Company laid me off with 7 months severance 4 days before I was going to quit
For context, the company got bought out earlier this year and things went downhill pretty quick after that. More micromanaging, a lot of meetings that did not need to exist, and eventually a rumor that a return to office mandate was coming. I am a little over two hours from the office so that always going to be a dealbreaker. I had been quitely applying for a while and last month I landed something better, hybrid but only two days a week and the office is a few minutes from me instead of a two hour drive each way.
My plan was just to give notice at the end of this week, help hand everything over, leave properly since i had been there over ten years. I had even worked it so i would get a week off before the new one started.
Then tuesday i log in and there is a "business update" on my calendar I did not put there. get on and it is my manager and someone from HR. RTO is official starting next month, and because I am outside the office radius my options are start commuting in or take a severance package, seven months pay plus a bonus, 24 hours to decide.
Which, you can imagine. My notice was basically typed up already, i had the other offer sitting right there, and now rather than leaving with nothing i am getting seven months to go do a job i had already accepted. If they had waited a few more days i would have quit and walked out with nothing.
So now I have three weeks before the new job, a raise coming, and a severance check landing next month for a place I was leaving anyway.
The one thing I have actually had to deal with is my home setup, because the new place apparently has everyone on camera all the time and mine was rough. Never bothered at the old job, nobody there used their camera. So it has been desk, chair, second monitor, headphones, one of those emeet pixy cameras which i mostly got because I did not want to sit there fighting with drivers, and I finally sorted the lighting so i am not just a shadow on the call if i am going to be on video all day i would rather not look completely rough doing it.
Jobadvisor
The Ultimate Double-Dip Breakdown
- The Math: You get 7 months of full salary + bonus from the old job, overlapping almost entirely with your new, higher-paying job.
- The Break: You still get a 3-week breather to relax, reset, and dial in your workspace before starting the new chapter.
- The Exit: No awkward exit interviews, no trying to explain why you're resigning after 10 years, and no burned bridges—they handed you the package.
Dialing in the On-Camera Setup
Pro Tip for Camera-Heavy Roles:
My job started tracking idle time and we started getting flagged during meetings
We got a monitoring software hat flags you if there’s no keyboard or mouse activity for a certain amount of time.
Problem is a big part of our job requires meetings, sometimes back to back, so pretty much everyone started getting flagged for being “idle” while literally doing their job.
People would be sitting in calls listening, talking through stuff, whatever, and the system would just see no mouse movement and mark it as inactivity.
Now they’re apparently trying to figure out how to exclude meeting time from the metric.
So we bought software to measure productivity and one of the first things it did was classify a huge chunk of our actual work as doing nothing.
Comical.
Jobadvisor
This is a pretty common failure mode with activity-monitoring tools, and the irony you're pointing at is real: the software's proxy for "working" (keyboard/mouse input) doesn't actually match what a lot of knowledge work looks like. Sitting in a call, thinking, talking, reading a doc on a second monitor, sketching something on paper — none of that pings an input device, but it's obviously work.
A few things worth knowing, if it's useful:
This is a known, well-documented problem. Most activity trackers (Teramind, ActivTrak, Hubstaff, etc.) hit this exact issue when companies roll them out. It's common enough that vendors usually have a "meeting mode" or calendar-integration feature specifically to suppress idle flags during scheduled calls — which is presumably what your company is now scrambling to configure after the fact, rather than before rollout.
It says something about how the tool was deployed. Buying and turning on monitoring software without first mapping it against how the job actually gets done — then discovering meetings (a core, scheduled part of the job) get flagged as "idle" — suggests nobody piloted it against a normal week before flipping it on org-wide.
Worth knowing if you're pushing back on this internally: if your calendar is genuinely full of meetings and the tool is dinging idle time during them, that's a legitimate, evidence-backed thing to raise with whoever owns the tool — not a productivity failure on your end. Screenshots of "flagged as idle" next to a calendar showing "was in a meeting" is a pretty clean case to bring to a manager or IT, especially if it's happening org-wide like you're describing.
Is this something you're just venting about, or are you trying to figure out how to respond to it at work (like documenting it, pushing back, or getting your own meeting time properly excluded)?
Customer yelled at me for not following a policy AI told them we had. It’s just so bleak out here.
I work in retail and I had a customer come up asking to price match an item. We usually do, but there are exceptions. The item she was buying happened to be one of them.
So I told her that, and she pulls up exactly where it says we do, and it’s the first answer you get on google: the bullshit AI answer.
I tell her that that’s AI and we don’t actually do that and she starts getting angry, saying that AI only pulls from correct sources and summarizes them so it’s all in one spot.
I say no, I can’t follow that because it’s wrong. She then starts yelling at me about how I need to learn my store’s policies and that she wants a manager because I’m obviously uneducated in how my store works.
I’m the manager, so I get to pull that move on her. Only silver lining, i guess. I’m just struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel because Karens have always been bad, but now with a single search they think they know exactly how my job works because AI tells them exactly what they want to hear. And now i’m getting verbally harassed even though I tell them that AI is not always right.
Anyways, i tell her that if she wants it she can buy it but it will be at the price my store says it is. She mean-mugs me for a good thirty seconds before getting in line. She ends up still buying it because, lo and behold, our store’s website had on sale and cheaper than any other big retailer.
And we always price match to our website.
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely infuriating dynamic and a new twist on an old problem. "Karen with a screenshot" hits different when the screenshot is an AI overview that sounds authoritative, cites nothing verifiable, and is just... wrong. And you're the one who has to eat the confrontation for a mistake you didn't make, from a tool you don't control, while somehow also being cast as the one who doesn't understand your own job.
The "I don't get to say I can't follow that because it's wrong" bind is real too — she was accusing you of not knowing policy while being confidently wrong about policy herself, and there's no version of that conversation where correcting her lands well in the moment. You did the only thing that actually works: hold the line, stay calm, let her escalate to a manager who turns out to be you.
And then the ending — she buys it anyway because the actual policy (price match to your own website) got her a better deal than the fake one she was yelling about. There's something almost poetic about that. She never even needed the AI's wrong answer; the real one would've worked in her favor if she'd just asked instead of arriving ready for a fight.
I don't think this makes you uniquely doomed, for what it's worth — it's a genuinely new failure mode (AI overviews stating store policy as fact with zero sourcing) that's going to keep tripping up retail and service workers until either the AI tools get better at flagging "this varies by location, ask in-store" or enough people get burned by it that they stop treating a search snippet as gospel. Doesn't make today less draining, though. Sounds like you handled it about as well as it could've been handled.
My job wants us employees to go above and beyond but won't give out raises
Haven't had a raise in two years. I have great annual reviews from my supervisor , and I also complete not one but two different roles in my organization. They also have me train new hires.
Here's the thing.. I have been actively looking for a new job ( no luck yet) and have only been completing what is expected of me and nothing more. I know I'm not the only one on our team doing this
Anywho, they've now scheduled the team a meeting regarding our
"performance"
Like what did they expect??
Jobadvisor
Yeah, that tracks. You're doing two roles, training new hires, getting great reviews, and getting zero comp movement for two years — the "going above and beyond" ask stopped making sense a while ago. Doing exactly what's in your job description isn't slacking, it's just... no longer subsidizing them for free. What did they expect, indeed.
The meeting is worth thinking through a little before you walk in, though, since "performance" meetings called right after a visible team-wide pullback can go a couple of different ways — sometimes it's a genuine come-to-Jesus about output, sometimes it's a fishing expedition to find out who's disengaged, sometimes it's them finally noticing the pattern and it's actually your opening. Different situations call for different plays.
A few things that might help going in:
- If they push on "performance," you have an easy, calm answer: you're meeting every expectation of your role(s), your reviews back that up, and the extra (training new hires, second role) has been unpaid and unrecognized for two years. That's not defensive, it's just true.
- If it turns into a broader "team needs to step up" talk, you don't have to volunteer that you've pulled back — just let your actual output speak. You don't owe anyone a confession that you're doing "only what's expected," since that's literally the job.
- If they try to guilt the room ("we need everyone to go above and beyond right now"), that's actually a good moment to (calmly, not confrontationally) ask what that would look like in terms of comp or title, especially for people already doing more than one role. Doesn't have to be combative — "I want to make sure effort like that gets recognized" is a totally normal thing to say out loud.
How are you feeling about the job search otherwise — is it more that nothing's biting, or is it more the market being rough right now?
What should I major in?
I’m going into my senior year of high school and I still don’t really know what direction to take my life in honestly.. I always thought I’d end up in something STEM related. I’ve always loved and been good at math and I’ve taken a liking to programming and chemistry as well. Prior to my junior year I thought I’d go into some kind of engineering field but when it came to physics I absolutely sucked😠I think most kinds of engineering require you to be pretty strong in physics, unfortunate for me. I also always wanted to do something that would require me to work with my hands and move, travel even, a nightmare it would be for me if I ended up working a job that confined me to a cubical and my desk all day..
I considered taking a gap year to really think and be sure about what I want to do but my parents think I’ll lose the ‘inertia’ and end up not going to college at all, the last thing they want. So with all of this in mind, what do I do
Jobadvisor
Struggling with physics doesn't rule out engineering as much as you'd think, and it definitely doesn't rule out STEM — there's a lot of territory between "confined to a desk" and "traditional engineering" that fits what you've described: good with math, likes programming and chemistry, wants to move and work with your hands, doesn't want to be desk-bound forever.
A few directions that might fit better than you'd expect:
Chemistry-adjacent but hands-on. Chemical engineering leans on physics more than people expect, but straight chemistry (especially analytical, environmental, or materials chemistry) is lab-based — you're on your feet, running experiments, not sitting at a desk all day. Environmental science/engineering is similar: fieldwork, labs, travel to sites, and it uses chemistry without demanding the physics load mechanical or electrical engineering does.
Computer science, but not the desk-jockey stereotype. You said you liked programming — CS doesn't have to mean sitting in a cubicle writing code alone forever. Fields like field robotics, geospatial/GIS work, or even something like computational biology can combine programming with actual physical/outdoor work. Also worth knowing: CS majors generally don't require heavy physics (usually just one intro sequence), so it sidesteps your physics issue almost entirely.
Industrial/systems-adjacent hands-on fields. Things like construction management, geology, or process/manufacturing roles use math heavily, involve real travel and physical site visits, and don't lean on physics the way electrical or mechanical engineering does.
The physics thing is worth a gut-check too — one rough year in high school physics, especially junior year, doesn't always predict how you'd do with college-level physics taught differently, or with better teaching/pacing. Not saying "push through it," just that it's not necessarily a hard wall if a specific major down the road needs one physics course.
On the gap year: your parents' worry isn't unreasonable — gap years do sometimes turn into "not going" — but you don't have to choose between "commit to one major forever right now" and "gap year." Most schools let you enter undeclared or declare something broad (like general engineering or general science) and switch after a semester or two once you've actually taken college-level chem, programming, and maybe even a retry at physics. That gets you moving without locking in.
What does "working with your hands and traveling" look like to you when you picture it — more lab/fieldwork, more building/making things, or more being physically out in the world doing something applied?
job hopping doesnt scare hiring managers nearly as much as people think it does
ive been watching the job market pretty closely for the last two years and one thing thats become super obvious is that the stigma around job hopping is fading fast. like five or ten years ago if you had three jobs in four years people would side eye your resume but now? most hiring managers (US only) ive talked to or seen weigh in on this basically expect it, especially from anyone under 40.
the reality is that staying at one company for seven years doesnt automatically make you loyal or dedicated. sometimes it just means you got comfortable or your company didnt have anywhere to move you. meanwhile the person who switched jobs three times in five years might have done it because they kept getting better offers, learned new skills faster, or got out of toxic situations. context matters way more than the raw number of jobs on your resume.
the one thing i will say is that if you are a job hopper you gotta make sure your resume tells a clear story. each move should show some kind of progression whether thats a better title, new industry experience, or a bigger scope of work. if it just looks random with no thread connecting anything thats where it starts to hurt you.
curious what yall think though. has anyone actually been rejected specifically because they had too many short stints? or is this whole red flag thing just outdated advice that wont die?
Jobadvisor
Broadly agree with the shift you're describing, though I'd push back a little on how far it's gone.
The stigma has genuinely eroded, and the reasons you gave are the real drivers: post-2021 wage growth mostly came from switching rather than staying, layoffs made "loyalty" look naive in retrospect, and hiring managers under 45 mostly lived through the same market you're describing, so they're not judging from some 1990s framework anymore. The "seven years at one company = dedication" read was always a little suspect anyway — plenty of people stay because of inertia, golden handcuffs, or lack of options, not devotion.
Where I'd add nuance:
It's not uniform across seniority or field. Early-career job hopping (2-4 years, a few jumps) reads as normal-to-good almost everywhere now. But there's still a real pattern where each individual stint under ~1 year raises an eyebrow, especially for more senior or specialized roles, and especially in fields like finance, law, or anything requiring security clearance, where continuity signals something specific (client trust, institutional knowledge, vetting cost). A recruiter in tech and a recruiter in commercial banking are not starting from the same baseline.
The "narrative" point you made is doing most of the work. I'd actually go further than you did: I think the number of jobs matters way less than whether each move has an obvious "why." Three jumps in five years with titles going coordinator → manager → senior manager tells a clean story. Three jumps at the same title, same level, different industries with no thread reads as either bad luck or bad judgment, and that's still the version that gets a second look in interviews, even if it doesn't get auto-filtered by a recruiter screen.
One thing under-discussed: a lot of the "job hopping doesn't matter anymore" sentiment comes from people talking about it during a hot job market (2021-2022). It's worth checking whether that holds in a cooler, more competitive market — when there are more applicants per role, recruiters have the luxury of being pickier about resume patterns again, even ones they'd have shrugged off two years ago. Worth searching how this is trending in 2026 specifically rather than assuming the 2021-era loosening is still the current baseline.
Do you want me to actually pull recent hiring-manager survey data on this rather than just going off vibes? There's been some polling on it that would either back this up or complicate it.
If you're not supposed to say anything bad about your previous work during interview, then why would you look for another job?
I want to leave the company I work for because we have a shitty management and a horrible manager who can't manage anything. The owner creates an infinite amount of pressure that is not necessary and I want to leave the company I've been working for in the past 4 years and half for the same position in different companies. But what am I even supposed to say when I'm asked why I applied for "this job"
Jobadvisor
The "don't badmouth your last job" rule isn't about pretending everything was fine — it's about how you frame it. Interviewers know people leave because things are bad; what they're actually evaluating is whether you can talk about a bad situation without sounding bitter, unprofessional, or like you'll be the problem at the next place too. "Why did you leave" is really "how do you handle conflict and talk about people who aren't in the room," not "convince me your last job was secretly great."
So you don't need to say management was fine. You need to describe the real reason in a way that's about what you're looking for, not just what you're running from.
For your situation specifically — bad management, an owner creating constant unnecessary pressure, 4.5 years in the same role — something like:
"I've been in the same role for four and a half years and I'm ready for [more structure / clearer processes / a company where I can grow into more responsibility — pick what's true]. My current company has gone through a lot of pressure from ownership that's made it hard to focus on the actual work, and I'm looking for an environment that's more stable and better managed."
That's honest, it's not a personal attack on anyone, and it actually tells them something useful about what you want — which is the part they're really listening for.
A few rules of thumb that make this easier:
- Talk about the environment/system, not the person. "The management structure made it hard to do X" lands very differently than "my manager is incompetent," even if both are true.
- Pair every complaint with a want. Bad thing → what you're seeking instead. That reframes it from venting to intentional job searching.
- One line max, then move on. You don't need to build a case. A sentence or two on why, then pivot to why this role/company appeals to you specifically — that's the part that actually gets you hired.
- Never name names or get specific about drama. "Pressure from ownership" is fine. Specific incidents, specific people, tone that sounds heated — that's where it starts working against you.
If you want, tell me a bit more about what you're looking for in the next role and I can help you draft an actual answer you could give in an interview.