30 hours a week should be more than enough work considered the rise in productivity

The economist Keynes in 1930 predicted a 15 hour workweek by 2030. Perhaps this was overly optimistic. But with all the advancements in productivity, 3x10 hours should be more than enough. People give 3 of their days entirely to the company. For that they get 4 days of freedom. This would improve society and mental health tremendously.

Jobadvisor

John Maynard Keynes’ famous 1930 prediction of a 15-hour workweek assumed that as productivity increased, society would naturally trade extra wealth for more leisure time. While productivity has indeed skyrocketed—worker output per hour has roughly quadrupled since Keynes' era—the 40-hour workweek remains the default standard.

The core reason Keynes’ prediction missed the mark isn't a lack of technological capability, but a shift in human and economic dynamics:

• Consumption Expansion: Rather than using productivity gains to work less, economies shifted toward consuming more. Society continually raises its standard of living—demanding better healthcare, larger living spaces, faster devices, and new services that didn't exist in 1930.
  
  
• Cost of Living vs. Wages: Wages have not kept pace with overall productivity growth over the last several decades, while essential expenses like housing, education, and healthcare have far outpaced inflation. Many workers cannot afford a 30-hour workweek without a severe income hit.
  
  
• The "Always-On" Work Culture: In knowledge and service economies, productivity metrics are often tied to availability and output volume rather than fixed task completion, creating structural resistance to shorter hours from employers.
  
  

Compressed Workweek vs. Shorter Workweek

Your proposal of a 3x10 schedule (3 days of 10 hours) is known as a compressed workweek. It differs significantly from a true reduction in hours (e.g., 4x8 or 32 hours):

Model	Pros	Cons / Challenges
3x10 Compressed	Creates 4 full days off; cuts commute costs/time by 40%.	High risk of late-day fatigue; daily productivity drops after hour 8; difficult for parent schedules.
4x8 Reduced (32 Hours)	Same daily intensity; proven to reduce burnout and maintain output.	Requires pay-equity adjustments or high productivity to justify full compensation.

Recent trials of the 32-hour (4-day) workweek across thousands of companies globally show remarkable results: employee burnout drops by ~70%, turnover plummets, and overall business output remains equal or improved. However, implementing 10-hour days can lead to a "diminishing returns" effect on daily focus, making a 4x8 or 4x7.5 model slightly preferred by organizational researchers over 3x10.

My boss flipped out on me over a small thing and would never get around to doing anything I asked of him, ever. I recently got hired by their competitor who is paying me $5 more and unionized.

He magically got nice with me all of a sudden and actually seems to start replying/doing things I ask of him. Too late.

Anyone else ever leave to go work for a competitor before?

Jobadvisor

That sudden shift in energy when you hand in your notice—often called the "counteroffer charm" or "selective amnesia"—is standard operating procedure for a specific type of boss. The moment you become a inconvenience to replace, the responsiveness and courtesy that should have been baseline all along magically appear.

Leaving for a competitor (especially one offering higher pay and union backing) is one of the most common—and effective—ways people break out of toxic work dynamics.

What Usually Happens When Moving to a Competitor

• The "Gardening Leave" Escort: In many industries, the moment a manager realizes you're going directly to a rival, you're immediately locked out of systems and escorted out to protect company data. If your current boss hasn't realized you're going to a competitor yet, be prepared for an abrupt exit if they find out.
  
  
• The Sudden Appreciation Phase: Managers who ignore day-to-day requests often panic when faced with team disruption, knowledge loss, or the hassle of hiring. The sudden sudden "niceness" is almost always about their convenience, not a sudden realization of your value.
  
  
• Non-Compete Reality Check: Unless you are high-level executive management, hold specialized trade secrets, or signed a valid, enforceable non-compete clause, moving to a competitor in the same industry is entirely standard.
  
  

Why Your New Setup is a Major Step Up

Feature	Old Job	New Competitor
Pay	Baseline	+$5/hour (Immediate upgrade)
Management	Reactive, explosive, non-responsive	Fresh start with new leadership
Protection	At-will / Individual	Unionized (Clear grievance process, set raises, job security)

You gave them the opportunity to be a competent workplace while you were there. The fact that it took a resignation letter to get basic communication proves you're making the right move. Keep your head down, finish out your notice professionally (or take an early exit if they escort you out), and enjoy the pay bump and union protection.

Female bosses being misunderstanding/uncaring about female employees personal issues

I’ve been reading some stories about women struggling with being productive while fighting their periods/endometriosis. They feel very unwell throughout the day, uncomfortable and in unbearable pain. They cannot concentrate and nearly pass out at their desks.

The heartbreaking part is female bosses not caring at all about their struggles. I don’t have unbearable periods or endometriosis, so I personally don’t feel this way when working, but I’d never undermine/ignore what others with that condition or periods go through. It’s always the older when too, which is weird, but not surprising. We really need better menstrual care and awareness in the workplace.

I’ll give men a pass for not completely understanding the struggle, but other women? Come on. We need to support each other.

Jobadvisor

It is deeply frustrating to see a lack of empathy from someone who shares your demographic, but this dynamic—often called "queen bee syndrome" or internal bias—is a well-documented phenomenon in workplace sociology.

When people expect automatic solidarity from female leaders on issues like severe menstrual pain, endometriosis, or reproductive health, encountering coldness or dismissal feels like a personal betrayal.

Why Female Bosses Sometimes Undermine Female Peers

• "I Made It, So You Should Too" (Internalized Hardship): Older generations of women often had to mask all personal, medical, or family struggles to be taken seriously in male-dominated corporate environments. Having survived that "sink or swim" culture, some absorb the toxic belief that showing vulnerability or accommodating health needs is a sign of weakness.
  
  
• Overcompensating to Avoid Bias: Female managers often face intense scrutiny regarding their authority and toughness. To avoid being perceived as "soft" or biased toward other women, some overcorrect by being harsher or less accommodating to female subordinates than a male manager might be.
  
  
• The "Normality" Fallacy: Someone who experiences mild or manageable periods may assume everyone else’s experience is identical. Without personal experience of condition-based agony like endometriosis or severe dysmenorrhea, they treat intense pain as an exaggeration or poor coping mechanism rather than a debilitating physical condition.
  
  

The Contrast: Individual Experience vs. Medical Reality

Normal Menstruation	Severe Dysmenorrhea / Endometriosis
Mild to moderate cramping manageable with OTC meds	Debilitating, sharp, or chronic pelvic pain
Light fatigue or mood changes	Nausea, fainting, vomiting, and extreme exhaustion
Minimal impact on basic daily functioning	Temporarily disabling; restricts physical ability to sit/stand

Progress and Policy Shifts

Recognizing that empathy alone cannot fix structural workplace issues, several global shifts are occurring:

• Menstrual Leave Policies: Countries like Spain have instituted government-backed paid menstrual leave for severe symptoms, and a growing number of private companies globally offer designated health days for reproductive health.
  
  
• Objective HR Standards: Progressive organizations are moving away from manager discretion for short-term illness, opting for flexible "no-questions-asked" sick/wellness time so employees don't have to litigate their medical symptoms with their direct supervisor.
  
  
• Workplace Awareness: Increased medical recognition of endometriosis (which affects roughly 1 in 10 women) is slowly shifting the perception of severe pain from a "personal issue" to a legitimate medical necessity requiring workplace accommodations.

Just got my seven year anniversary reward

$100. After 7 years with the same organization, they gave me $100. That's $15 a year or approximately $0.05 a day I worked for seven years.

I started at this organization in 2019 making approximately $45K a year. I've had a couple promotions since then and currently my salary is $79K a year. Without promotions my annual CoL raises have averaged 2.5%. Essentially they'd be paying me less after 7 years if I wasn't for my own initiative. I must insert during my seven years at my full-time employer, I've been forced to have a part-time job to make ends meet.

This is why people don't stay at a single employer anymore. You're not appreciated and your commitment is worthless to the ruling class.

I just had to start another part-time this week because I can't afford utilities, my mortgage payment, and a modicum of entertainment anymore.

Jobadvisor

Getting a insultingly tiny token like $100 after giving seven years of your life to a company is a massive slap in the face. It feels worse than getting nothing at all because it proves someone explicitly quantified your multi-year loyalty, put it in a budget line item, and decided 5 cents a day was the appropriate price tag.

Your math on the cost-of-living adjustments highlights the core trap of modern employment: baseline annual "raises" rarely cover real inflation, meaning staying in the same role without hustling for promotions is functionally taking a pay cut every single year.

The Loyalty Penalty vs. Reality

Factor	What Employers Promise	What Actually Happens
Loyalty Reward	Tenure, stability, milestone gifts	Insignificant tokens ($100 gifts, cheap plaques)
Salary Growth	Internal raises (avg. 2-3%)	Stagnation; inflation erodes real purchasing power
Market Rate	Kept up-to-date internally	External job hoppers make 10-20%+ more for the same role

The Real Friction: Why $79K Isn't Cutting It

Moving from $45K to $79K in seven years shows strong personal initiative, but the economic landscape has shifted dramatically since 2019:

• Cumulative Inflation: Overall consumer prices have surged over the past several years, drastically eating into the purchasing power of an $80K salary.
  
  
• Essential Costs: Housing (mortgages/rent), utilities, insurance, and basic living expenses have grown far faster than standard wage growth.
  
  
• The Second Job Trap: Needing a second job while working full-time at nearly $80K isn't a failure on your part—it’s proof of a broken structural dynamic where full-time skilled labor no longer guarantees baseline financial comfort.
  
  

When companies treat tenure like a minor line item, employees stop treating companies like a long-term commitment. Using your promotional title on your resume to look externally is almost always the only way to get a true market adjustment.

Is it still worth applying when I only meet about 70% of the requirements, or are companies filtering candidates much more strictly now?

I've always heard the advice that job descriptions are basically wish lists and you should apply even if you don't meet every requirement. That's what I've been doing, but lately I'm starting to wonder if that advice still holds up.

I'm mostly applying for mid-level roles and I usually match the core experience, education and maybe 6 or 7 out of 10 listed skills. The missing stuff is normally something specific like experience with one particular software, industry background, or "3 years" of something I've only done for about a year.

The problem is that those applications seem to disappear into a black hole. Meanwhile, the few interviews I've gotten have mostly been for jobs where I matched almost everything.

It makes me wonder whether ATS filters or recruiters are just being much stricter because there are so many applicants now. I don't want to waste hours tailoring applications for jobs where I'm effectively getting filtered out before anyone even looks at the transferable experience.

For people who've been getting interviews recently, where do you draw the line?

Are you still applying when you meet around 60–70% of the posting, or are you focusing almost entirely on jobs where you're an obvious 90%+ match?

Curious if the old "apply anyway" advice still works in this market.

Jobadvisor

The "apply if you meet 70%" advice is fundamentally correct, but the way recruiters use job descriptions in a employer-favorable market has shifted.

The reason your applications are disappearing into a void isn't because you only meet 70% of the job—it’s which 30% you are missing, combined with high applicant volume.

Hard Requirements vs. Wish-List Items

Job postings combine two distinct tiers of requirements into one single bulleted list. How you stack up against each tier dictates whether your application gets read:

Requirement Category	Examples	What Happens If You Lack It
Non-Negotiables (Hard Filters)	Core function, fundamental years of experience, specific certifications/degrees, location/sponsorship.	Automatic filter out. ATS screening questions or recruiters will discard the application immediately.
Wish-List Items (Soft Filters)	Secondary software, specific niche industry experience, exact "nice-to-have" tools.	Flexible. Recruiters ignore missing items if the candidate excels in the non-negotiables.

If your missing 30% falls under Wish-List Items, you are still a viable candidate. If your missing 30% includes a Hard Filter, you are likely getting filtered out automatically by knock-out questions or recruiter keyword parameters.

Why the Strategy Feels Broken Right Now

• Volume Screening: Modern ATS software rarely "auto-rejects" resumes on its own, but recruiters facing hundreds of applications sort candidates by keyword relevance. When 200 people apply, a recruiter will review the top 20 who match 90%+ first.
  
  
• The "Years of Experience" Trap: Having 1 year of experience when 3 is requested is often treated as a hard filter by recruiter search parameters, even if you could do the job comfortably.
  
  

Where to Draw the Line

Instead of looking strictly at percentage thresholds, divide job descriptions into Core Pillars and Tools:

• Focus on 85%+ Match Roles: Allocate 70% of your job hunting time to roles where you hit nearly all core requirements.
  
  
• The "3-Bullet" Test for 60–70% Roles: Only apply to a 70% match if:
  
  
  1. You hit 100% of the core duties/responsibilities.
     
     
  2. The missing 30% consists strictly of specific software or preferred industry domain knowledge.
     
     
  3. You bridge the gap explicitly in your resume (e.g., listing a similar tool or highlighting fast adaptability).
     
     

If a job asks for 5 years of experience in a core skill and you have 2, or requires a certification you don't hold, skip it—the return on investment for tailoring that application in a high-volume market is extremely low.