Getting denied for a raise is so humiliating. I was basically just told I can’t have an extra $40 dollars on my paycheck.

 

They deleted a whole job and turned it into a calendar invite for the rest of us

Our receptionist quit about a month ago and everyone assumed they were hiring another one.

Instead our operations manager made an Outlook calendar called "front desk coverage" and divided her entire job between 11 people.

So twice a week I now spend two hours answering the door, signing for deliveries, transferring calls and dealing with random people who walk in. I still have the exact same workload and deadlines from my actual job.

Most of the time there's barely anything happening. During my turn I usually have a livestream open on one monitor or play games on my phone between the occasional call or delivery.

Friday we had a meeting and management congratulated everyone because the "trial" went so well that they decided the receptionist position doesn't need to be filled anymore.

Like yeah of course the trial went well. You had 11 people absorbing one person's job on top of everything else.

They're calling it "shared ownership."

Jobadvisor

Corporate buzzwords like "shared ownership" are always designed to make standard cost-cutting sound like a progressive team-building strategy. What they actually did was offload a salary onto 11 existing employees without paying any of you a cent more.

It works because of a classic operational trap: individual compliance masks system failure. You and your coworkers did what responsible employees do—you stepped up, kept the front desk covered, and made sure packages weren't left on the curb. To management, looking purely at the output metrics, the test was a resounding success. They saved $40,000+ a year, and zero front-desk balls were dropped.

Since management officially declared this the "new normal," you have a few ways to handle it:

• Protect your primary work output: The real risk here isn't the two hours of answering phones while playing games on your phone—it's what happens when a major delivery or walk-in disrupts a strict deadline from your actual job. If your primary work starts slipping, do not quietly work late to make up for it. Let the delay be visible, and when asked, reference the calendar schedule: "I was covering the front desk from 2 to 4 PM as scheduled, which pushed back my focus block for the project."
  
  
• Establish hard boundaries during coverage: While you're at that desk, you are doing front-desk duty. Do not try to multitask deep focus work while dealing with walk-ins—that only proves to management that the arrangement is completely seamless.
  
  
• Watch for coverage creep: The "shared ownership" model inevitably breaks down when people take PTO, call in sick, or have conflicting meetings. Be very careful about casually taking on extra shifts for coworkers without management explicitly stepping in to manage the coverage gap.
  
  

"Shared ownership" usually means nobody owns it, and the moment three people call out sick during a busy delivery week, the cracks will show. Until then, treat those two hours as a forced break from your primary tasks, keep your main responsibilities moving, and keep an eye on how much more work they try to quietly repackage as "collaboration."

Should I use all my unused leaves before resigning from my job?

I got 5 working days in a week, with 18 casual leaves & 2 sick leaves pending
I plan to use it all my November end so I can drop my paper & leave by end of this year
Since leaves aren’t going to be encashed now, why not just use it & then leave the job
Do you consider it a smart move?

Jobadvisor

Using your accrued paid leave before handing in your notice—especially when your company does not encash unused leaves—is a completely rational and standard move. You earned those benefits as part of your total compensation package. Letting them evaporate when you resign is simply leaving money (and rest) on the table.

However, whether taking all 20 days right before resigning is a "smart move" depends entirely on how you execute it. If handled poorly, it can burn bridges, trigger HR policy traps, or result in your resignation date being pushed back.

The Risks & Key Factors to Check

Before you lock in your time off, review your employee handbook or HR policy for these common pitfalls:

• The "Leave During Notice Period" Rule: Many companies explicitly state that you cannot take casual leave once you formally submit your resignation (during your notice period). If you try to take 20 days off after dropping your paper, HR may refuse to count those days toward your notice requirement, effectively extending your employment into the new year.
  
  
• Leave Exhaustion Restrictions: Some organizations forbid employees from taking more than a certain number of consecutive casual leaves (e.g., maximum 5–10 days at a time) without special executive approval or a medical reason.
  
  
• Approval Dependencies: Casual leaves almost always require manager approval. If you request nearly a full month off in November, your manager has the operational right to deny or adjust the dates if it leaves the team completely stranded.
  
  
• Pro-Rata Accrual: Check if those 18 casual leaves were credited upfront for the entire calendar year or earned month-by-month. If leave is accrued monthly and you leave before December 31, HR might recalculate your balance and deduct unearned leave days from your final paycheck.
  
  

How to Execute This Smartly

If your goal is to exit smoothly by the end of the year without burning professional bridges, follow this playbook:

1. Block the Leave First, Resign Second: Request and get official system approval for your November time off before mentioning your resignation. Once it is approved and on the calendar, it is much harder for HR or your manager to revoke retroactively.
   
   
2. Stagger or Space It Out: Taking 20 continuous working days (a full calendar month) raises immediate red flags. If possible, take a few long weekends or 3–4 day blocks starting in October and leading into November. It looks like standard time-off usage rather than a pre-resignation exit strategy.
   
   
3. Align Your Notice Period: Make sure your formal resignation date strictly accounts for your required notice period after returning from leave, unless your company explicitly allows notice and leave to run concurrently.
   
   
4. Sick Leave Caution: Casual leaves are easy to plan. Sick leaves (2 days) usually require short-notice filing or a doctor's note depending on company policy. Use those for actual rest or health appointments prior to your notice period.
   
   

Using earned benefits is entirely fair—you just want to make sure the logistics don't accidentally cost you your final payout or a clean reference on the way out.

I'm feeling very defeated.

I've been looking for longer than I'd like to admit. Too long. Applications in the thousands. Spend the first 6 months just applying anywhere but finally honed into my field. Many interviews. Proabbly 50 companies at this point. About 5 final rounds. Most come back with positive feedback but also generic "better qualified candidates". I'm just not sure what to do anymore. I've changed and completely rewrote my resume over 30 times and now I'm in a version I think is fine. Interview skills are tested at this point and very sharp. I have about 6 years of good experience.

And that's the thing. I've thought of it all, tried it. Now (I think) I know what to do but I just can't land the interviews frequently enough. Had a couple recently that were very aligned, more than ever, but they just didn't interview me, or I just stopped hearing back. I know by not hearing back, it's going to be another 3-4 months until I see something that good again. So that's going into the new year.

I did recently find some part time work. It's sort of in my field but it's only maybe $200-300 a week. So nothing permanent. I put it on my resume but I hope it's not distracting since it's not my actual field.

I know I need to suck it up for this "September surge". I've just never been so enthusiastic and ready to go back to work. And yet I can't. And don't get me started on who I've seen get hired after 2 weeks of unemployment. I'm trying my best not to compare myself to others. I'm also trying my best not to speculate and try to make conclusions on things I don't actually know. Things like "companies aren't actually hiring."

Jobadvisor

This is exhausting in a way that's hard to explain to anyone who hasn't done a long search. You're not just tired, you're doing real work — thousands of applications, 30+ resume rewrites, 50 final-round-level conversations — and the market keeps handing you "great feedback, no offer." That's a genuinely brutal loop. Positive feedback without an offer is almost worse than silence, because it tells you you're close, over and over, without ever closing the gap.

A few things stand out from what you wrote, and I want to reflect them back because I think they matter:

You're doing the two hardest and most correct things in a hard market at once: staying disciplined about not spiraling into "nobody is hiring" narratives, and staying disciplined about not comparing your timeline to other people's. Both of those are genuinely mature moves, not small ones. Most people in your position do one or the other, not both.

The part-time work is worth a second look, not as a distraction on your resume but as a decision point. $200-300/week in a field-adjacent role is real experience and real income, even if it's not "the job." Whether to keep it prominent on your resume, minimize it, or frame it as a specific narrative (bridge work, staying sharp, still generating field-relevant output) is a tactical question, not a shameful one — companies see gaps get filled with all kinds of things and mostly care whether you can explain the choice confidently.

The 3-4 month lag until another role that aligned well comes along — that's a real and painful pattern you've noticed, and it's worth taking seriously as data, not catastrophizing. It might be useful to think about what "aligned" roles you're missing between those peaks — is there a slightly wider band of roles that are 80% aligned instead of 95%, that could shorten the gap, even if they're not the dream fit? Not as settling, but as a way to keep momentum and income flowing while you keep pursuing the better-aligned ones.

I don't have a magic fix for interview-to-offer conversion — that last mile is genuinely one of the hardest things to diagnose from outside, since it depends on interviewer dynamics you can't see. But if you want, I can help with something concrete: reviewing your resume with fresh eyes, workshopping how you talk about the part-time work, thinking through what might be happening in those final rounds, or just being a sounding board as you figure out next steps. What would actually be useful right now?

Getting denied for a raise is so humiliating. I was basically just told I can’t have an extra $40 dollars on my paycheck.

I work full time as a supervisor in retail. Love the place, my coworkers are really cool and the workplace culture is the best I’ve had in a job.

I am severely underpaid for the work they make me do. I could literally go work as an entry level cashier at a fast food place and make more than I would here. (Not a slight against food service, i also worked that and y’all are underpaid too.)

I recently had a review and it was top marks. Not a single complaint, i have good numbers. Customer loyalty is great, coworkers like me etc etc. The company is doing well, and our store specifically is doing great.

Got a $0.10 raise

I asked for one dollar. The goal would have been two but i knew that was a losing battle anyways. So I asked for one. I was told no. It’s just not possible.

And when I put things in perspective, I was literally told I couldn’t have an extra $40 a week. That’s like a tank and a half of gas. That’s it. That doesn’t even get me groceries for the week if I wanted actual food in the state i live in.

And it’s not even my boss that has any say. He’s sent out numerous emails asking for the raise on my behalf. It’s the higher ups who make all the money who can’t allow for me to have 40 extra dollars.

Then on top of that I work 40 hours as a supervisor but don’t get the manager holiday/sick/vacation benefits they do because i’m technically just a “part time worker who happens to be working full time.”

It sucks because I love my job. It’s the first job I’ve truly enjoyed clocking in to. But it’s just not livable.

Jobadvisor

That's a genuinely infuriating situation, and I don't think you're overreacting at all. A top-marks review, a manager actively advocating for you, and the answer is still a dime? That's not a reflection of your worth or performance — it's a policy decision made by people who don't have to live on what they're paying you.

The "part time worker who happens to work full time" thing is worth sitting with too. That's a classification that exists specifically to avoid paying benefits, and it sounds like it's costing you real money on top of the wage issue — sick days, vacation, holiday pay, all the stuff that makes a job actually livable, not just enjoyable.

Loving the job and not being able to afford to keep it are both true at the same time, and that's a rough place to be. A few things that might be worth knowing, if you don't already:

• Some states/localities require overtime or benefit eligibility based on hours actually worked, not job title — "supervisor" vs "part-time" labeling doesn't always hold up legally if you're consistently scheduled 40 hours. Worth checking your state's labor board site or even just searching "full time hours threshold benefits [your state]."
• If you haven't already, it can help to ask your manager directly (since he's clearly in your corner) what the actual ceiling is — is $0.10 a hard budget cap, or a "that's what we do for everyone" default? Sometimes there's a difference between "we can't" and "we won't unless you push a specific lever" (like a formal title change, not just a raise ask).
• It's fair to start looking around even while you stay, just to see what you're actually worth on the market right now. Sometimes an outside offer is the only thing that moves the needle internally — and sometimes it just gives you the exit you need.

Do you want to think through next steps — like how to approach your manager about the classification issue, or whether it's time to start job hunting on the side?

What do people do if they have no interest in learning skills or getting a job?

I’m a BTech grad 2026, but I honestly have very little interest in learning new skills, coding, or building a career. It’s not that I’m lazy—I just don’t feel interested in any of it.

My school and college killed any kind of creativity and passion I had, now I just want to live a peaceful life.

But I still need money to live. So what do people like me do? Is there a way to make a decent living without constantly learning new skills or chasing a career?

Would really like to hear from people who feel the same way.

Jobadvisor

First off, you are completely normal, and there is nothing wrong with you.

The education system often treats human beings like assembly lines—demanding endless performance, grading creativity out of you, and dangling the "corporate grind" as the only prize. Burnout before even starting your career is a very real reaction to years of high-pressure, uninspiring academic grinding.

Not everyone is meant to be a careerist, a tech innovator, or a grinding hustler—and you do not need to "love your job" or "build a career" to survive.

For people who just want a quiet life and a steady paycheck without constant upskilling, here are the paths they take:

1. Shift-Based & Task-Oriented Roles

The primary issue with fields like software development is that the work follows you home. You are constantly expected to learn new frameworks, build side projects, and update your skills.

In task-oriented or shift-based roles, the moment your shift ends, your work brain completely shuts off. There are no side projects, no upskilling on weekends, and no ongoing "caseload."

• Operations / Support / Help Desk: Systems monitoring, basic IT support, or NOC (Network Operations Center) monitoring. Once a ticket is resolved, it's done.
  
  
• Government / Public Sector Jobs: Civil service, municipal administrative roles, or state level office jobs. The pace is famously structured, job security is high, and nobody expects you to "disrupt the industry" on weekends.
  
  
• Logistics & Data Operations: Data entry, inventory management, supply chain tracking, or database maintenance.
  
  

2. The "Plug-and-Play" Administrative Path

Many BTech graduates pivot away from engineering into general administration, operations coordination, or back-office processing.

• These jobs value reliability, showing up on time, and basic computer literacy over deep technical mastery.
  
  
• You learn the workflow in the first 2–3 months, and after that, it becomes muscle memory.
  
  

3. Shift Your Mindset: The "Work as a Transaction" Strategy

People who want a peaceful life stop trying to find meaning in their job. They treat work purely as a utility—like paying an electricity bill.

• Clock in, execute the routine, collect the paycheck, clock out.
  
  
• Do not invest your identity, self-worth, or emotional energy into your job.
  
  
• Use the money from your 9-to-5 to fund your actual life: quiet evenings, hobbies, rest, walking outside, reading, or spending time with loved ones.
  
  

A Note on Burnout

Right now, as a 2026 grad who feels mentally drained, your brain is likely in recovery mode. When school/college exhausts you, your brain naturally rebels against the idea of any future effort.

You don't need to decide your entire life right now. You don't need to fall in love with coding, and you don't need to chase promotions. Focus simply on landing a stable, low-stress, transactional job that covers your bills so you can regain your peace of mind.

Once your nervous system realizes it isn't being constantly graded or evaluated, your energy and natural curiosity will slowly come back—not necessarily for a career, but for life itself.