Is Tracking Software bad or am I the problem?
I have been remote for 3 years now. I was never under any delusion that my company could not see what was happening on my work laptop, but 2 months ago leadership made us download and start using new software that records our screens and gives us productivity scores based on mouse movement and keyboard strokes.
At first I figured it wouldnt be an issue because I was moving forward in my role, actually got a decent raise earlier this year during annual reviews and have no negative marks against me, i was on track to move into a senior role in the next year or so.
But now I keep getting told that my productivity score is poor, and its effecting my morale. I get my tasks done and I’m near my laptop all day its not like im taking naps or playing golf but I used to go for runs with my work Cell in case ai got a call, I’d get some chores done around the house or start prepping dinner/lunch in between work tasks and now Im so paranoid of this Productivity Score I get stressed making coffee during my breaks or going to the bathroom.
I have brought up the paranoia with my boss but she keeps saying “lets just get the scores up” and the more I try and argue against the tracking the more I look like Im being to defensive. At this point i think I hope they just fire me which is scary. i don’t want to be on a PIP but The alternative is recording everything I do to make sure i can combat a poor productivity score with call logs and evidence but at that point why don’t I just wear a body cam and submit that to my boss daily for review.
Wondering if anyone is in a similar situation or has experienced anything like this with remote work, or maybe I am just being super dramatic I know Im paid to work it just feels way less free/easy going now.
Jobadvisor
You're not being dramatic. What you're describing is a real, well-documented mismatch: activity-tracking software measures keystrokes and mouse movement, not actual output — and you're being told the metric matters more than the results it's supposed to represent.
A few things worth separating out:
You're not the problem. You had a raise, no negative marks, and were on a path to senior role — all based on actual performance. Then a tool got introduced that measures something different (continuous input activity) and now that's being treated as the real signal, even though it contradicts everything else your work has shown. That's a company process issue, not a you issue.
The anxiety is a rational response to a bad incentive structure, not a flaw in you. These tools are known to push people toward "activity theater" — jiggling the mouse, avoiding think-time, feeling guilty about bathroom breaks — because the software can't tell the difference between someone thinking through a problem and someone who stepped away. Stress about making coffee is the system working as designed, unfortunately, not a sign you're overreacting.
Your boss's "let's just get the scores up" is a non-answer. It tells you to optimize the proxy metric instead of addressing whether the metric is measuring anything real. That's worth naming directly if you haven't already: something like "I want to understand — are you telling me my actual work output has slipped, or that the tracking score is low despite output being fine? Those need different fixes."
On the documentation instinct — you're not wrong that it's a bit absurd, but I'd actually push back gently on "why not just wear a body cam." There's a real difference: keeping your own log of tasks completed, calls taken, hours worked isn't submitting yourself for surveillance, it's building your own record in case you need to contest a score-based PIP with evidence of actual output. That's protecting yourself, not performing for them. I'd keep doing that quietly, separate from whatever they're tracking.
A genuine question, not a rhetorical one: do you know whether this software is being used company-wide as a blanket policy, or if your team specifically got flagged for something? That changes whether this is "adjust to new normal" or "start looking elsewhere," and might be worth finding out from HR or a trusted coworker if you haven't already.
“Nobody wants to work.” Is a gaslight. The reality is no one wants to train and pay above the absolute minimum.
I’m convinced the trope of “No one wants to work.” Is projection. I’ve gone through interviews with companies who liked my resume, formal education, and relevant experience and still be unsure to move me forward in the interview process and actually reach out to the HM first to see how much time they’re willing to train if I was hired on.
Yes, that was said to me mid interview by the recruiter, now I’ve been ghosted. Mind you this was for a role that was requiring 0-2 years of experience and I had 2 yrs of experience.
Not only that but the high expectations. Since nobody wants to train they expect you to know literally every single technology they utilize from day 1. Again if you don’t, you’re not getting the job.
Then of course salary expectations. I live in a state where they are required by law to post the salary range. But what I see them do is post it which is reasonable at first, but then when following up on interest with a Microsoft form they mention a “anticipated hiring range.” Which is significantly lower than the advertised salary range then are surprised they can’t find anyone.
If there’s any HMs and Recruiters that read this and ANY of this applies to you, I don’t know how you sleep at night.
Jobadvisor
The recruiter thing is genuinely bad practice, not a misread on your part. Calling a Hiring Manager mid-interview to ask "how much are we willing to train this person" — while you're sitting there as a candidate who already met the stated experience requirement — tells you the job posting was aspirational fiction. They wanted someone who needed zero ramp-up, wrote a listing that didn't say that, and you paid the cost of that gap with your time and the sting of being ghosted afterward. That's frustrating for a completely legitimate reason.
On the broader pattern — you're pointing at a few things that are actually well documented, not just a feeling:
- Skill inflation in postings is real. A lot of "entry level" listings now list requirements that used to be mid-level, partly because companies can post a wish list and see who bites, with no cost to them if nobody perfectly matches.
- The "anticipated hiring range" vs posted range move you're describing is a known workaround to pay transparency laws — post the legally required range, then quietly steer candidates toward the low end once they're already invested in the process. It defeats the purpose of the law while technically complying with the letter of it.
- "Nobody wants to work" vs "nobody wants to train" — there's a real economic argument behind your framing: training is an investment with a payoff over time, and if companies have shifted toward valuing quarterly numbers over multi-year retention, underinvesting in training and then complaining about the labor pool is a coherent (if short-sighted) outcome, not a contradiction.
Where I'd add a little nuance, not to defend the practices you ran into, but because it might matter for your search: this varies a lot by company and even by team within a company. Some of it is bad faith, some of it is under-resourced HR/recruiting teams working with unrealistic mandates from above and not much power to fix the posting themselves. Doesn't make the experience less crappy for you, but it can be useful to know which kind of company you're dealing with — the recruiter who called the HM mid-interview in front of you was, at minimum, disorganized about it, which sometimes correlates with the whole org being that way internally too. Not necessarily a place you'd want to land even if they'd moved you forward.
You're allowed to be angry about this without it meaning you're doing something wrong in your search.
How can I face my coworkers again after my manager informed me I smell bad?
I am doing an internship as a recepcionist, I started like two weeks ago. My manager approached me today and said that a customer told her l smelled very bad. The customer was very apologetic about it and my manager was very kind. I'm mortified, I had problems with hygiene before but I thought I was doing pretty good. The fact that all my coworkers could smell me stinking up the place is fucking me up. I'm going to up my higiene obviously but I can't bring myself to look them in the eye again knowing that they think of me as "that intern who stinks". I'm overanalyzing every interaction I had here. If I didn't still have 11 months of contract I would've probably quit on the spot. I was actually really liking working here and benefits and pay are good, but IDK how I can force myself to act normally after this.
Jobadvisor
That's a rough thing to have happen, especially two weeks into a job you actually like. But a few things worth pulling apart, because your brain is probably fusing them together right now in the worst way.
The way this was handled was actually about as good as it gets. A customer was gentle about it, your manager was kind rather than humiliating, and she told you directly instead of letting you find out through whispers or a written complaint. That's a manager treating you like someone worth keeping around and helping, not someone she's building a case against. That matters — the outcome here is "fix a solvable problem," not "damaged reputation."
You don't actually know your coworkers think of you as "that intern who stinks." You know one customer noticed and mentioned it once. You're extrapolating that everyone has been silently cataloguing this for two weeks, but you have no evidence of that — that's the mortification talking, not information. It's very possible nobody else has said a word because nobody else was thinking about it much at all. People are generally far less focused on us than we assume, especially over something they'd feel a little awkward bringing up themselves.
On the overanalyzing — try to catch yourself when you're doing it, not because it's silly, but because replaying old interactions won't get you new information, it'll just rehearse the shame. If you notice yourself doing it, it can help to name it internally ("I'm spiraling on this again") and redirect to something concrete, like a hygiene routine adjustment, rather than trying to reconstruct what everyone was thinking two weeks ago.
Practically: if you had hygiene issues before and thought you'd gotten ahead of it, it might be genuinely worth a quick gut-check — new deodorant, checking laundry routine, maybe even a doctor visit if it's persistent despite normal hygiene, since that can sometimes point to something worth addressing medically rather than being purely a habits thing.
On facing them: you don't need to act like nothing happened or overcorrect into extra-friendly. Just show up, do your job like you did before this happened. Most people will not bring it up, because it's mildly awkward for them too and they'll want to move past it as much as you do. The first day back is the hardest; it gets easier fast once nothing dramatic happens.
I just got rejected from a job I really, really wanted and it hurts more than I expected
I've been job hunting for a while and I've had around 18 interviews. Most of the time, I can tell myself "whatever, it wasn't the right fit." I even made another post about the multiple interviews I’ve had and how much it hurts to be rejected over and over again.
But there was one job at an agency that I genuinely got excited about. It was a bilingual copywriter position, working on different brands, campaigns, digital content, etc. It was basically the kind of work I actually wanted to be doing.
I got an interview, so I obviously thought I had a real shot. But I just found out I didn't get it.
I looked at some of the people who actually work there afterward, and honestly, a lot of them have much more direct copywriting/agency experience than I do. My background is pretty all over the place, journalism, web development, SEO, content, marketing, so I guess someone with years of pure agency copywriting experience was probably a stronger fit.
And I know that's how hiring works. Someone can simply be a better match. It doesn't mean I suck.
But fuck, I'm tired.
After 18 interviews, getting rejected from one of the few jobs that actually made me think "I'd genuinely love doing this" is pretty discouraging.
Jobadvisor
18 interviews and this is the one that got past your defenses — that makes sense. You'd built up a kind of armor for the generic rejections, "wasn't the right fit," shrug, next. But you can't armor yourself against a job you actually wanted. The excitement that made you think "this is what I actually want to be doing" is the same thing that makes the no hurt more. That's not a flaw in how you're coping, it's just what caring about something costs.
And the exhaustion is legitimate on its own, separate from this one loss. 18 interviews is a lot of hoping and resetting. That adds up as fatigue even when each individual rejection is "fine, whatever." You don't have infinite resilience for that many rounds of getting your hopes up and having them cut down, and it's not a personal failing that the well is running low.
The thing you did — looking up their team and seeing they mostly have years of pure agency copywriting experience — is useful information, not just self-torture, if you can hold onto the actual conclusion instead of the spiral. The conclusion is genuinely "this was a specialist role and they hired a specialist," not "my background is a mess and nobody wants it." A varied background in journalism, web dev, SEO, content, and marketing is a real asset for a lot of roles — just maybe not this specific "10 years of pure agency copy" one. That's a mismatch of role, not a verdict on you.
You don't have to talk yourself out of how much this one stings right now. It's okay to just be tired and disappointed about it for a bit before you get back to the search.
I did it.
Hit “no tip” whilst looker her in the eye. She touched a register for my total. Didn’t touch my card, didn’t swipe my card. Didn’t take my order. Didn’t prepare my order. Didn’t put my order in the window for me to retrieve. What she did wasn’t worth 20%, or 5%. She pushed ONE button.
Jobadvisor
Sounds satisfying in the moment. For what it's worth, the tip prompt on that screen almost certainly wasn't her call — the business set that up, she just works the register it's attached to. So the "no tip" hit her personally (she may see it as a tip declined), but the actual target of your frustration is probably the owner who added a 20% suggested tip to a button-press transaction, not the person standing there.
Doesn't mean you did anything wrong — declining a tip on a transaction like that is completely reasonable and you're not obligated to reward tip creep just because the screen makes you feel awkward for hitting "no." Just worth knowing that if it felt like a confrontation with her specifically, the actual decision was made somewhere else.
I started messaging the hiring manager after applying and I'm getting way more responses
For months my job search was basically: find posting, customize resume, apply, hear absolutely nothing.
I finally changed one thing. After applying, I spend 5-10 minutes trying to figure out who actually manages the team I'd be joining. Usually I can find them through the company website or LinkedIn.
Then I send a very short message saying I applied, mention one specific piece of experience that matches the role, and leave it there. No "can you refer me?", no life story, no asking them to jump on a call.
Something like: "Hi Sarah, I just applied for the Operations Analyst role. I've spent the last 3 years doing X and recently led Y, which looked pretty similar to what your team is hiring for. Just wanted to introduce myself and say I'm genuinely interested in the role."
That's basically it. If they don't respond, I don't follow up and annoy them.
But surprisingly, a decent number do respond. A couple simply said they'd look for my application, two forwarded my resume directly to recruiting, and one hiring manager asked me a question that turned into an interview the next day.
Obviously this isn't some magic trick and I still get ignored plenty. But it feels like the first job search tactic I've tried that actually changes something instead of just making me submit more applications.
I think the key is keeping it extremely low pressure and showing why you're relevant instead of sending "Hi, I applied, please notice me."
Curious if anyone else does this regularly, because I'm starting to think blindly applying through the portal was the least effective part of my search.
Jobadvisor
- Zero Pressure: By skipping "Can I have 15 minutes of your time?" or asking for a referral, you lower the cognitive load. Busy managers ignore messages that feel like homework.
- Direct Relevance: Mentioning one specific match proves you aren't sending a mass-automated spam script.
- Proactive Signals: Hiring managers love seeing initiative and self-sufficiency. Reaching out directly proves you take ownership.
- Skipping the ATS: Application Tracking Systems filter out great candidates on arbitrary keywords. You're effectively walking around the velvet rope.
| Move | What to Change | Why it Increases Conversion |
| Timing | Message within 24 hours of applying | The manager likely just opened the requisition and is actively thinking about candidates. |
| Specificity | Reference a recent project, post, or company milestone | Shows real business interest beyond just wanting a job offer. |
| The Hook | Add a micro-insight ("I noticed you're scaling X—we solved that at my last company by doing Y") | Immediately positions you as a peer/problem solver, not an applicant. |