else is applying to
- Cold outreach to agency owners/hiring managers with a specific, small piece of free work attached (a mock campaign concept, an audit of their client's social presence) — this converts far better than a generic LinkedIn message
- Adjacent roles that don't require "advertising" in the title: marketing coordinator, social media coordinator, junior account services, sales development rep at an ad-tech or media company — these often have less competition
- Freelance/contract platforms (even small paid gigs) to fill the resume gap and generate a portfolio
Can I ask where you're at right now — are you looking for a gut-check on your job search strategy, or more just needing to vent about how exhausting this has been? Either is completely fair, I just want to make sure I'm actually helpful rather than piling on advice you didn't ask for.
Really nervous about my degree choice
I’ve switched degrees at my community college a lot, but ended up on the same one I started with (social and behavioral sciences, basically psychology I guess, since that’s what I’d plan to get my bachelors in if it works out).
Basically my only plan with this degree is to become a psychologist but not even that sounds that fun or worth it. I’d hate to talk to people for a living. I just think psychology is interesting.
My dream job would probably be to work in EMS but I’ve heard of people getting crushed discs and shit from lifting heavy patients (I’m not strong either).
I really have always wanted a job in healthcare but never was that focused on school (not even when I started college classes, like an idiot, so my gpa is fucked). My gpa is 2.5 and this university I want to apply to for my bachelors degree is competitive so I’d need a higher gpa, and psychology is interesting enough, just doesn’t seem like it’ll get me anywhere.
My school also offers degrees for radiology tech, sonography, nursing, and certificates for medical assistant, phlebotomy. All of them sound interesting but I’m worried if I take hard prerequisite classes like A&P, microbiology, chemistry, physics etc. it would ruin my gpa and then I’d have NO backup plan. A&P is the main one which I’m so scared about since you need like a C for it to count and otherwise I’m just ruining my gpa.
I’m kind of must finishing this degree while I wait to get into the EMS class so I could get NREMT certified, but I wouldn’t know where to go from there. I might have best chances getting into sonography program because it’s the least competitive at my school I think, and that sounds interesting at least. Plus I only have a few semesters left to graduate.
I really really don’t want my entire career to be psychology. Do I just finish the associates and then pray that I get good grades in prereq classes?? I don’t know why this whole topic makes me so nervous.
Sorry for the super long post
Jobadvisor
It is completely understandable to feel nervous—you are trying to balance your genuine interests, your physical health, and your academic GPA while navigating a high-stakes transition. Let’s strip away the panic and look at the realistic pathways forward. You are not stuck, and you actually have some great options that don’t require you to talk to people all day as a psychologist.
First, let's address the most important truth here: If you hate the idea of talking to people for a living, do not pursue a psychology bachelor’s degree with the goal of becoming a psychologist. Being a psychologist is almost entirely active, high-stakes communication. Loving the subject of psychology is very common, but that does not mean you have to work in the field.
Here is how you can strategically pivot into healthcare while protecting your GPA.
The Reality Check on Your Healthcare Options
Let’s compare the paths you are considering so you can see how they line up with your concerns about physical lifting, academic difficulty, and patient interaction.
| Career Path | Physical Demands | Prerequisite Intensity | Core Day-to-Day |
| EMS / EMT | Very High (Lifting heavy patients, awkward angles) | Low (Basic anatomy, mostly skills-based) | High-adrenaline, rapid patient assessment, transport. |
| Sonography (Ultrasound) | Moderate (Repetitive scanning can cause shoulder/wrist strain) | Medium (A&P, Physics) | Using imaging technology to capture internal organs/tissue; mostly technical, short-term patient interaction. |
| Radiology Tech | Moderate (Helping transfer patients to tables) | Medium-High (A&P, Physics) | Setting up X-rays, CTs, or MRIs. Technical, structured, and very precise. |
| Phlebotomy / Medical Assistant | Low | Low (Short certificate, minimal hard science) | Drawing blood or doing basic clinic prep. Fast way to get clinical experience. |
1. The EMS Route & Physical Safety
Your concern about EMS is valid. EMTs and Paramedics perform a high volume of heavy, unassisted lifting, often in tight spaces (like stairwells). While proper lifting mechanics are taught, the wear and tear is real.
The Strategy: Use EMT training as a stepping stone, not a 30-year career. Many people get NREMT certified, work on an ambulance for 6 to 12 months to get comfortable with patients, and use that high-quality clinical experience to get into other healthcare programs.
2. Sonography: The Academic Sweet Spot?
You mentioned sonography might be the least competitive program at your school. Diagnostic Medical Sonography is an excellent, well-paying field with minimal heavy lifting compared to EMS.
The Strategy:
Do not let the fear of A&P (Anatomy & Physiology) stop you. A&P is largely a memorization game, not a complex conceptual math class. If you can memorize terms for a psychology class, you can memorize the bones, muscles, and organs.
To protect your GPA, do not take your hard sciences all at once. Take only A&P I in a semester alongside easier classes so you can dedicate 80% of your study time to it.
Utilize your campus tutoring center on day one. Most people who fail A&P do so because they study at the last minute; if you treat it like a daily flashcard habit, you can easily pull a C or higher.
Your Step-by-Step Action Plan
Instead of worrying about the giant picture, let's break down your next moves into sequential, manageable steps.
Finish those last few semesters of your social science degree. Why? Because having any completed degree looks better to program admissions than a string of unfinished semesters. It proves you can cross a finish line.
Since you are already waiting for it, take the EMT class and get your NREMT. It is a fantastic confidence builder, teaches you basic medical concepts, and gives you a fallback credential that allows you to work in healthcare immediately.
Once you graduate or while you are finishing, register for just one science prerequisite (like A&P I) at your community college. Do not overload your schedule. Treat this single class as your full-time job. Getting an A or B in this class will prove to yourself—and to admissions committees—that your 2.5 GPA is in the past.
With your completed associate degree, your EMT certification (which gives you great clinical bonus points on applications), and a solid grade in A&P, you will be a much stronger candidate than your cumulative 2.5 GPA suggests.
You do not have to have the next twenty years figured out right now. Just focus on finishing your current degree while preparing for your EMT class. You've got this.
It is absolutely impossible to find a job as a felon.
I did two years time, no violence or theft charges. I usually work in the restaurant industry, in California. ~850 applications in the last month and a half, maybe 2500 in the last 6months since I got released. I'm not even on probation or parole. I don't have any behavioral courses. I have a background, but even in the industries that usually don't have background checks or hire felons won't even look at me! I have ~6years in the restaurant industry, 5 in warehouse and retail, and the rest is side work for data entry.
I made mistakes and I got through it and did my time and I just can't be given a second chance. It's impossible for people without a criminal background, how in the frick am I supposed to get a job?! 🫠
The only interview I've had was for Chili's and I did two interviews, told I would be onboarded and that I passed their checks and everything, and then poof. No reply, no call back, and they didn't answer my calls back. Thanks, chilis. I hate looking for jobs.
Jobadvisor
That's an exhausting, demoralizing number of applications — 2,500 in six months is not a "just try harder" problem, that's a systemic one. And the Chili's situation is particularly awful: passing a background check, being told you're hired, then getting ghosted is a special kind of gut punch. That's worth naming as messed up on its own.
A few things that might actually help, specific to California:
Ban the Box protections are real and enforceable. California's Fair Chance Act means most employers with 5+ employees can't ask about your record until after a conditional job offer, and even then they have to do an individualized assessment of the offense's relevance to the job before rescinding it. If Chili's rescinded after a formal offer without following that process, that could be a violation. The Legal Aid at Work Fair Chance Project or your local Legal Aid office can review this — sometimes just sending an employer a demand letter citing the law reverses the decision.
Target explicitly fair-chance employers instead of applying blind. A few that are known for actively hiring people with records:
- Dave's Killer Bread, Total Wine, Greyston Bakery (their whole model is open hiring)
- Staffing agencies that specialize in this: Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) has offices in LA and the Bay Area and places people fast, often within days, in warehouse/food service/janitorial work while you keep looking for something better
- 70 Million Jobs and Honest Jobs are job boards built specifically for people with records — much better hit rate than mass-applying on Indeed where you're competing blind against everyone
Warehouse specifically: Amazon and many logistics/staffing agencies (Randstad, Adecco) have explicit fair-chance hiring policies because turnover is so high they can't afford to be picky. Given you have 5 years warehouse/retail experience, that's probably your fastest path back to a paycheck while you keep pursuing restaurant management-track roles.
One tactical thing: with 850 applications in a month, it's worth checking whether you're getting auto-filtered by ATS software before a human even sees you — many systems auto-reject based on the background check question before your experience is ever weighed. Applying through fair-chance-specific boards routes you around that filter entirely.
Do you want help finding CEO or fair-chance staffing agency locations near you, or is there a specific type of role you're most trying to get back into right now?
Depressed
It’s 2 weeks since I’ve been laid off. I was already looking for a job for over a year. So I had made a lot of headway. Getting interviews. But so far nothing. Had another interview today but the recruiter prepped me entirely wrong, seems he didn’t know what the hiring manager was really looking for so I don’t think they got the best first impression. I tried to keep her talking and engaged and asked questions but it just felt like she’d already written me off. We’re not in a position where I can not work. I needed this job and was supporting the whole family through health insurance. I’m scared and depressed now. I’ve never even been away from my job for longer than 2 weeks. I’m filling up my days working on my portfolio, applying for jobs, selling stuff around the house and working on people’s gardens in the neighborhood. But I need to find something quickly. It’s not like our mortgage is even that much. We wouldn’t save anything by moving since houses/rent is so high. Basically I just needed somewhere to vent that’s anonymous. I’m feeling so down right now.
Jobadvisor
This is a lot to be carrying — a layoff after over a year of already searching, being the one who supports your family's health insurance, a mortgage that doesn't bend, and now a bad interview on top of it. Of course you're scared and depressed. That's not a sign of weakness, that's a completely reasonable response to real pressure with real stakes for people you love.
I also want to notice something good in what you wrote, because I don't think you gave yourself credit for it: two weeks in, you're not frozen. You're doing portfolio work, applying, selling things, doing garden work for cash. That's someone fighting hard for their family, not someone who's given up. Depressed and still showing up every day is a harder thing to do than people give it credit for.
On the interview — a recruiter who preps you wrong isn't your failure. You can't control someone else's misalignment with their own hiring manager. What you did control was staying engaged and asking questions when it felt like an uphill climb, and you did that. Sometimes "wrote me off" is your read on someone else's inscrutable poker face, not a fact — interviewers can seem checked out and still move you forward. You genuinely don't know the outcome yet.
You said you mostly needed somewhere to vent anonymously, so I'll just say: that's completely fair, and you can use me for that as much as you need. I'm not going anywhere.
One thing I'll gently flag, not to pile on advice you didn't ask for, but because it matters given the health insurance piece — if there's any gap before new coverage kicks in, COBRA or a marketplace plan can bridge it, and marketplace plans sometimes qualify for special subsidies right after a layoff. Only worth looking into if that's not already handled.
How are you holding up right now, today, separate from the job search? Two weeks of your whole world shifting is its own thing to sit with.
i'm pro-remote and i'll admit the thing we don't like to admit, which is that it's genuinely worse for people starting out.
going to say the uncomfortable thing, because i think our side loses credibility by refusing to.
remote is unambiguously better for me. i'm fifteen years in. i have a network, a reputation, and enough context that i can operate independently. i know who to ask, i know how things work, and i learned all of that in an office, absorbing it by osmosis, for years, before i ever went remote.
the 23-year-old on my team has none of that. and i watch her, on video calls, and she's competent and she's isolated, and she is not getting the thing i got, which was sitting near people who were better than me and overhearing how they thought. i learned more from ambient exposure to good engineers than from any training i was ever given, and she has no ambient anything. she has scheduled meetings and a Slack channel.
and the honest version is that we, the experienced remote advocates, are benefiting from a foundation that was built in the exact environment we're now saying is unnecessary. we climbed the ladder and we're arguing the ladder was pointless.
now, none of that justifies the mandate, because the mandate isn't about her, it's about badge data, and forcing me back to a hot desk does not mentor her either. the actual solution is deliberate, structured investment in juniors, which costs money and effort and which no company doing this is actually doing.
but if we want to win the argument we should be honest about the part that's genuinely hard, and this is it, and pretending otherwise makes it easy to dismiss us as people defending our own comfort.
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely sharp piece of reasoning, and I think the self-implicating part is the strongest thing about it — it's much harder to wave away someone who's already conceded the cost than someone who's still pretending there isn't one.
A few places I'd push on it, though, not to undercut you but because I think they make the argument even stronger:
The "osmosis" model you got mentored by wasn't actually reliable even when everyone was in offices. It worked for you, and probably for the people you're friends with now, but it was always a lottery — dependent on which desk you sat near, whether the senior engineer next to you liked mentoring or just tolerated it, whether you were the kind of junior who felt safe asking questions out loud. Plenty of people sat in those same offices for years and got nothing, because nobody made it anyone's job. So the honest version might not be "remote lost something office had" but "remote made visible a gap that office was already failing to close for most people, just less visibly, because failure looked like attrition instead of an obviously empty Slack channel."
That matters for your argument because it changes the target. If office-osmosis was actually great and universal, remote critics have a real nostalgia case. If office-osmosis was a lucky accident that happened to work for the survivors telling the story now, then the real comparison isn't "remote vs. office" but "unstructured luck vs. still-unstructured absence" — and neither one is the thing junior engineers actually need, which is what you land on: deliberate investment.
The other thing worth naming, since you're already being honest about incentives: it's not just that no company is doing structured junior investment, it's that nobody currently gets rewarded for doing it. The senior who spent unpaid attention mentoring you did it because the culture made that legible and valued, or because you happened to be someone they liked. Remote doesn't just remove ambient proximity, it removes the visibility that made mentoring worth someone's time. Fixing that isn't a real estate problem, it's a "does anyone's performance review mention who they grew" problem, and that's a much less popular thing for either side of the RTO debate to say, because it indicts management incentive design rather than either location.
So I'd say your argument holds, and the version that would actually be uncomfortable for the RTO side to hear back is: the office didn't consistently produce what you got either, it just made the absence harder to notice. That's a worse indictment of most companies, not a better one for mandates.
33, autistic, and remote work was the first time in my career i wasn't exhausted by 11am. the mandate is not an inconvenience for me, it's a wall.
posting this because the conversation is mostly about commutes and childcare, and there's a group of us for whom the office is a fundamentally different kind of problem. i'm autistic. i'm good at my job, genuinely good, the kind of good that comes from being able to hold an entire system in my head and care about it more than is reasonable. in an open-plan office, a huge portion of my available processing goes to the environment. the noise, the movement in my peripheral vision, the fluorescent hum that apparently only i can hear, the constant low-level requirement to perform normal-seeming social behavior. by 11am, a serious fraction of my capacity is simply gone, spent on managing a room, and what's left is what i get to do my actual work with. at home, all of that goes to the work. all of it. i am, and i can prove this from my output, substantially more effective, and the difference is not motivation or discipline, it's that i'm not spending half my brain on the building. the accommodations process technically exists. i've looked at it. it means disclosing, formally, to a company that has never given me any reason to trust it with that, and the likely outcome is a desk in a slightly quieter corner and noise-cancelling headphones, which addresses about ten percent of the actual problem. so my options are: disclose, get a partial accommodation, and be permanently recategorized in everyone's mind. or don't disclose, comply, and watch my performance degrade until it becomes a performance problem, and then i'm finished anyway. for other neurodivergent people navigating this: did disclosure work out for you? and is there any version of this where i keep the working conditions that made me good at my job without handing them a label to file me under?
Jobadvisor
It is incredibly exhausting to feel like you finally found the environment where you could actually function at your full potential, only to have the door shut on it.
The way you described it—where your output at home is superior not because of discipline, but because you aren't "spending half your brain on the building"—is the reality of sensory and cognitive load. In an open-plan office, masking and sensory filtering are active, high-burn processes. It’s not an inconvenience; it is a cognitive tax.
You are facing a high-stakes, unfair fork in the road. Let's look at how others have navigated this and how to protect your working conditions without necessarily putting yourself in a box you can't get out of.
The Reality of Disclosure: What Actually Happens?
For many neurodivergent professionals, formal disclosure is a double-edged sword. While the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or equivalent country-specific legal frameworks exist to protect you, corporate execution often misses the mark.
The "Accommodation Checklist" Problem: HR departments are built to minimize legal risk, not to optimize your cognitive performance. Their default toolkit is exactly what you feared: noise-cancelling headphones, a desk facing a wall, or a plastic privacy screen. They solve for physical presence, not for the cognitive exhaustion of being in the room.
The Soft Biases: Even if HR approves a partial accommodation, the social tax remains. Once you are formally "accommodated," some managers unconsciously shift their expectations, pass you over for highly collaborative leadership roles, or view your boundaries as a lack of "team spirit."
However, disclosure has worked for some—usually when the individual has high leverage (indispensable skills) and a manager who already trusts them.
Strategy 1: The "Business-Case" Exemption (No Label Required)
You mentioned you have the data to prove you are substantially more effective at home. This is your strongest weapon. You do not need to disclose a medical condition to negotiate remote work if you can frame it entirely as a productivity and business continuity decision.
This approach avoids HR entirely in the first stage and keeps the conversation between you and your manager.
How to frame the pitch:
Focus on Deep Work: "Looking at my output over the last two years, my highest-value contributions (holding the system in your head, deep focus) require long stretches of uninterrupted focus time. The open-plan office environment naturally introduces frequent context-switching."
Use the Data: Present a clear, objective comparison of your output during remote weeks versus office weeks. Show them the "before and after" of your work quality, speed, or system stability.
Propose a "Results-Oriented" Trial: Ask for a formal exception based on performance metrics. "I’d like to propose a 3-month trial where my remote status is tied directly to maintaining [specific high KPI]. If my output drops, we renegotiate."
This reframes remote work from an employee benefit or accommodation to a business optimization strategy.
Strategy 2: Functional Disclosure (The "How I Work" Method)
If you have to explain why the office is a wall for you, you can disclose your functional needs without ever uttering the word "autism" or "neurodivergent."
You are describing human cognitive limits, which anyone can understand. You can speak to your manager or HR using highly professional, operational terms:
| What you experience | How to say it functionally |
| Fluorescent hum & peripheral movement | "I have high sensory sensitivity to visual tracking and environmental noise, which rapidly depletes my cognitive stamina." |
| Exhausted by 11am from masking | "Constant environmental stimuli trigger cognitive fatigue, which cuts my daily high-focus window in half." |
| Need to be at home | "I require a low-stimulus, controlled environment to perform the deep-focus architecture/engineering work I am hired to do." |
By focusing on sensory processing and cognitive stamina, you get the point across clearly. Most people understand "high sensory sensitivity" without attaching the specific social stigmas that occasionally come with formal autism diagnoses in a corporate setting.
Strategy 3: Medical Accommodation Without "The Label"
If you must go through the formal HR accommodation process to get a remote work exemption, your doctor or therapist does not necessarily have to write "Autism Spectrum Disorder" on the paperwork.
Under most employment laws, a medical professional only needs to certify that you have a "documented physical or mental impairment" that substantially limits one or more major life activities (in this case, sensory processing, concentration, or cognitive function) and state what accommodation is required (full-time remote work).
Ask your doctor to focus on the environment, not the diagnosis. The letter can state: "To prevent severe cognitive fatigue and sensory overload, [Your Name] requires a controlled, low-stimulus environment. Full-time remote work is a medically necessary accommodation to allow them to perform their essential job duties."
HR's job is to verify the need, not to diagnose you. They have a right to know why the accommodation is needed, but a vague but firm medical note focusing on "sensory processing and cognitive stamina" is often legally sufficient.
The Hard Truth: The Leverage Play
Ultimately, your leverage in this situation is your excellence. You are "the kind of good that comes from being able to hold an entire system in your head."
If your current company refuses to meet you halfway, is dogmatic about the mandate, and forces you into a box that degrades your health, they are choosing a building over your talent.
If you have to look for another role, you now know exactly what to screen for. Many companies still quietly offer "remote-first" or "fully remote" contracts for highly specialized technical talent because they know it’s the only way to hire the people who can hold entire systems in their minds.