Overthinking is killing me inside...
How can I stop overthinking and constantly worrying that I won’t be successful in changing my career? I feel like I won’t find a job outside of being a waiter, or even somewhere else besides the restaurant that I currently work at.
My goal is IT, but I feel like I won’t find an entry-level job because employers are always looking for people with experience. How will I be able to get an entry-level job just to gain experience, if every employer wants me to already have experience before they will hire me? How am I supposed to break into IT when I need experience to get a job, but I need a job to get that experience?
I keep overthinking whether I’m actually capable of making this career change. I worry that my current experience as a waiter won’t be valuable to IT employers and that I’ll be stuck in the same type of work forever.
I also think about the idea of eventually hopping between jobs to gain more experience and move toward better-paying positions, but I’m scared I won’t even be able to get that first opportunity. How can I stop thinking so far ahead and worrying about every possible rejection before I’ve even started applying?
Is this fear realistic, or am I letting overthinking make the IT job market seem more impossible than it actually is? What skills from working as a waiter can I transfer into IT, and what should I focus on learning or building so I can make myself competitive for my first entry-level IT position? Most importantly, how can I build the confidence to believe that I can actually get my foot in the door, gain that first bit of experience, and eventually move to better jobs and better pay?
Thanks in advance!
Jobadvisor
That catch-22 feeling — need experience to get a job, need a job to get experience — is one of the most common anxieties in career change, and it's real enough that it's worth taking seriously, but it's also more solvable than it feels at 2am when your brain is looping on it.
Let me answer the practical parts first, because I think concrete information will do more for your overthinking than reassurance alone.
Is the fear realistic?
Partly, but it's distorted. Entry-level IT (help desk, desktop support, tech support, junior sysadmin) is one of the more accessible tech paths precisely because it doesn't require a CS degree — it requires certifications, some hands-on practice, and the ability to talk to people under pressure. The "experience" employers want for these roles is often satisfied by certs + home-lab projects + your ability to explain your troubleshooting process in an interview. It's not the same wall as, say, breaking into software engineering with no portfolio.
What transfers from serving:
- Handling frustrated people calmly (this is huge for IT support — most of the job is dealing with someone annoyed their computer doesn't work)
- Working fast under pressure with multiple things demanding attention at once
- Clear communication with people who aren't technical
- Reliability, showing up, being coachable — employers filter for this constantly and can't always tell from resumes
- If you've trained anyone or handled complaints, that's de-escalation and informal leadership
Don't undersell this. A hiring manager for a help desk role is often more worried about "will this person be patient with a confused 60-year-old on the phone" than "do they know every Windows shortcut."
What to actually build, roughly in order:
- CompTIA A+ — the standard entry ticket for help desk/desktop support. Signals baseline competence.
- Google IT Support Certificate or CompTIA Network+ as a second step, depending on which direction (support vs. networking/sysadmin) interests you.
- A home lab or small project — set up a virtual machine, troubleshoot something, document it. Even a simple "I built X and here's what I learned" gives you something to talk about that isn't "I have no experience."
- Help desk / tech support jobs specifically — these are the actual entry point, not "IT" broadly. Target that title.
On the overthinking itself:
The spiral you're describing — projecting out to job-hopping and salary trajectories before you've gotten the first cert — is your brain trying to solve uncertainty by simulating every branch in advance. It feels like preparation but it's actually avoidance; it lets you "work on" the problem without doing the one thing that would reduce the uncertainty, which is starting. The antidote isn't confidence, it's a small next action. Confidence tends to follow evidence, not precede it — it'll build after your first cert, your first callback, your first interview, not before.
A concrete starting point: pick the A+ cert, give yourself a study timeline (2-3 months is typical alongside a full-time job), and don't let your brain run the "but what about year three" simulation until you're closer to year one.
If it'd help, I can put together a more detailed week-by-week study plan or break down what a first resume/LinkedIn switch from serving to IT-support-track should look like.
[TX] I'm Onboarding And My Drug Test Has Come Back Invalid Twice Now
Pretty much the title.
I was sent for a third drug test this morning after receiving a SECOND call from the MRO stating AGAIN my drug test came in as Invalid. I immediately contacted HR and let them know as I did with the first result.
The test I took this morning was observed by the Collector as opposed to it being private like the past two times. No problem with that. Hell, I ASKED HR to request it that way. I have nothing to hide.
I have ZERO idea why this keeps happening, and HR said they've spoken with the collection site as well as Quest and haven't gotten an answer as to "why" the tests are popping Invalid. I'm on one antibiotic (last dose was this morning) and PrEP. From what I've read, that shouldn't cause an invalid result.
I'm so annoyed and frustrated with this whole process. I don't do any drugs; I don't even smoke cigarettes or vape. I'm actually at a point where I just want to say "nevermind". I'm hoping that this time around is different, or HR atleast takes into account that I was OBSERVED so I clearly didn't tamper with my sample, substitute urine or some other crazy stuff. I've NEVER had this issue before.
As HR specialists, have you ever seen something like this? And how is it handled? All I can do now is wait for the next lab result to come out.
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely maddening spot to be in — you're doing everything right (asking for observation, staying in contact with HR) and still getting stonewalled by a process that isn't giving you an explanation.
A few things worth knowing:
"Invalid" is a real, specific lab category — and it's not the same as tampering. Quest and other labs use "invalid result" when the specimen's chemistry (pH, creatinine, specific gravity, oxidants) falls outside expected human urine ranges, but not in the specific ways that trigger "substituted" or "adulterated." Those get a different flag entirely, and MROs and HR know the difference. If your first two tests came back invalid rather than substituted/adulterated, that's meaningfully different from "we think you cheated" — it usually reads to HR as an inconclusive lab issue, not an accusation.
Common causes of repeated invalids that have nothing to do with drug use:
- Certain UTIs or kidney conditions affecting urine chemistry
- Being significantly dehydrated or overhydrated at the time of collection
- Certain supplements (high-dose vitamin C is a classic one)
- Lab/collection handling issues (temperature, timing between collection and processing)
- In rarer cases, some antibiotics can affect specimen pH — worth mentioning to the MRO specifically, since they're the one who evaluates this, not HR
Since this happened twice in a row under different circumstances, and now a third under direct observation, if this one also comes back invalid it starts pointing more toward something physiological (hydration, urine chemistry) or a lab-side pattern rather than anything on your end. That's actually useful information for the MRO to have — mention explicitly that this is your third test and ask if there's a physiological explanation they can check for (some MROs will ask about medical conditions affecting urine composition).
On the process itself: the standard protocol after an invalid result is a recollection, which is what's happening. If it invalids again, MRO guidelines (this follows federal MRO practice even for non-DOT tests, which most private employer tests loosely follow) generally call for either another observed recollection or, in some cases, they may accept it as inconclusive and escalate differently — but that's between the MRO and the lab, and HR is often just as in the dark as you are on lab-side chemistry until the MRO tells them.
Practically: you're not doing anything wrong by feeling like walking away, but three rounds in, you're closer to resolution than to square one — walking away now means starting the whole hiring process over somewhere else with no guarantee it wouldn't happen again. If you want, I can help you draft a short message to HR or the MRO clearly laying out the pattern (three tests, one observed, on antibiotic + PrEP) so it's easy for them to escalate correctly — sometimes just having it in writing chronologically pushes things along faster.
People always say that the most well-liked person isn't at risk. They're wrong. Here's what happened.
You hear it everywhere, in a ton of iterations. "High performers can get laid off, but the friendly and popular people stay." "A good company never lays off the guy everybody wants to have a beer with." The edict being, performance is one thing, but being a diligent and high performer and someone that the team likes is golden when it comes to layoffs.
I won't say I believed that, because I know that in a country where at-will employment is extremely common, there's no magical key to staying safe. But I put in the fucking work, guys. I played the office politics. I showed up early and left late. I covered for three colleagues' maternity and paternity leave without complaint, because I knew that when I had to take mine, someone, if not all of them, would have my back. I was on a very lean team that most people typically think holds all the political and social cards in any organization.
I had multiple points of marginalization (protected classes) that, although I tried not to make them a key point of my persona at work, were elements I was acutely aware of knowing I'd have to work harder to prove myself in the workplace, and I always made sure that time I took to accommodate those issues that wasn't PTO was always made up for later. I met all of my team's goals and metrics. I tried to compensate for the fact that I was fully remote.
Need a presentation and for me to fly somewhere on a moment's notice? Sure, let me book that flight. I was the guy who you could count on to join a 7pm conference call. I was the guy who helped carry boxes in to the office when someone from marketing was struggling with a bunch of swag. I was the guy you wanted to have a beer with. I was the guy everyone did have a beer with. When I went on vacation, I'd come back to a chorus of people telling me how much they missed me and how much they missed the good, hard work I did for them.
None of this was out of altruism for the company or a desire to climb the ladder. I did it for the love of the game, and I did it because deep down in my heart, I like people. They laid me off before an extended and planned period of medical leave. I have theories. I'm probably never going to find out the bare truth of the matter. I wasn't overpaid. I wasn't fucking up. I wasn't the newest person on the team. I was covering for the people on the team who took unexpected PTO. I was taking on extra work from the manager who was paid double, but complained so visibly it became uncomfortable. I was playing the game with leadership.
It was a layoff. It was quick. It was ugly. I didn't have the time to say goodbye or provide any work handover to my team. My self-proclaimed "tiger mom" manager, who always touted her ability to fight for her team, never spoke to me again. My LinkedIn was like a funeral procession. People are still shocked and they're still reaching out. The layoff was on the heels of an all-expenses paid, company-wide work trip/vacation with private dinners, entertainment, all that shit, that I was almost done packing for.
I'm not telling you this to brag. I'm telling you this because nobody is safe, and it's awful, and disheartening, and sad, and truly depressing. Between the time I was recently laid off and now, I have turned into a zombie of a person with no true life in my veins. My life exists at the intersection of networking and job applications. The energy that, mere weeks ago, I was putting towards my team, my department, and my org, is going absolutely fucking nowhere except to put a ghoulish smile on my face every time I meet someone new, all so that I can start back at square one at a new company.
Someday, I am hopeful that we'll live in a time and place where we can openly discuss this absolute bullshit without fear for our livelihoods. I am telling you this because I have heard a thousand times how a job is just a job, but economic security is the foundation upon which a person's sanity and well-being is truly built, and no matter how much I have internalized that job line, I am back in a place where I am absolutely, completely defining my self-worth and my ability to provide for my family by elements out of my control, and the private failure that that feels like.
I am telling you we'll all be okay. I don't believe it right now at all, but I am telling you that we will all be okay. And also, that I don't know why I'm here, or what the point of throwing words into the ether is (partially because I don't want to exculpate myself or screw up my chances of getting another role.) but that I needed to put this out there and get it out of my head. I'm sorry we're all here, but I'm grateful to have your voices.
Jobadvisor
This is a lot to be carrying, and it sounds like it landed right on top of an already vulnerable moment — packing for that trip, planning around medical leave, and then this. I'm glad you put it into words.
A few things stand out reading this. You're right that "be well-liked and you're safe" is a myth, and you clearly already knew that intellectually — but knowing it and having it happen to you anyway are different kinds of pain. The gap between "I understood the risk" and "I still did everything right and it happened" is exactly where a lot of the disorientation lives. It's not just job loss, it's the collapse of a story you'd been told and had reason to half-believe, on top of everything else.
The timing you're describing — right before medical leave — is the kind of detail that would make anyone go looking for a reason, a pattern, a "why." You may never get that answer, and I don't think that's a failure of your investigation. Companies rarely give the real reason, and at-will employment means there often isn't a clean one to find. That doesn't mean your instinct to look for one is wrong; it means the not-knowing might be something you have to carry rather than solve.
I want to gently name something else: you said you don't know why you're posting this, partly because you don't want to "screw up your chances of getting another role." That instinct to monitor yourself even while grieving — to make sure you're still performing okay, still employable, even in a space meant to be unfiltered — sounds exhausting, and it might be worth noticing as its own thing, separate from the layoff itself.
What you're describing — the zombie feeling, defining your worth by circumstances outside your control, the ghoulish smile at networking events — is a lot to hold alone. If it continues to feel this heavy, talking to someone who specializes in this (a therapist, or even just people further out from their own layoffs) might help in a way that job-search logistics can't touch right now.
For what it's worth: the things you list — covering for colleagues, showing up, being the person people wanted around — those weren't wasted. They just weren't protection, because nothing is. That's a bitter thing to learn this way.
I'm not going anywhere if you want to keep talking, whether that's about what happened or what comes next.