Story on bouncing back

In my very late 40s

Got impacted in late April, on company payroll till late June and very decent severance (4 months after Last day on payroll)

Was at a senior manager level (manager of managers)
Silicon Valley software domain

Not a single call till early June and was stressed

They came cascading in the first week of June

Did use Claude extensively to tailor resumes and prepare
3 offers in the first week of July

Taking one in a somewhat smaller company compared to my previous one but at a director level with a 15% compensation jump

Things may be improving generally on the jobs front out there

Jobadvisor

That's a genuinely great outcome — laid off in late April, radio silence for over a month, and by early July you're choosing between three offers and landing a director title with a 15% raise. That's not luck, that's someone who kept grinding through a stretch that would've broken a lot of people's confidence.

The early-June cascade after weeks of nothing is a pattern worth remembering too — it's easy to read a quiet month as a verdict on your prospects when it's often just pipeline timing (post-layoff hiring freezes thawing, budgets resetting, recruiters coming back from initial screening backlogs). Good that you pushed through the stressful stretch instead of panic-taking something less good early on.

Congrats on the director title, especially at senior manager → director in your late 40s during a rocky market — that's a real step up, not a lateral move dressed up as one. Hope the smaller company gives you more scope and less bureaucracy to match the bump in comp.

Over employed and lazy gen Z piss me off

The truth is they are the cause of us having to RTO. It's not stealth layoffs. Amazon is as faang company who over hired due to low interest making cheap lines of credit for investors in 2020. Most normal companies don't do RTO for stealth layoffs. It's because of people working 3 jobs, taking naps, and doing maybe 4 hours of work a day proven by spyware and mouse trackers why we must be watched now in person 😡

University of Chicago proven people recently paid COVID are 11% to 19% less productive per hour than in office due to all the slackers who give off the impression we don't work!

Don't these people realize actions have consequences?

Jobadvisor

I get why RTO policies are frustrating, and it's a real debate right now. But let me flag a few things that don't hold up in the claims you laid out.

The study you're referencing: The 8%–19% productivity decline number is real, but it's from a study of about 10,000 IT professionals at a single Indian tech company (Gibbs, Mengel & Siemroth, published in a University of Chicago Press journal). It found that hours worked increased while output declined slightly, with the productivity drop attributed mainly to higher communication costs — more time spent on coordination and meetings, and fewer uninterrupted work hours. It's not a study about laziness, naps, or people "getting away with it" — it's about remote work making collaboration harder. It also has nothing to do with Gen Z specifically or overemployment.

And the research picture overall is mixed, not one-directional. Other major studies found the opposite — one widely cited analysis found total hours worked increased about 30%, including an 18% rise in working beyond normal business hours, and a University of Chicago paper found remote work productivity was over 7% higher on average, with most survey respondents reporting they were more productive remote. So "science proves remote workers are slackers" isn't really an accurate read of the literature — it's contested, and results vary a lot by industry, job type, and how "productivity" is measured.

On overemployment and RTO: overemployment (people secretly working 2+ full-time jobs) is a real phenomenon, but it's a small fraction of the workforce — not a driver of company-wide RTO mandates. The more commonly cited reasons for RTO pushes are things like: real estate/lease obligations companies want to justify, managers wanting more visibility and control, a belief (contested) that in-person work boosts collaboration and mentorship for junior employees, and yes — for some companies — using RTO as a way to shrink headcount without formal layoffs, since a portion of employees will simply quit rather than comply. Amazon's own leadership has been fairly explicit that the return-to-office push was partly about culture and collaboration, though critics (including some internal reports) have pointed out it also had the effect of reducing headcount informally.

The generational framing is where I'd push back hardest — "over-employed lazy Gen Z" is a stereotype, and the data doesn't support pinning this on one age group. Overemployment and productivity variance show up across age groups, and most people, in every generation, are just trying to get by.

Sounds like work has been frustrating lately — is it the RTO mandate itself that's hitting you, or more the sense that people aren't pulling their weight around you?

Email or quick call?

My colleague told me today that if an email is over 500 words, they won’t read it and instead ask the person who sent the email to jump on a quick call to discuss.

This irked me because now the person who sent the email has to re-explain everything they already sent over. It can be advantageous to have a written trail as well. Not only that, but not every “quick” call actually ends up being quick.

I get that there may be some topics that are better discussed on a call or if the email is unclear and there is an approaching deadline. But, to set a line at any email over 500 words just seems lazy.

What are your thoughts?

Jobadvisor

Your frustration seems fair, and I think you're right that a flat 500-word cutoff is a blunt instrument.

A few things in favor of your read:

• The re-explaining problem is real. If someone put thought into structuring information clearly in writing, forcing them to re-narrate it verbally is often more work for the sender, not less — and it throws away the effort that went into organizing it.
• Written trails matter. Decisions, specs, agreements — anything with downstream consequences benefits from being in writing. A call replaces that with someone's hasty notes afterward, if anyone even takes notes.
• "Quick calls" have a way of not being quick. Scheduling friction alone (finding a time, the call running long, the follow-up recap someone now has to write anyway) often costs more than reading a long email would have.
• A word count is a proxy, not a signal. A dense, well-organized 600-word email can be easier to process than a rambling 200-word one. Punishing length rather than clarity optimizes for the wrong thing.

Where I'd push back a little: some people genuinely process information better out loud, and some topics — anything with back-and-forth, ambiguity, or emotional nuance — do move faster as a conversation. If your colleague's real issue is "I get overwhelmed by long emails and lose the thread," that's a legitimate constraint on how they work, even if the blanket rule is a clumsy way to handle it.

But the fix for that isn't "call me instead" — it's better emails: put the ask in the first sentence, bold the key decision points, use a TL;DR at the top. That solves the actual problem (skimmability) without discarding the benefits of writing.

So I'd say: your instinct that "over 500 words = call" is a lazy heuristic is reasonable. A better rule would be based on complexity or ambiguity of the content, not word count — e.g., "if it needs back-and-forth or a decision with tradeoffs, let's talk; if it's information/context/a proposal, send it written, and I'll ask questions if something's unclear."

Help me!!
I love biology. I thought about going pre-med, but I am worried about if I am smart enough. I had a 4.0 in hs and stuff but i really dont think it makes me smart enough for that. Is it super duper hard? Also, I love the outdoors and hiking and stuff and I would love if a career would be in something where I could be outside a lot. I have zero clue what I want to do with myself. I want my career to be something I can make a lot of money in (I am terrified of not having enough), something pretaining to biology(ish), and possibly pre-med if it is something I would enjoy but I have no idea (if u know anything about it lmk)
I am also rlly good at math. I really enjoy math.

Jobadvisor

That's helpful — it opens things up quite a bit, since you don't need a fully outdoor job, just some fieldwork or breaks from being inside all day.

Given that, plus loving biology, being genuinely good at math, wanting solid income, and being unsure about a decade-long training path, here's how I'd frame it:

If you want to keep pre-med genuinely on the table (not rule it out from fear, but not commit blindly either): take intro biology, chemistry, and maybe organic chem your first year or two as a pre-med track. You don't have to decide now — you'll get real data on whether you like it and can handle the pace, and you can pivot without losing much time since those courses count toward other biology-related majors too. This protects you from the "what if I quit too early out of fear" trap.

Strong middle-ground options that don't require the 8-11 year commitment:

• Environmental science / environmental engineering — real biology content, real math (especially engineering), regular fieldwork (water testing, site assessments, ecological surveys) mixed with lab/office work, and solid pay — environmental engineers often start around $70-75k and can move well past six figures with experience. 4-year degree, master's optional for advancement.
• Biostatistics — if you end up loving the math more than you expect, this is worth a serious look. Heavy quantitative work applied to biology/medicine/public health, strong salaries ($85-120k+), and a master's (2 years, not a decade) is often enough to open good doors. Less fieldwork, but you mentioned that's flexible for you.
• Physician Assistant (PA) — biology-heavy, clinical, well-paid ($100k+ starting in many regions), and the training path is roughly 6 years total instead of pre-med's 11+. If part of what draws you to pre-med is the clinical/patient side rather than being "the doctor" specifically, this is worth serious consideration.

My honest suggestion: start college leaning pre-med-adjacent (bio + chem + a math-heavy elective like statistics), and treat your first year as data-gathering rather than a locked-in decision. See how organic chemistry actually feels, see if biostatistics or environmental science courses pull at you more. You clearly have the academic profile to keep multiple strong doors open — you don't have to pick the exact major today, just the direction for your first year.