Return to office is the dumbest thing ever for most jobs. Hybrid should be the status quo.

 

40, no degree, no career. What should I do?

Take my life as a warning. Don’t end up like me. I graduated high school with big dreams but struggled mightily in college. I transferred to 3 diff schools and changed my major 5 or 6 times. Didn’t graduate. GPA is a whopping 2.3. Spent the next 15 years not doing much other than being a housewife. Never held a full-time job.

Now I want to turn my life around. Call it a midlife crisis or whatever you want. I want to go back to school but not sure what for. How do I pick what degree to get? I’m not smart enough for engineering or nursing. Maybe business but that sounds boring. I have an interest in accounting because it pays well, but I’m struggling to learn the basics. I don’t want to go to school for just anything. Studying is difficult for me and I don’t know why —maybe I’m not smart enough for college?

What path in life should I take?

Jobadvisor

First, drop the idea that you "aren't smart enough." Struggling with college in your twenties—especially while jumping between five majors—is usually an executive function or study-strategy issue, not an intelligence limit. Running a household for 15 years requires organization, resilience, and attention to detail. Those are real skills.

To turn this around without burning money or time, follow a structured process to pick a path that actually fits how your brain works.

1. Address the Studying Hurdle First

Before enrolling in full degree programs, test your learning style and build study stamina with zero-risk options:

• Get screened for ADHD/learning differences: High-school overachievers who hit a wall in college often have undiagnosed executive dysfunction. A diagnosis can unlock accommodations like extended test time or tutoring.
  
  
• Take 1-2 low-cost, low-stakes courses: Use platforms like Coursera, WGU Academy, or a local community college to take introductory courses before committing to a degree.
  
  

2. Evaluate Career Paths Suited for Practical Learners

Path	Pros	Educational Requirement	Fit for You
Bookkeeping / Payroll	High demand, predictable, less theoretical math than CPA-track Accounting	Professional Certificate (e.g., Quickbooks Certified, AIPB)	High: Great stepping stone if you want accounting principles without 4 years of heavy theory.
Health Information Tech (HIT) / Medical Coding	Healthcare pay without bedside nursing duties; highly structured	1–2 Year Associate Degree or Certification (AAPC / AHIMA)	High: Detail-oriented, rule-based work that doesn't require advanced math or science.
Human Resources (HR)	Uses organizational and interpersonal skills; good career ladder	Associate or Bachelor's in Business/HR, or a SHRM-CP certificate	Medium: Less numbers-heavy than business/finance, more focus on operations and compliance.
Paralegal Studies	Well-paying, structured, relies on research and precise organization	Certificate or Associate Degree (ABA-approved)	Medium: High reading load, but straightforward, logic-driven work.

3. Choose the Right Educational Model

Avoid traditional four-year universities right now. Instead, look into:

• Community College Associate Degrees (AAS): Direct pipeline to employment with strong hands-on tutoring centers and support staff.
  
  
• Competency-Based Online Universities (e.g., WGU): Allows you to move at your own speed rather than forced 16-week semesters.

Layoff PTSD is REAL

I’ve been laid off 3 times in 6 years. The most recent four days ago. I can tell you with 100% certainty that with my last job the feeling of PTSD and always looking over your work 50 times for ANY issue and worrying that every meeting invite is you getting laid off is real. Anyone suffered this? And how did you overcome it?

Jobadvisor

What you are experiencing isn't paranoia—it is a totally rational psychological response to repeated workplace trauma. Experiencing three layoffs in six years repeatedly shatters your sense of psychological safety and control, forcing your brain into a perpetual "fight-or-flight" state. Checking work 50 times (hypervigilance) and dreading every calendar invite (catastrophizing) are classic trauma reactions.

Overcoming layoff PTSD isn't about telling yourself to "relax"; it's about systematically retraining your nervous system and rebuilding control where you actually have it.

1. Separate Performance from Survival

• Acknowledge the macro reality: Layoffs are almost always financial, structural, or managerial decisions—not a reflection of your worth or ability.
  
  
• Audit the fear: When a random calendar invite pops up, name the panic directly: "This is my past trauma talking, not objective evidence." Force yourself to check basic facts: Is this a 1-on-1 with a peer? An team catch-up? Is there an actual pattern, or is it panic talking?
  
  

2. Shift Control from the Employer to Yourself

The feeling of helplessness fuels hypervigilance. You regain power by building safety nets outside your job:

• Maintain a permanent "Go Bag": Keep your resume updated, maintain active LinkedIn connections, and store personal portfolio samples on a private drive continuously—not just when you get fired. Knowing you can launch a job search tomorrow removes a massive layer of existential dread.
  
  
• Build an aggressive emergency fund: Financial runway is the single most effective buffer against workplace anxiety. Even 3–6 months of lean expenses significantly lowers the stakes of any sudden meeting.
  
  
• Diversify your identity: When your entire identity and financial survival are tied to one employer, every threat feels life-threatening. Invest heavily in personal hobbies, family, or side projects so work remains just one pillar of your life, not the foundation.
  
  

3. Set Boundary Habits at Your Next Job

• Limit double-checking: Establish a concrete rule for work review (e.g., check a document twice, then send). Compulsive over-checking reinforces the brain's belief that a disaster is imminent.
  
  
• Ask for meeting contexts: If an unscheduled or vague meeting appears on your calendar, establish a polite habit of asking: "Do you have a quick agenda or anything I should prepare in advance?"
  
  
• Seek professional support: Trauma responses rooted in financial instability respond very well to targeted therapy like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to uncouple past sudden terminations from present workplace events.

Recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn, convinced me to apply, then rejected me because my experience "wasn't a match"

A recruiter messaged me on LinkedIn last week about a role at their company. I wasn't actively applying there and had never even seen the posting before.

Their message specifically mentioned my current job, said my background looked like a strong fit and asked if I'd be interested in chatting.

I replied that it sounded interesting, and they sent me the application link saying I should apply before we scheduled a call. Fair enough.

I spent maybe 30 minutes adjusting my resume so the relevant experience was obvious, filled out their application, answered all the little questions and sent it in.

Two days later I got the standard automated rejection email saying they had reviewed my qualifications and decided my experience "does not closely align with the requirements of the position."

I assumed maybe the recruiter hadn't seen it yet, so I messaged them saying I'd received a rejection and asked if that meant the role was no longer a fit.

Their response was basically, "Unfortunately the hiring team is looking for candidates with experience more closely matching the job description."

That's it. No explanation for why they contacted me in the first place.

The funniest part is my LinkedIn profile has LESS detail than the resume they rejected. Every relevant job title and skill they originally liked was still right there.

I know recruiters send messages to multiple people and I'm not expecting some personalized courtship, but this one genuinely confused me.

You found me, looked at my profile, told me I seemed like a strong candidate, asked me to spend time applying, and THEN discovered I don't have the experience you're looking for?

What exactly was the first message based on, my profile picture?

At least buy me dinner before making me fill out Workday for no reason.

Jobadvisor

Your frustration is 100% justified. What happened isn't a reflection of your qualifications—it’s a direct result of the deeply lazy, automated mechanics of modern talent acquisition.

Here is what almost certainly happened behind the scenes:

1. You Were the Victim of InMail Automation

Recruiters rarely read individual profiles before sending that initial message. They set up boolean search strings (e.g., matching a keyword or job title) and use automated LinkedIn tools to blast out templated messages to hundreds of people at once. The message saying your background looked like a "strong fit" was a pre-written template with a merge tag pulling in your current company name.

2. The Recruiter Used You to Pad Their Top-of-Funnel Pipeline

Recruiters are often judged on volume metrics—how many applicants they drive to a posting. By asking you to apply before scheduling a call, the recruiter outsourced their actual screening job to the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) or the hiring manager.

3. The Hiring Manager Blocked It (or the ATS Filtered It)

Once your resume entered the official system, one of two things happened:

• The ATS keyword filter rejected it: If your resume didn't match the exact arbitrary parameters set in their system, an automated rule triggered the rejection.
  
  
• The hiring manager disagreed: The recruiter blasted out messages based on broad keywords, but when the actual hiring manager looked at the queue, they said, "No, I specifically want X years of Y tool," and hit reject.
  
  

How to Protect Your Time Next Time

Instead of...	Do this...
Applying immediately via a link	Ask for a 10-minute intro call first to confirm mutual fit before filling out Workday.
Tailoring your resume right away	Submit your standard resume if they insist on an application before talking. Don't invest custom effort until a human has actually spoken to you.
Replying to the rejection email	Reply directly to the recruiter's original InMail thread with a brief, professional call-out: "Thanks for letting me know. Since you originally reached out to me regarding my background, could you share what specific gap the team saw?" (Often they won't reply, but it forces them to acknowledge the waste of time).

It’s an infuriating process, but remember: they came to you. The rejection wasn't about your capability—it was about a broken system and a recruiter taking shortcuts.

Return to office is the dumbest thing ever for most jobs. Hybrid should be the status quo.

This is coming from someone who worked prior to Covid in an office full time btw.

Covid has permanently changed the world when it comes to jobs. An office is now a “nice to have” and not a necessity. Meetings can be done over Teams or Zoom, seeing people face to face shouldn’t be 100% required anymore for MOST OFFICE JOBS.

I completely understand that there are jobs that cannot be done remotely 100% of the time.

But how jobs believe people are more efficient by sitting at a desk Monday thru Friday for 40hrs a week watching paint dry to collect a paycheck is beyond me.

Jobadvisor

The frustration is real, and the data backs you up. The strict "5-day Return to Office" push often feels like a massive regression, especially after workers proved for years that productivity doesn't vanish the moment you step away from a cubicle.

The modern pushback against 100% full-time RTO usually boils down to a fundamental clash between employee productivity and corporate control:

Why Full RTO Feels Outdated

• The "Virtual Office" Paradox: Employees commute an hour each way just to sit at a desk, put on noise-canceling headphones, and join Zoom meetings with teammates who are either on a different floor or in another city.
  
  
• Focus Time vs. "Presence": Modern open-office layouts are optimized for constant interruption, making deep, complex work harder to execute compared to a quiet home setup.
  
  
• The Cost of the Commute: Full RTO reintroduces unpaid travel time, fuel costs, transit fares, and lost work-life flexibility without offering a tangible productivity upside for most individual-contributor tasks.
  
  

Why Executives Keep Pushing For It Anyway

While leadership often cites "culture and spontaneous collaboration," the underlying drivers usually look more like this:

• Commercial Real Estate Guilt: Companies tied to 10- or 15-year office leases face immense financial pressure to justify millions of dollars spent on empty square footage.
  
  
• Managerial Control: Traditional management structures rely on visibility ("buns in seats") as a proxy for actual output and work rate.
  
  
• Stealth Layoffs: Mandating a strict 5-day RTO is a documented tactic for companies looking to shrink headcounts voluntarily without paying severance.
  
  

Why Hybrid Won the Middle Ground

For the vast majority of knowledge workers, structured hybrid (e.g., 2–3 days in, 2–3 days remote) has emerged as the most sustainable balance:

• Targeted In-Person Days: Reserving office time for complex brainstorming, team onboarding, cross-departmental alignment, and social connection.
  
  
• Dedicated Remote Days: Saving heads-down execution, heavy reading, deep analytical tasks, and administrative work for home.

What is up with parents thinking it’s still easy to get a higher paying job?

My parents keep telling me to get a better high paying job as if it’s that easy. I have a higher education and more certs than both of them but I am struggling right now. I’m living paycheck to paycheck and they love to make it seem like it’s my fault. My dad got chosen from the warehouse bunch and was promoted back in the day to some draft engineering role. A similar situation with my mom.

Hell, they didn’t even have their GED when they had 3 kids, had a 3 bedroom home with a huge backyard and 2 cars and the occasional vacations.

Do they really think it’s that simple these days? No matter what I tell them, they refuse to believe how much things have changed and then we get into a damn argument over it

Jobadvisor

You are not crazy, and you aren't failing—the economic rules your parents lived by simply do not exist anymore.

When your parents entered the workforce, companies routinely promoted internally from non-credentialed roles, housing costs tracked reasonably with median incomes, and a single income could purchase a home and support a family. Today, the labor market and broader economy operate on an entirely different set of rules:

1. The "Credential Inflation" Wall

In your dad’s era, a company would train a hardworking warehouse worker to be a draft engineer on the job. Today, companies outsource that training risk to the job seeker. Positions that used to require a high school diploma now demand a Bachelor's degree, 3–5 years of specific software experience, and industry certifications—just to clear an automated Applicant Tracking System (ATS) filter before a human ever reads the resume.

2. The Mathematical Reality of Housing and Living Costs

The gap between income growth and basic living expenses isn't an opinion; it's a cold mathematical fact:

• Housing: In the 1980s, the median home price was roughly 3 to 4 times the median annual household income. Today, home prices sit closer to 5 to 6 times median income (and far higher in metro areas).
  
  
• Higher Education: Public university tuition has spiked over 200% (adjusted for inflation) over the last 50 years, forcing modern workers to take on massive debt burdens for credentials older generations got cheaply or didn't need at all.
  
  
• Essential Services: Healthcare, insurance, and basic necessities have drastically outpaced wage growth.
  
  

3. Why Your Parents Can't See It (Survivor & Anchoring Bias)

Your parents are looking at the world through Anchoring Bias—their baseline for "what a dollar buys" and "how hard it is to get a job" was locked in decades ago. Because they worked hard and succeeded under the old rules, acknowledging today's reality feels to them like admitting their own success was partially due to favorable economic timing rather than 100% pure grit.

How to Handle the Family Dynamic

Trying to convince them with statistics rarely works because it threatens their worldview. To save your sanity:

• Set an Info Diet: Stop sharing details about your job applications, income struggles, or career searches with them. If you give them updates, keep it surface-level ("Things are fine, just keeping at it").
  
  
• Refuse the Debate: When they offer outdated advice ("Just walk in and ask to speak to the manager"), use brief non-defensive responses like: "The hiring process works differently now with online systems, but I'm managing it," or "I know you mean well, but I've got a strategy I'm following."
  
  
• Protect Your Mental Energy: You need every ounce of focus to navigate a tough economic climate. Do not burn your energy trying to get validation from people who haven't had to look for an entry-level or mid-career job in 30 years.