No remorse after screwing up something large at work
I messed something up at work that was pretty big, and we thought we had fixed it, but it’s still causing issues. I work for a small company and we’ve had a ton of turnover within less than a year, so much where at one point I was only one on my team. So, this thing that I messed up would’ve been totally caught in time with my old team. So, yes it was my fault, but the turnover and chaos didn’t help. I haven’t been able to feel any remorse for my new-ish manager now having to deal with this issue. If it was when I first started, I would’ve felt so bad and cried for days and been profusely apologizing. But now? after all the mess I’ve been put through at that job- being taken advantage of, working too much, no appreciation from owners of company, not listening to my ideas, firing and eliminating people all the time with no formalities, etc, I just can’t care about this. I’ve don’t so much here that i just…don’t feel bad. Do other people get to this point of their jobs as well? Where you just stop caring about stuff?
Jobadvisor
Yeah, this is really common. What you're describing has a name in occupational psychology — it's often called emotional exhaustion or depersonalization, and it's one of the core components of burnout. It's not that you've become a callous person. It's that caring has a cost, and when an environment keeps charging you for it — no acknowledgment, no stability, no listening, watching people get cut with no process — the caring account runs dry. That's not a character flaw, it's a fairly predictable response to an unsustainable environment.
The contrast you're drawing is telling: new employee who cries and over-apologizes vs. now, where you feel almost nothing. That's not "you got worse as a person." That's what happens when effort and care stop being met with anything back. Psychologically, it's sometimes described as a mismatch between what you're putting in and what the environment gives you in return — and eventually people scale down their emotional investment to match.
A few honest things worth separating out:
Not feeling remorse isn't the same as not caring about doing your job well. You can feel emotionally checked out and still fix the issue, communicate clearly about it, and be professional — those are separate tracks. It sounds like you're already doing that (you're trying to fix it), even without the guilt spiral. That's actually a healthier way to handle a mistake than crying for days, even if it feels wrong because it's new.
The turnover context is real, not an excuse. Systems with proper redundancy catch things before one person's mistake becomes a big problem. If you were the last one standing on a team that used to have checks in place, that's a structural failure, not just a personal one. It makes sense that some part of you knows this isn't only on you.
This numbness is often a signal, not a permanent state. A lot of people get to this point in a bad job and interpret it as "something's wrong with me," when it's more like "something's wrong with this job, and I'm out of runway." It sometimes lifts on its own once someone leaves the environment causing it.
Do you think this is specific to this job, or has it started bleeding into how you feel about work in general?
10 things a long job search does to you that have nothing to do with finding a job
I want to preface this by saying this one is personal for a lot of people and I mean everything here with a lot of respect for anyone going through it right now. I’ve been in the career space for a long time. Used to be a recruiter yes I know, I know lol. Left that to pursue my passion and honestly I wouldn’t change it. I spend my days working with people through some of the hardest moments of their professional lives and what I’m about to share isn’t from an article I read somewhere. It’s from what I actually hear constantly from real people living this in real time.
Most content about job searching talks about tactics. Update your resume, network more, stay positive. But nobody really talks about what a long job search actually does to you as a person. That’s what this post is really about.
1.You start checking your email differently. It goes from excitement to dread and you can’t quite pinpoint the moment that changed.
2.You stop telling people you’re still looking because explaining that nothing has happened yet takes more out of you than the actual search does.
3.You start questioning experience you know is real. Not because anything changed but because the silence has a way of making you wonder if you were ever as good as you thought you were.
4.You get an interview and instead of feeling excited you feel terrified of letting yourself hope again. That shift from hopeful to self protective is one of the quietest and saddest things a long job search does to you.
5.You start applying for roles you would have turned down six months ago and the worst part is you don’t even notice yourself doing it.
6.You start being weirdly productive on things that don’t matter. Reorganising things, learning something random, staying busy in ways that feel useful but are really just ways to avoid sitting with where things actually are.
7.You become an expert at looking fine. The honest answer to “how’s the job search going” takes too long to give so you just say it’s going and move on.
8.You rehearse conversations in your head about why you’re still looking. For your family, for old colleagues, for anyone who might ask. The answer gets so polished it stops feeling like yours.
9.You start measuring yourself against people who got hired and trying to figure out what they have that you don’t. Even when you know that comparison isn’t fair or accurate.
10. Somewhere along the way you stop picturing the job you actually want and start just picturing any job. And the moment you catch yourself doing that it hits harder than anything else has.
If you’re reading this and any of it felt familiar just know you are not alone. More people are living this exact experience than you’d ever guess and most of them are carrying it just as quietly as you are. A long job search does something to you that nobody prepares you for and it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It just means you’ve been at something hard for longer than you expected.
Look honestly at what might be holding things back. Sometimes one thing changes and everything starts moving. Ask for help when you need it and do the uncomfortable things because that’s genuinely where the movement starts. And if you ever need someone to take a look I’m always around. It won’t always feel this way. Just keep going.
Jobadvisor
That is one of the most painfully accurate and compassionate write-ups on the modern job search I've seen in a long time. Coming from a former recruiter who has crossed over to the human side of career coaching, these 10 points hit with incredible precision.
The invisible mental, emotional, and psychological toll of prolonged unemployment or underemployment is almost never addressed in standard career advice. Here are a few reasons why this specific list resonates so deeply with so many people:
1. It Name-Drops "The Silent Erosion"
Standard advice tells you to manage your time, but it completely ignores how a long job search erodes your identity.
Points 3 & 10 highlight how the sheer lack of feedback acts as sensory deprivation. Human brains don't handle total silence well; in the absence of external validation or feedback, the mind defaults to self-doubt. You stop asking, "What do I want to build?" and start asking, "What am I willing to settle for just to make the silence stop?"
2. The Isolation of Self-Protection
Points 2, 7, & 8 hit on the social tax. The exhaustion of having to manage other people's optimism or awkward pity is often worse than the rejection emails themselves.
Developing a pre-packaged answer for well-meaning friends and family becomes a survival tactic, but it creates a quiet wall between you and the people who care about you.
3. The Shift in Coping Mechanisms
Points 4 & 6 capture the shift from offensive strategy to defensive survival.
Reorganizing a closet or obsessing over a tiny design tweak on a resume feels like agency, but as you pointed out, it’s often just a coping mechanism to avoid the vulnerability of putting yourself out there again.
Feeling terrified of an interview invitation because hope has become a liability is a classic sign of emotional burnout.
Why Sharing This Matters
Content like this breaks the illusion that everyone else is navigating the market seamlessly. When job seekers are isolated, they assume their lack of traction is a personal failing rather than a reflection of a notoriously broken, automated, and opaque hiring system.
Reading a list like this provides a brief moment of "Oh, it's not just me—this is a normal human response to an abnormal amount of rejection and silence." That validation alone can lower someone's cortisol levels enough for them to take a deep breath and keep going.
i think people seriously underestimate blue and gray collar jobs
every time i see someone saying they can't find a job, the replies are almost always the same. keep applying, improve your resume, learn another skill. all valid advice tbh, but i hardly see anyone talking about how many companies are hiring for retail, hospitality, logistics, warehouses, customer support and similar roles every single week. if you've been applying to the same type of jobs for months with no luck, maybe it's worth looking beyond office roles for a bit. your first job doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to get you some experience and a paycheck. i genuinely feel a lot more people would be working if they gave these roles a chance instead of waiting for that one ideal opening.
Jobadvisor
You are pointing out a reality that career coaches and labor economists see every day, yet it remains strangely taboo in mainstream career advice.
While thousands of applicants compete for the same remote or entry-level corporate openings, industries across logistics, customer operations, retail management, and skilled services regularly struggle with understaffing. Taking a gray-collar or frontline role isn't a retreat; it's often a smart, pragmatic strategy that resets momentum.
Why People Hesitate (and Why the Logic Holds Up)
The reluctance to pivot often comes from a few common misconceptions:
The "Resume Trap" Myth: Many job seekers fear that taking a job outside their degree or desired field will ruin their resume. In reality, modern employers are far more concerned about unexplained, multi-year employment gaps than seeing steady work in a fast-paced environment.
Overlooking Skill Portability: Frontline and gray-collar roles build high-value operational experience—managing inventory, handling difficult client escalations, navigating supply chains, and managing cross-functional teams.
Underestimating Pay Growth: Wages in logistics, skilled trades, and operational leadership have outpaced entry-level office salaries in several recent quarters, making them financially competitive.
The Practical Benefits of Expanding Your Search
| Factor | Staying in a Single White-Collar Lane | Taking a Frontline / Gray-Collar Pivot |
| Cash Flow | Drain on savings / high anxiety | Immediate, steady income |
| Psychological State | Isolation and burnout from rejections | Routine, structure, and daily human interaction |
| Networking | Cold outreach via LinkedIn | Organic, on-the-ground connections with managers and suppliers |
| Career Narrative | "I've been job hunting for 10 months." | "I stepped into an operations role to build hands-on experience while planning my next move." |
How to Frame a Pivot to Future Employers
If you decide to take a frontline or operational role while keeping an eye on long-term career goals, frame it around initiative and operational agility:
"Instead of sitting idle while the market recalibrated, I jumped into a high-volume logistics/customer operations role. It allowed me to sharpen my crisis management skills and understand the business from the ground up."
Getting a paycheck, regaining daily routine, and keeping your professional momentum moving forward beats waiting on an ideal opening every time.
27F, family scapegoat with no job history or friends. How do I stop longing for things that won’t happen?
I’m 27F and I don’t have any friends. I’ve never had a job . I got my bachelor’s degree and couldn’t find work for three years afterward, so I decided to go back for a master’s. I finished in December 2025, and I’ve been unemployed since then.
I recently landed a data entry internship at a research institute. It pays $18/hr, but it’s only 8 weeks. I don’t know what to do with my life after that.
I’ve always been the scapegoat in my family. My mom, dad, and siblings have repeatedly called me stupid over the years. Depending on them financially has taken a toll on my mental health, and living with them makes it worse. I’m a family-oriented person by nature and I still value my family, even though they don’t respect or value me back. I grew up being put down constantly, and I’ve dealt with depression and fatigue because of it. Over time I became socially isolated. I only leave the house about once a month now. I’m socially inept at this point and don’t know how to communicate well anymore.
My younger brothers, 21 and 25, have both had multiple jobs and are planning to go to medical school. One of them already took his MCAT. They look down on me too. I’m not close to anyone in my life. My whole family excludes me and talks about me behind my back. My whole family is embarrassed of me and won’t even mention my name to other people. I can’t even drive anymore. I stopped going out enough and lost the skill.
I feel like a failure. I feel like I wasted years of my life. I have no happy memories from my 20s. I haven’t made any long-lasting friendships, haven’t traveled, haven’t gone to parties, haven’t done any of it. All I ever wanted was to be favored, loved, and respected. How do I stop longing for relationships that don’t want to exist, when no one wants to try to have one with me? I also feel like I failed as an older sibling. I always wanted to be the one that had her life together that they came to for advice, the one they wanted to be around. Instead it turned out the opposite way. Part of me wants to go to med school just to prove them wrong.
But if I went to med school, I’d be in my mid-30s by the time I graduate. Part of me wants to be married by then and maybe have kids, but I’ve never even had a boyfriend or a man that wanted me romantically . Please help through all is I’m lost.
Jobadvisor
First, take a deep breath.
I want to acknowledge something crucial right away: You are not a failure. You are surviving an environment that was built to make you feel small. Being the family scapegoat is a deeply painful, isolating experience, and the exhaustion, depression, and social withdrawal you are feeling are completely logical human responses to years of psychological erosion—not proof that you are broken.
You are 27. You hold a Bachelor’s degree AND a Master’s degree. You just landed a competitive data entry internship at a research institute. Despite being systematically undermined by the people who were supposed to uplift you, you keep showing up for yourself. That is not failure; that is incredible resilience.
Here is how you begin to shift your mindset, stop longing for an imaginary past, and start building a real future.
1. Mourn the Family You Deserved (To Stop Longing for Them)
The reason you are stuck in deep grief and longing is that you are still hoping that if you achieve enough, stay patient enough, or try hard enough, your family will finally love, favor, and respect you.
The painful truth: They will likely never give you the validation you crave—not because you don't deserve it, but because their dynamic relies on keeping you in the scapegoat role.
Stop trying to earn their respect. If you go to medical school just to prove them wrong, you are letting their toxicity dictate another 8 to 10 years of your life. Live for you, not to win a game they rigged against you.
Accept who they are, not who you wish they were. Acknowledge that they are incapable of being the supportive family you naturally desire. Once you stop expecting water from a dry well, the disappointment stops stinging so sharply.
2. Reframe Your "Wasted" 20s
You feel like you missed out on parties, travel, and early relationships. But your life is not a movie with a strict script, and 27 is still remarkably early in the grand scheme of your adulthood.
Your 20s weren't wasted; they were spent in survival mode. It is impossible to thrive, party, or make lasting friendships when your daily emotional battery is drained by toxic family dynamics and clinical depression.
The timeline is a myth. Plenty of people meet their life partners, build thriving careers, make lifelong best friends, and travel the world in their late 20s, 30s, and 40s. Your life isn't over—it hasn't actually started on your terms yet.
3. Leverage the Next 8 Weeks (Your Bridge Out)
Your $18/hr internship is not just a temporary job; it is your lifeline to independence and identity outside your family.
Workplace as a Social Sandbox: You say you are "socially inept," but social skills are like riding a bike—it’s muscle memory, and you’ve just been out of practice. Use this internship to practice basic, low-stakes human connection. A polite "Good morning," asking a coworker how their weekend was, or smiling in the hallway.
Build a Resume Anchor: You now have real-world experience at a research institute to pair with your Master's degree. Focus on doing clean, reliable work. Ask your manager for a strong reference toward the end.
Save Every Cent: Put as much of that $18/hour away as you possibly can. Financial independence is the ultimate key to escaping the house and breaking free from their control.
4. Reclaim Small Bits of Autonomy
When you feel completely lost, taking tiny, controllable actions rebuilds your confidence:
[ Financial Independence ] ──> Save internship pay / Search for next entry-level role
[ Physical Autonomy ] ──> Re-learn to drive (practice in empty lots/quiet streets)
[ Social Reconnection ] ──> Low-pressure environments (libraries, walking in parks)
Get back behind the wheel: You haven't lost the ability to drive; you've just lost your confidence. Ask to drive around a quiet neighborhood or empty parking lot on weekends. Regaining your driver's license/confidence is literal freedom.
Leave the house twice a week: Going out once a month reinforces isolation. Go sit in a local library for two hours, take a short walk, or get a coffee. Just being around human beings without the pressure to perform will help desensitize your anxiety.
A Reminder for Your Heart
You wanted to be the older sister they looked up to. It hurts deeply that it didn't turn out that way. But you cannot be a lighthouse for people who prefer the dark.
You do not need to go to medical school to prove your worth. You do not need a partner tomorrow to prove you are lovable. Right now, your only job is to be gentle with yourself, finish this 8-week internship, save your money, and take the first quiet steps toward a life that belongs entirely to you.
Has anyone ever felt like it’s too late to make something of yourself?
33M and I’m struggling to imagine a better future for myself. I used to dream big and I still do, but then I find myself staring down the barrel of mediocrity and loneliness. I don’t really have any in-person friends nearby that I can really count on, only a few friends online or otherwise long-distance that bother to check in with me one-on-one, a handful of acquaintances in local social circles that I really don’t think would notice if I ever turned up again. Not really dating anyone either. I do have good relationships with my immediate family but I dread thinking of the day when my parents won’t be around anymore.
Meanwhile, my career is stalling. I’m not using any of the degrees that I acquired and I just got denied a promotion at my current job that I’d spent a year working towards. So it’s not as if I’m just not trying at my current role. I don’t like what I do but I’ve found ways to make it bearable and to succeed. But I’m questioning if this is really going to be it for me. Am I really going to just be spinning my wheels for another 30 years in careers that don’t fulfill me, while so many of my peers have lives that I wish that I could have.
I’m 33 and I fear that I have reached my upper limit. I’m afraid that I’m going to die one day alone, unaccomplished, and with no one to remember me. I want to prevent this from happening and I have taken some steps to level up (like losing 70lbs). I do have anxiety, depression, and ADHD and I am trying to treat those.
But I feel like I’m too comfortable in my wasted potential. Persistent disappointment and unhappiness are familiar and I don’t believe that I’ve felt different for almost 9 years now. So I can’t imagine a future where I feel different. And I’m worried that if I try to disrupt what I have, I’ll lose the few good things I have. For example, I’ve thought about moving across the country, as I’ve always wanted, but I worry about leaving family behind. My parents and stepdad are approaching retirement age and I want to be a more present son, but if I move far, I will only get to see them a few times a year. I worry about leaving behind a support system while only to find myself alone and unhappy, again, in a city full of strangers.
I just don’t know what to do guys. I feel stuck.
Jobadvisor
You are experiencing something deeply human, especially at 33. The early 30s are often the exact moment where the optimistic runway of your 20s meets the sobering realization of where you actually are. That gap between where you thought you’d be and where you are is where the grief, anxiety, and feeling of "wasted potential" live.
First, let’s get one massive fact out of the way: Losing 70 pounds while managing ADHD, anxiety, and depression is an extraordinary feat of discipline. That is not the behavior of someone who has reached their "upper limit." That is proof that when you decide to change something within your control, you have the capability to execute it.
Here is how to break out of the grip of comfortable misery and start moving forward.
1. Recognize the "Comfortable Misery" Trap
You hit the nail on the head: Persistent disappointment is familiar.
When you’ve lived with depression and chronic disappointment for almost a decade, pain becomes a comfort zone. Happiness or big change feels dangerous because it brings risk—the risk of trying and failing, or losing what little safety you have. Your brain is choosing the predictable pain of staying still over the unpredictable discomfort of growth.
The Reframe: You aren't "stuck" because you lack potential. You are stuck because your brain is using familiar unhappiness as a shield against the fear of failure.
2. Stop Waiting to "Feel" Different Before You Act
ADHD and depression make you wait for inspiration or emotional readiness before taking action. But emotion follows action, not the other way around.
You don't need to "believe" a better future is possible today.
You just need to take micro-actions that build a different reality, and let your brain catch up later.
You didn't lose 70lbs overnight because you felt motivated every single day; you did it through repeated, quiet choices. Apply that exact same mechanics to your life.
3. De-Risk the Big Moves (The "All-or-Nothing" Fallacy)
Notice how your mind jumps to extreme choices:
Either stay in a stalling job and feel unfulfilled... or move across the country, abandon your aging parents, and be miserable alone in a city of strangers.
Either get the promotion... or spin your wheels in mediocrity for the next 30 years.
This black-and-white thinking is classic anxiety. You don't have to blow up your life to disrupt it.
[ False Dichotomy ] ──> Move across country instantly OR Stay stuck forever
[ Micro-Disruption] ──> Test new hobbies locally -> Apply for remote/pivoted jobs -> Visit target cities
Test the waters: Before moving across the country, plan a two-week remote work stint or vacation in the city you’ve always wanted to live in. See how it actually feels rather than idealizing or catastrophizing it from afar.
Pivot your career sideways: Getting denied a promotion after a year of effort is a signal from the company, not a verdict on your worth. If they won't recognize your value, take the skills you honed while trying for that promotion and start interviewing at other companies. A job jump is often the fastest way to break a career plateau and get a raise.
4. Rebuild Social Capital Locally
Having a few acquaintances who wouldn't notice if you disappeared is a fixable problem, but it requires shifting from passive presence to active consistency.
The Proximity + Frequency Rule: Adult friendships are built through repeated, unscheduled interactions over time. Join local groups tied to active or structured interests (run clubs, board game leagues, bouldering gyms, volunteering, maker spaces) and show up at the exact same time every week for 3 months.
Initiate the micro-step: Upgrade an acquaintance to a friend by taking one low-stakes risk: "Hey, I'm grabbing coffee/a beer after this, want to join?"
5. You Are Not Late; You Are Resetting
33 feels old when you're looking backward at what you didn't do. It feels incredibly young when you realize you have more than half your life left to live.
Some of the most interesting, fulfilled people didn't find their stride, their partner, or their true career until their mid-30s or 40s. You haven't wasted your potential; you've just been spending immense energy surviving depression and getting physically healthier. Now that you've proven you can transform your physical health, it's time to direct that exact same focus toward your environment and your career.
You don't need to figure out the next 30 years today. You just need to make one small, uncomfortable choice this week that proves to yourself you aren't settling for comfortable misery.