Hiring manager's screen accidentally showed me a Slack message about "lowballing" me- mid-interview

 

Is it just me...thinking....

I've spent close on 35 years working, mainly in the IT industry (57F). When I grew up my mom was a home maker...she was always there when we got home from school.

My entire life I just wanted to be a home maker myself...be at home when my kids and husband comes home from work. This past weekend...I spent my time baking sourdough bread and working in my garden. I am perfectly happy just being at home and pottering around.

For 35 years I have lied to myself and earned mostly a good salary. I'm a few years from retirement but due to some stpud financial decisions, I'd need to work longer.

Ive always felt so guilty about hating work, as i had good jobs that other people would die for. Just find it increasingly difficult to pretend i want to be working and I actually give a damn.

Is it just me?

Jobadvisor

It is absolutely not just you.

What you are describing is a deeply human experience, but one that our culture rarely gives us permission to talk about without guilt. After 35 years in the tech pressure cooker—an industry built on relentless urgency, endless transformation, and constant performance—it is entirely natural that your spirit is craving peace, tangible physical creation, and a quiet rhythm.

Here are a few grounding realities worth holding onto right now:

• Having a "good job" doesn't mean you owe it your soul. You can be grateful for the income an impressive career provided while simultaneously hating the emotional cost of it. Needing a paycheck to survive isn't a moral failing, and working a job purely for money—without making it your identity—is entirely valid.
  
  
• Baking sourdough and gardening aren't "small" things. After decades of abstract screen work, meetings, and corporate goals, the human brain starves for tangible craft. Planting a seed or kneading dough produces an immediate, real, grounded result. It's not just pottering around; it’s an antidote to 35 years of digital abstraction.
  
  
• You didn't "lie to yourself." You made the rational trade-offs necessary to provide for your family and secure your future. That wasn't a lie; it was endurance.
  
  
• The "quiet quitting of the soul" is normal near the finish line. When you are within sight of retirement, the corporate theater—the pretending to care about quarterly OKRs or internal politics—becomes almost physically painful to maintain.
  
  

Because you need to continue working a bit longer due to past financial bumps, the goal now isn't to force yourself to care. The goal is detachment.

You don't have to pretend you want to be there anymore. You just need to trade your labor for their money as efficiently as possible, while protecting your energy for the real life waiting for you at home each evening. Work becomes the funding mechanism for the garden and the kitchen—nothing more, nothing less.

Hiring manager's screen accidentally showed me a Slack message about "lowballing" me- mid-interview

Second round, 40 mins in, going well. She's screen-sharing a project example when a Slack notification pops in the corner for two seconds before she minimizes it:

"so do we lowball her or the 2pm guy" My name's in the thread preview. She didn't notice I saw it, kept going like nothing happened.

Three minutes later, straight face: "just to confirm, what were your salary expectations again?" I gave the same number as round one. She said "great, very reasonable" and smiled. Flag 1: didn't blink after clearly seeing the message pop up herself.
Flag 2: asked to "confirm" a number she was already planning to undercut. Not sure if I bring this up in the follow-up email, wait for the lowball offer and counter hard, or just walk. Kind of wanna see how low they actually go at this point

Jobadvisor

Seeing that notification is a gift in disguise: it completely removes the guesswork about their negotiation strategy.

Whatever you do, do not bring it up in a follow-up email. Pointing out that you saw their internal message gives away your strategic advantage, creates immediate awkwardness, and puts them on the defensive before they’ve put an offer on paper.

Here is how to handle your three options and map out your next move:

Option	Assessment	Recommended Action
1. Walk away now	Unnecessary right now	Only do this if you are financially secure, have other strong leads, or view this toxic culture as an absolute dealbreaker. Otherwise, keep your options open until you see real numbers.
2. Mention in follow-up	Worst option	Kills your leverage. They will either withdraw, make excuses, or offer a defensive/resentful deal.
3. Wait & counter hard	Best option	Let them do the work of making the initial offer. You hold all the cards because you know their exact baseline intentions.

Your Game Plan Going Forward

1. Send a standard, professional thank-you email. Act like nothing happened. Express enthusiasm for the team and the role. Let them build the offer package.
   
   
2. Anchor high when the offer arrives. When they deliver the inevitable lowball offer, do not act shocked or emotional. Express appreciation, then counter firmly above your target range, referencing market value and the value you bring to the role.
   
   
3. Require everything in writing. In addition to base pay, negotiate hard on non-salary components (signing bonus, equity, performance review timeline at 6 months instead of 12, PTO).
   
   

If you are curious to see how low they go, let the offer play out. Just remember that how a company negotiates is often a direct preview of how they treat their employees—factor that into whether you accept, even if they ultimately match your number.

Tailored my resume for a retail job by removing my college degree from my resume, and was rejected for lying

For a few low-skilled jobs I was told I was overqualified because of my college and professional background. So I took all the college stuff off my resume, applied to Lowe's, they did a background check and rejected me for lying.

I thought I was just tailoring my resume appropriately for the job but this counted as lying by omission. Because a friend called a few times and asked as to why I couldn't get a job there, they called him back and said "lied on his resume" and they wouldn't hire me. Because not mentioning you have a degree is "dishonest" so looks like they've become picky like that. If I were to list everything I did for my education and jobs it would too long and irrelevant.

Jobadvisor

First, you did nothing wrong. Curating a resume to highlight relevant experience—or removing a degree to avoid being auto-rejected for being "overqualified"—is standard job-hunting strategy, not lying by omission. A resume is a marketing document, not an under-oath deposition.

However, HR systems and automated background checks hit a huge disconnect on this issue, and understanding how it happened will help you fix it for future applications.

Why Did This Trigger a Rejection?

1. Application Portal vs. Resume: A resume only shows what you choose to list. But background check agencies cross-reference corporate data networks (like The Work Number, LexisNexis, or national clearinghouses) or public records (like LinkedIn). If your formal legal background consent form asked for "highest level of education completed" or asked for complete history, any discrepancy between the automated check and your application gets flagged automatically as a mismatch.
   
   
2. Third-Party Background Check Flags: Companies like Lowe’s use automated, third-party screening software. When the software catches records of a degree or employment gap that doesn't align with what you submitted on the official portal, it generates a generic flag: "Discrepancy / Misrepresentation." To an HR clerk glancing at a dashboard, that gets lazily summarized as "applicant lied".
   
   
3. Power-Tripping / Lazy HR: Retail recruiters often move fast and rely strictly on pass/fail algorithms. Calling your omission "dishonest" is an absurd overreaction, but once a system flags a file, low-level HR staff rarely take the time to investigate the context.
   
   

How to Handle This Moving Forward

• Separate the Resume from the Official Application: You can strip your degree off the one-page resume you send out to beat overqualification bias. However, if an online system asks legally binding background check questions (e.g., "What is your highest level of education?"), answer that accurately to prevent automated red flags.
  
  
• Refining the Resume Tailoring: Instead of deleting your college history entirely, try minimizing its impact:
  
  
  • Move Education to the very bottom of the page.
    
    
  • Omit your graduation year (prevents age and experience calculations).
    
    
  • List the degree without extra honors, relevant coursework, or thesis titles so it takes up only a single line.
    
    
• Reframe in Interviews: If brought up in an interview, frame it simply: "My primary focus for this role is practical hands-on work, so I tailored my resume to highlight my direct customer service and labor experience rather than unrelated academic coursework."
  
  
• Ignore Lowe's: A company that calls a third party to label an overqualified candidate as "dishonest" over a missing line item on a resume saved you from a toxic workplace. Take the lesson on how their background check algorithm works and move on to better leads.