In response to employee feedback of feeling disjointed, management thought taking away our lunch would be the solution
We got a Teams meeting invite for a "Lunch and Learn" where the description asked employees to bring their lunch and watch demos from other team members. Upon the start of the meeting, it was revealed that several people have been volun"told" to present to us updates that their team has. It was advertised as a "fun" way to "connect" each month. Like what?? Yes, let's take away your free time for a mandatory meeting every month with every higher-up in management and all of your coworkers. It puts people on the spot in front of ~200 people to give demos that they didn't want to give in the first place. It's impersonal, awkward, and inconsiderate. Can't wait for next month! /s
Jobadvisor
That sounds genuinely frustrating — feedback about feeling disjointed getting "solved" by turning lunch into a mandatory, camera-on presentation gauntlet in front of 200 people is a pretty clear miss. Taking away unstructured time and replacing it with performance anxiety isn't really the same thing as connection, and it's understandable to be annoyed that people got volun-told to present with no warning.
I noticed your message ends with /skill-creator — that's usually used to build or edit a Claude skill, but I don't see a skill-building task in what you wrote. Did you mean to attach that, or were you just venting? Happy to just listen/help you think through this (e.g., drafting feedback to give your manager about how this landed), or if you did want to build something with skill-creator, let me know what for.
Rude manager entitled to my time off the clock...
My manager will call me and leave me multiple voicemails within the span of 4 hours saying the exact same thing, while also texting me the exact same thing (wanting me to pick up shifts, or come in if someone went home sick). Usually my phone is on silent because I sleep in on my days off and she's usually calling me around 6-7am. By the time I'm awake I see no point in calling her back if I'm not on the schedule that day. Even if it's an absolute emergency, that's still not my problem the company cannot staff correctly or at least have someone to be PRN when we're short staffed. The other morning I got a rather rude voicemail from her where she kinda yelled, but didn't, but you could def tell she was pissed, and she goes "____, I need you to call me back!" Never did because I didn't appreciate the tone. Mind you I'm only getting paid $13/hr. Anyway, when I came in the next day she "playfully" punched my shoulder and said "YOU need to answer me! Even if you don't want to fill the shift I need you to respond!" And I politely told her my phone automatically goes on DND setting at certain times and I don't always see my texts or calls unless I actively go into those tabs. She told me "Well, you need to listen for it!" Am I overreacting my being completely put off by this and am looking for a new job because of this?
Jobadvisor
You're not overreacting. Let's separate a few things here, because I think they're getting tangled together in a way that's making this feel more confusing than it is.
On the core issue: You're right that off-the-clock time is yours. There's no law or reasonable workplace norm that says you have to be reachable, awake, or monitoring your phone on your days off — especially at $13/hr with no on-call pay or PRN staffing plan in place. If your employer wants guaranteed availability, that's typically what on-call pay or a PRN pool is for, and it's on them to build that system, not on you to be a backstop by staying glued to your phone during sleep hours.
On the "playful" shoulder punch and the tone: That wasn't playful, and I think you already sensed that. Physically touching an employee while telling them they need to respond to her is a power move dressed up as banter. It's the kind of thing that reads as friendly in the moment but is actually a manager enforcing an unreasonable expectation through mild physical intimidation and guilt. You don't have to second-guess your discomfort with that.
On "you need to listen for it": This is where she's revealing she doesn't see a line between your work life and your personal life. That's a her problem, not a you problem. You gave a completely reasonable, calm explanation (DND settings), and her response was to double down rather than acknowledge it. That tells you she's not going to change this pattern — she's told you plainly that she expects you to restructure your personal life around her staffing gaps.
Are you overreacting by job searching over this? No. You don't need a bigger reason than "I don't want to work somewhere where my manager is repeatedly upset that I have boundaries around my own time." Low pay + being guilted for not being on-call 24/7 + physical "jokes" to reinforce that guilt is a completely reasonable combination of reasons to want out. You don't owe this job an escalating series of justifications before it's "allowed" to bother you.
One practical thought: while you're job hunting, you don't need to justify or explain the DND thing again if it comes up — you already gave a clear, polite answer. If she brings it up again, "I hear you, but I'm not available during my personal time" repeated calmly is enough. You don't need to win her over, just hold the boundary until you're out.
Feeling stupid for late realization
I’m twenty-seven, trapped in office work because of my degree. I wish I had realized earlier that salary jobs aren’t really the glory of life. You are just stuck with the nastiest of the nastiest. Married couples who bring their drama to work and enable one another. Fifty year old coworkers having affairs. Nepo babies who watch tiktok all day while you get yelled at for not being productive enough. Spineless managers who can turn on you like a dime. Legions of downtrodden ‘hourlies’ who drag you down like an anchor if you are stupid enough to try to help them. Managers who do absolutely no work to improve themselves, long for power, and inflict their issues on the innocent people forced to be around them.
It is so hard to accept the beatdowns. You think you’ve finally learned to accept the rigid hierarchy. Then there is a slight glimmer of hope that you’ve outsmarted it only to get burned yet again. Even with all my early opportunities and success in life I’m just seeing a system that has been designed to cage me. It feels like I’ll never learn to traverse this successfully with humility to get to where I want to go.
Currently I’m terrified that my life is going to crash down around my ears next week, but I’m also so exhausted I can’t even care. Maybe tomorrow when I wake up I’ll have whatever sort of attitude or spark I need to have. Or hopefully I won’t so it is easier to drink pitchers of sugar honey iced tea.
Goodnight.
Jobadvisor
That's a lot to be carrying, and it sounds like you've been carrying it quietly for a while. The exhaustion in your message isn't just about one bad day — it reads like the fatigue that comes from repeatedly hoping things might click into place and watching them not.
A few things stand out to me:
You're not wrong about a lot of what you're describing. Office hierarchies can absolutely reward the wrong things — proximity to power, conflict-avoidance, tenure over competence — while people who actually try to do good work or help others get worn down for it. That's a real pattern, not a personal failing on your part. Recognizing it at 27 isn't "late" — a lot of people never see it clearly at all, they just adapt to it without noticing.
But I want to gently push back on one thing: this isn't really about your degree trapping you, or about being "stuck." Feeling caged by a system is different from actually having no moves. You clearly have sharp insight into how these dynamics work — that's not nothing. That's the kind of clarity that eventually helps people find the exit, or the workaround, or the version of work that doesn't grind them down like this one is.
One thing I noticed, though: you mentioned being terrified your life is going to crash down next week. That's a specific, heavy thing to say almost in passing at the end of a message about work exhaustion. I don't want to skate past it — what's happening next week?
Got yet another award at work….after I was told there’s “no path” to the promotion I’ve wanted for two years. And no room for a raise
Even more unfortunate: my landlord does not accept cultural awards as legal tender and I don’t know the conversion rate in USD lol.
But seriously, I can’t count how many rewards and recognitions I’ve gotten and it’s amounted to a 3% raise (still earning less than my coworkers) and zero movement despite constant promises that my managers will “help get [me] to where [I] want to be.” I have a skip level meeting next week and I’m contemplating asking my boss’s boss not to nominate me for any more awards. I’m in a good place at work insofar as I’m the only one doing the work that I do and I think that’s been to my detriment career-wise. I don’t think they want me to move and frankly, these awards are a bit insulting and do nothing but remind me of my stagnation. I don’t want my leadership laboring under the delusion that these placate me at all.
I worked in restaurants for years. It sucked a lot of the time, but at least they were straight up with me and I made good money. That’s more than I can say about working corporate.
The performance of pretending to work
I’ve started working around a year ago. My salary is decent, I also have a good amount of PTO (25 days per year), I have 2 HO days, my team is okay, I think my boss kinda likes me.
So on paper it’s perfect. However, I have barely any shit to do. In my 40 hour work day it’s good if I actually work 8-10. On my HO days I literally just watch my shows and I put my mice on a jiggler. When I have to come to the office, it’s pure torture. In the first 7-8 months, I have always told my boss that hey I could actually do much more. She gives me minimal tasks but it’s maximum one day per week and after that I don’t have anything to do again. Now I have heard some fly comments which supposed be a joke I guess that she hears from IT team “everything which I do or don’t do”, also today she said something oh yeah I’m not surprised that you like to work from your couch at home because you’re just browsing the internet.
I really don’t care that much. It’s not like I haven’t told her that I’m free most of the time. My estimate was more generous, I have always told her in the beginning that probably I have 15 hours extra hours per week which I could use for something. After half year I have given up and just accepted that this is it. This fly comments are new. I just feel like it’s a bit unfair to me because I would gladly work more but she doesn’t manage me. When I come to the office I literally have to fish for extra work so it’s not so visible that I don’t do the jack shit. Like at this point I wouldn’t even cared if they have fired me ( I have a permanent contract so I guess that would be hard) but I really feel like I’m just wasting my life away here. It was good when I have started working here, a stable income is nice. My partner doesn’t get it but this performance of me pretending that I have to work is much more tiring than actual work. This is my first job after my uni and I really need more management. Also it’s not clear at all what more I could do. A lot of times I feel like I’m just working for the drawer just because at least then it looks like I do something
Jobadvisor
The "performance of pretending to work" is a really apt phrase — and I think it points at something real: underemployment like this is its own specific kind of exhausting, precisely because it demands constant low-grade vigilance (looking busy, fishing for tasks, managing appearances) without giving you anything to actually expend energy on. It's not rest, and it's not work. It's neither, and that in-between state is genuinely draining in a way people who haven't experienced it tend to underestimate — which is probably why your partner doesn't fully get it.
The IT comment and the "browsing from your couch" line land as unfair for a specific reason: you did the responsible thing repeatedly. You flagged capacity, gave a generous estimate, kept asking for more for months. The fact that she's now making sly comments about the outcome of her own failure to manage you is a pretty clear tell — she knows the situation is off, and instead of fixing it, she's needling you about it. That's on her, not you. You didn't create this gap; you reported it and got shrugged off until it calmed into "this is just how it is."
A few thoughts on where you might go with it:
The comments are worth addressing directly, once. Not defensively — just factually, ideally in a 1:1, something like: "I've noticed a couple of comments about how I use my time. I want to flag that I've raised multiple times that I have capacity — I'm not sure what else to do on my end to get more work, so I'd like your help figuring that out." This does two things: it puts the "jokes" on record as something you noticed, and it puts the ball back in her court, because right now she gets to have it both ways — under-tasking you and also implying it's your fault.
Since your manager isn't solving this, consider going around or above her, if that's culturally viable — is there a skip-level, a project lead on another team, an internal mobility posting? Sometimes chronic under-tasking is a manager problem specifically (she doesn't know how to delegate or doesn't have enough scope herself), not a company-wide one. Other teams might actually have work.
On "I don't know what more I could do" — that's a legitimate structural problem, not a you-problem. First jobs often come with an assumption that you'll osmose what "more" looks like, but if the tasks aren't there and no one's mapping a growth path, there's nothing to osmose. That's worth naming as plainly as the capacity issue: "I don't just want more tasks, I want to understand what skills or scope would actually move me forward here — can we figure that out together?"
If none of that moves the needle in a reasonable window, this is also useful information for job searching — you now know you want a role with actual mentorship and real workload, and you can screen for that more precisely next time (ask interviewers directly about ramp-up structure and manager involvement).
You're not wasting your life by naming this as a problem instead of just quietly rotting into it. That instinct — that this doesn't sit right even though it looks fine on paper — is worth trusting.
How do people tailor so many resumes without spending all day doing it?
Hi everyone,
I'm genuinely curious because I feel like I'm missing something.
Every piece of job search advice says you should tailor your resume for every application. Change your summary, adjust your experience, match the job description, add the right keywords... and honestly, I understand why. It makes sense.
The problem is how people actually manage to do that at scale.
By the time I've read the job description, compared it to my resume, rewritten a few bullet points, and proofread everything, I've spent 30 or 40 minutes on one application. At that pace, I can't imagine applying to dozens of jobs a week, let alone the people who say they've submitted hundreds.
Then I start wondering if I'm overthinking it. Maybe most people only make a few small changes. Or maybe they're sacrificing quality just to get more applications out.
I want my resume to feel like it was written for the role, but I also don't want to spend my entire evening rewriting the same document over and over.
How do you personally balance quality with quantity when you're applying for jobs?
Jobadvisor
The 30-40 minutes you're spending isn't wasted, but it can definitely be compressed once you build the right system. Here's how people who apply at scale actually manage it:
They build a modular "master resume" first. Instead of starting from a blank slate each time, they keep one long document with every bullet point they've ever written for each role — 4-5 variations per job, covering different skills/angles (leadership, technical depth, metrics, etc). Tailoring becomes "swap in the 3 bullets that match this posting" instead of "rewrite from scratch."
They tailor in layers, not everywhere at once. Most people who move fast aren't rewriting the whole resume — they're changing:
- The summary/headline (2-3 sentences, matched to the role)
- Which 3-5 bullets get shown per job, pulled from their master list
- Keyword alignment (swapping in exact phrasing from the JD where it's true)
The rest — dates, formatting, most of the structure — stays untouched. That alone cuts the time way down.
They batch by job family. If you're applying to similar roles (e.g. several "Product Manager" postings), the differences between JDs are often small. People create 2-3 "base versions" of their resume for the role types they're targeting, then do light final tweaks per posting rather than starting fresh every time.
They stop tailoring for low-fit jobs. A lot of "hundreds of applications" people are doing minimal tailoring on most of them and reserving the full 30-40 minute treatment for a shorter list of roles they actually want. Quantity and depth get intentionally decoupled.
Some genuinely do sacrifice quality. You're not wrong about this — spray-and-pray does happen, and it's part of why response rates on mass applications are often lower than people expect. It's not a hidden trick you're missing.
If it's helpful, I could help you build a modular master resume from your current one — set up the bullet "library" so future tailoring is mostly select-and-swap instead of rewrite. Want to try that?