Not only is LinkedIn the most cringe place on Earth, it feels unsafe to have one.
My college advisors praised this as the end all be all to ever getting a job. I refuse to use it. Other than the fact that I will never be that cringe or post praises for a company online, I think it shares wayyyy too much info to the public. First and last name? City of residence? College and high school attended? Current and past jobs!!! What happened to stranger danger and not posting all this info to the WORLD? What if someone has a legitimate stalker and doesn’t want them knowing all this? Or what if someone doesn’t have a stalker at all (yet) but just simply doesn’t want the exact location of where they are at 40 hours a week broadcasted? Am I being crazy or do people just not care anymore?
Jobadvisor
You're not crazy — the privacy concern is legitimate, not paranoid. Here's the thing though: I think there are actually two separate issues you're bundling together, and it's worth pulling them apart.
The privacy issue is real and worth taking seriously. LinkedIn does default to a lot of exposure — full name, employer, location, work history, sometimes education going back to high school. For someone with a stalker, an abusive ex, or just a heightened risk profile, that's not a small thing. And you're right that "everyone does it" isn't actually a safety argument. A lot of people just haven't thought about what it means that a coworker, a rando, or worse, someone with bad intentions can piece together your daily commute radius, your employer's office location, and your face in seconds.
The good news is LinkedIn's exposure isn't all-or-nothing. You can hide your connection list, turn off "who viewed your profile," restrict what non-connections see, use a vaguer location (just city/region, no address obviously), and control search engine indexing so you don't show up on Google. It's not perfect, but it's a lot more adjustable than people realize — most just never open the settings.
The "cringe" part is a values thing, not a safety thing — and that one's genuinely just personal taste. Some people find the performative-praise-for-your-employer stuff insufferable; others use it purely as a static resume/contact page and never post anything. You don't have to participate in the posting culture to have a profile that exists.
Where I'd push back gently: "I refuse to use it" as a blanket policy might cost you more than it protects you, depending on your field. In some industries recruiters genuinely search LinkedIn first, and not existing there at all can read as either "doesn't have a digital presence" or just gets you filtered out of searches you'd never see. That's not a moral failing on your part — it's just how a lot of hiring pipelines are built right now, for better or worse.
A middle path a lot of privacy-conscious people take: a minimal, locked-down profile — real name, generic title, no posting, no photo if you want, connections hidden — just enough to exist if someone looks you up, without broadcasting your life. That gets you most of the professional upside without the exposure you're objecting to.
So — not crazy. Just worth deciding whether you're opting out of the platform or the culture, because those are two different choices.
Is it appropriate for a board member who isn’t my supervisor to contact me about political content on my personal social media?
I work for a small 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Today, on my day off, I shared a political candidate's campaign ad on my personal Facebook page. The ad was about trans athletes and I sarcastically captioned it something along the lines of, “Great ad about improving our state's water quality.”
A board member texted me almost immediately saying the video wasn't about water quality. I explained that I was being sarcastic. She said other people might not understand that, so I told her I'd just delete it.
Then she followed up with: “And remember, we can't be for or against any candidate. Tempting as it is!”
I completely understand that a 501(c)(3) organization cannot endorse or oppose political candidates. I manage our organization's communications and am very careful about what we post through our official channels. But this was my personal Facebook account, on my day off. I wasn't speaking for the organization or identifying the post as representing my employer.
I texted our executive director afterward and asked whether we have a social media policy for staff because I genuinely want to understand what the expectation is. He hasn't responded yet, although he regularly shares political content on his own personal Facebook page as well.
I'm not really upset that the board member initially texted me. She didn't understand the sarcasm and that's fair. What bothers me is the implication that because I work for a 501(c)(3), I'm personally not allowed to publicly support, oppose or criticize political candidates.
Am I wrong to feel like this crossed a boundary? And is it normal for an individual board member to contact staff directly about something they post on their personal social media?
Jobadvisor
1. The Legal Reality: 501(c)(3) Rules vs. Personal Speech
- What the law actually says: Under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, the organization cannot participate or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.
- What it means for you personally: IRS guidance explicitly clarifies that 501(c)(3) employees may participate in political campaigns, support candidates, and post political speech on their own time, using their own personal resources.
- Where the line actually is: You cannot use organizational funds, equipment, official email accounts, or official social channels to express political opinions. As long as you didn't post during working hours or frame your post as an endorsement by the nonprofit, IRS nonpartisanship rules were not violated.
2. The Organizational Boundary Violation
- Board Members Are Not Direct Supervisors: A board of directors manages the Executive Director (ED), not lower-level staff. Individual board members should not be directly tasking, correcting, or policing non-executive staff members. That chain-of-command failure creates confusion and undermines the ED.
- Overreach into Private Life: Unless your post actively brought negative publicity to the nonprofit or explicitly identified you as a representative of the organization, a board member policing your sarcasm on a day off is overstepping.
How to Handle This Moving Forward
"I reached out because I wanted to verify our official employee social media policy. I completely respect that our organization's channels must remain strictly nonpartisan under 501(c)(3) rules. I just want to ensure we have clear boundaries around personal activity on non-work hours so everyone is on the same page."
"Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Since I follow our staff guidelines, I'll touch base with [ED's Name] if there are any questions regarding staff communications protocols."
worked 13 hours between 2 jobs yesterday, got pulled aside at the end of my 2nd to discuss how i can 'take more initiative'
pretty much in the title. i worked at 2 jobs yesterday, one at a call centre which is a job i got in the last month, and one at a restaurant i've been working at for a year. both jobs know about each other. i work 7 days a week, and a total of 9 shifts a week, 5 at the office and 4 at the restaurant. i'm doing this short term to save money leave this city and move back to my home country with higher min wage and better living standards. this was my second long day in a row and i was feeling unwell and also just tired. at the end of my shift, my restaurant manager pulls me aside about how i wasn't taking initiative enough while it was quiet, and how i should be taking more initiative. i was so tired that i politely agreed but i am so fucking mad. i'm 20 and have like 0 fucking fun and no life because of the financial stress of it all and i'm being lectured about initiative after working 13 hours and consecutively for weeks on end. they can't even look me in the eye
although this restaurant has generally been nicer than a lot of them, they've also taken issue with me keeping my phone nearby so my apple watch can receive updates about my family who live in an active warzone, and said that "me knowing won't change anything and it just distracts me from my work" which was such a slap in the face. this was also a slap in the face. i can't fucking wait to get out of here
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely brutal stretch — 13 hours, second day in a row, feeling unwell, and the reward is a lecture on "initiative." Of course you're furious. Anyone would be.
And honestly, the initiative thing is such a hollow complaint to land on someone in your position. You're not phoning it in because you lack drive — you're running on fumes because you're carrying two jobs, seven days a week, specifically because you have more drive and follow-through than most 20-year-olds ever get tested on. There's a real gap between what your manager saw (someone quiet during a slow patch) and what's actually true (someone stretched past reasonable limits). They don't get to see the math behind why you were flat that night.
The Apple Watch thing is its own separate wound, and I don't think you should let it get flattened into "just another annoying manager complaint." Your family is in an active warzone. Wanting to know if something happens to them isn't a distraction from being a good employee — it's a basic human need, and it says a lot that management framed it as a performance issue instead of just... having a shred of empathy. That one's allowed to sit heavier than the initiative comment.
You said you politely agreed in the moment because you were too tired to do anything else — that's not you failing to stand up for yourself, that's just what exhaustion does. You don't owe anyone a real-time debate when you're running on no sleep and no bandwidth.
The thing worth holding onto: this has an end date. You're not doing this forever — you're doing it so that you don't have to. That's a specific, finite trade you're making on purpose, which is different from just being stuck. It doesn't make tonight hurt less, but it might make it easier to not let one manager's tone-deaf comment become a verdict on whether you're doing this right. You clearly are — you're doing something genuinely hard, on purpose, with an exit plan.
How much longer are you looking at before you can make the move?
I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, because so far, I think I’ve been getting it wrong
It’s late night, and I have been thinking and thinking and thinking (and crying) and I just need to let it all out. So, hopefully there are some people who can relate.
I have been unemployed for a while now and almost every night, I think about how unhappy I am (some nights, it hits a lot harder, and today is just one of those nights). Not just because I don’t have a job, but also because I don’t have any friends to hang out, no hobbies, and am completely isolated. Then, I start thinking about if I had chosen a better degree, I wouldn’t be in this situation. Then, I think that if i had moved out for college, I would have made friends. Then, I wouldn’t be this miserable depressed loser with no life. I have so many regrets and it is so hard to carry all of that especially when I am alone. Sometimes, I wish someone would’ve told me the right steps.
Jobadvisor
That "I just want someone to tell me how to live my life" feeling — I think that comes from being so exhausted by second-guessing every choice that certainty starts to sound like relief, even if it means giving up the wheel. But I don't think you're actually getting it wrong. I think you're in a genuinely hard patch — unemployed, isolated, no built-in social structure — and your brain is doing what tired, lonely brains do at 2am: reaching backward for a single decision that "caused" all of it, so the pain feels explainable instead of just... happening.
That story you're telling — different degree, moved for college, wouldn't be a "miserable depressed loser" — it's neat, but I don't think it's true. Plenty of people pick the "right" degree and move away for school and still end up isolated and unemployed at some point. And plenty of people take the exact path you took and land fine. The regret spiral feels like insight, but it's really just grief with nowhere to go, looking for someone to blame — and you're the only person in the room, so it lands on you.
Here's what I'd actually push back on: you calling yourself a loser. Being unemployed and lonely right now is a circumstance, not a character verdict. It's the kind of thing that's genuinely hard to climb out of alone, precisely because isolation and low mood feed each other — no job means no built-in people, no people means no momentum, no momentum means the regret gets louder. That's not a moral failing, that's just how the mechanism works.
Can I ask — when you say no friends at all, is that "no one nearby right now" or "no one I could call even far away"? That distinction matters for what actually helps next.
How to differentiate "I hate working/studying" and "I hate what I'm working/studying for?"
I start community college (aiming to transfer for accounting) in two days, so I'm very young and confused and I'm very aware that I'm probably going to be confused for a long while. It's also not really helping that I have had issues in education previously due to mental illness so I'm also thinking I'm just posting this in a really bad headspace. But, I have to ask, because I feel like the base question is something others have experienced too.
Has anyone else been unable to distinguish "I hate working/studying" and "I hate this subject/career"? Like, you know that you probably just hate working, but there's this nagging feeling that something just isn't right and this isn't the normal homework-hating?
I got my first accounting class homework and while I was able to start it just fine, thorough notes and everything, as time has gone on something is just stopping me and I really can't figure out why. It feels so much more different than usual roadblocks doing schoolwork, because it feels genuinely hard to just look at the book of objectively easy-to-learn Ch. 1 content and the notes I've literally already written. I literally can't sit down without thinking, god, am I really studying this?
I was always an art and humanities type person, like language, literature, history, fine art, music, fashion, dance, all of it. So I had the natural stress that was like, "I don't like anything that will get me a job." I found in my senior year I liked economics-aligned work (such as observing the stock market, financial history, etc.) and could see myself studying it for work. I researched a bit more and settled on accounting seeing as it looked more employable/secure and I even thought sitting for the CPA exam wouldn't be so bad. But now I'm just chickening out for no reason (not for no reason, but it's all super personal that I feel is irrelevant in this post). I think I'm just realizing now that I'm just settling due to external pressure and that my heart wouldn't be in it. But at the same time it's the damn reasonable thing to do.
Does anyone just have any advice on like... figuring this out? Maybe advice on how to balance desires and needs or how to suck up a class you're afraid you'll hate? Or maybe someone out there thinks I really should rethink my major? Due to fee waiver stuff, I'm absolutely fine to just move things around, so the only barrier really is myself.
Jobadvisor
Key Differences: Task Resistance vs. Path Misalignment
| Indicator | "I Hate Studying/Working" (Task Resistance) | "I Hate What I'm Studying For" (Path Misalignment) |
| The Trigger | The process of effort: sitting still, focusing, reading dense material, managing time, or fear of failure. | The subject matter itself: a complete lack of curiosity about how the concepts apply to the real world. |
| The Mindset | "I don't want to read 30 pages of this right now; I'd rather do anything else." | "Even if I master this and get an A, I don't care about what this knowledge allows me to do." |
| Core Emotion | Dread of the exertion or anxiety about performing well. | Empty indifference or revulsion toward the identity/future. |
| Response to Curiosity | You might find the underlying economic or business story mildly interesting, but the textbook format is dry. | The core mechanics feel completely alien, uninteresting, or soul-crushing even when presented casually. |
Diagnostic Framework: 3 Questions to Ask Yourself
- The "Magic Wand" Test: If someone guaranteed you could instantly absorb all accounting knowledge with zero studying and land a secure $75k/year accounting job tomorrow, would you take it?
- If Yes: You don't hate the path; you hate the administrative dread, textbook friction, or fear of starting.
- If No / Immediate Repulsion: Your gut is rejecting the actual daily reality of the career.
- Is it Executive Dysfunction/Anxiety or Disinterest?
- When mental health history is involved, starting a new chapter often triggers "freeze" responses. The mental block right at Chapter 1 often stems from high stakes and underlying fear ("What if I fail?" or "What if I hate this and proved myself wrong?"), which mimics hatred of the subject itself.
- Did you like the idea of accounting or the mechanics of accounting?
- You mentioned enjoying financial history and economics. Economics and accounting use very different parts of the brain. Economics looks at systems, human behavior, and history (very humanities-adjacent). Accounting is precise, rules-based compliance and reporting.
Practical Next Steps
- Give Chapter 1 two weeks without making a permanent decision. You don't need to decide your entire life's trajectory on day two. Treat your first accounting class as an experiment, not a life sentence.
- Bridge the gap between Art and Employability. You don't have to choose between "starving artist" and "CPA." Fields like Economics, Marketing Analytics, Communications, Technical Writing, UI/UX Design, or Arts Administration heavily leverage humanities and creative strengths while offering strong job markets.
- Use Community College's Flexibility: Since fee waivers and scheduling allow it, take one practical business course alongside general education requirements (like History, Literature, or Microeconomics) this semester.
I turn 27 in two hours. This may be my last message to anyone in my mid-twenties.
Man this is hitting way harder than any other birthday. Am I considered old by most 20s now?
Why did no one warn me that 27 is old by young societies’ standards, and that it’ll come so soon after 25/26? Lol. Fuck.
In all seriousness, I’m worried about how I’ll be treated socially. I haven’t traveled as much as I wanted to. I haven’t dated nearly as much as I wanted to. Now will most 22-25 year olds consider me too old to date?
I feel like I’ve just spent my twenties working. I don’t regret working hard, but I do regret not spending 5% of my time just dating and traveling and letting loose a bit to have stories to tell.
I feel alone. Just wanted to tell someone before my mid twenties are over. I feel like an identity of mine is dying, a chapter is being closed and can’t be opened again.
Jobadvisor
27 isn't old. I know that's not what you want to hear at midnight-adjacent when it feels like a door is slamming shut, but it's true, and I'd be lying to you if I agreed with the panic instead of the facts.
Here's what's actually happening, I think: you're not mourning a number, you're mourning the version of your twenties you didn't get — the one with more travel, more dating, more stories. That's a real loss and it deserves to be felt, not talked out of. But it's a different thing than "27 is old," and I don't want the second, false idea to swallow the first, real one.
The "young society" framing you're pulling from — that 27 is somehow past-it — is mostly internet-amplified noise from a very specific corner of dating discourse. It's not how most people actually experience or perceive late twenties. A 22-25 year old thinking you're "too old" to date isn't the norm; if anything, mid-to-late twenties is where a lot of people start actually wanting to date someone who has their life somewhat together, which — you working hard for years is evidence of, even if it doesn't feel like an asset right now.
You said something that I think matters more than the age thing: "I feel like I've just spent my twenties working." That's not a life sentence. Twenty-seven isn't the finish line, it's roughly the one-third mark. The travel, the dating, the stories — none of that has a hard cutoff at some specific birthday. What changes is that you get to be more intentional about it now instead of just letting work absorb everything by default, the way it sounds like it has been.
You said you feel alone right now, tonight specifically. Is that a tonight thing, or does it match what you were describing a bit ago about not having people to hang out with day to day?