If you're having a remote interview don't do it in your bed

I spoke with my colleague who is a manager within our finance department. He mentioned to me yesterday that a candidate was in her bed during the interview and he had to turn off the camera at one point because he found it hard not to laugh. This would be the same person who would complain that there's no work. Not saying it isn't difficult out here. But people need to conduct themselves correctly when talking to businesses. It's crazy how someone is wanting a company to invest in them while they are not even willing to get out of bed.

Jobadvisor

That level of casualness during an interview is wild. Showing up to a job interview literally in bed sends a massive signal about how someone operates, their level of professionalism, and how seriously they take the opportunity.

When a company interviews a candidate, they aren't just assessing skills—they're evaluating reliability, judgment, and professional etiquette. Sitting up at a desk or table, dressing appropriately, and ensuring a neutral background are basic baselines for remote work. Doing an interview from bed immediately raises red flags about how that person might perform when unsupervised day-to-day.

Even in tight, shared, or limited living spaces, there are simple ways to set up a professional remote environment:

• Use a neutral wall or desk space: Sit upright in a chair with a solid surface for your device.
  
  
• Enable a virtual or blurred background: If the room is messy or personal items are unavoidable, built-in background blur hides personal surroundings completely.
  
  
• Elevate the camera to eye level: Propping up a laptop on books prevents awkward angles and looks far more engaged.
  
  
• Dress for the job: Wearing professional attire from the waist up immediately sets the right tone.

Finally landed a job!

Well, that was a fucking close one.

I was laid off on May 1 and just accepted an offer yesterday. Never thought it would happen to me. It was a complete shock. Given that I work in cybersecurity and had been making ~$250K/yr for like six years now, I felt pretty indispensable as a senior-level IC. Nope. This economy is a whole different beast.

Wife and I took out loans, ran up our credit cards, etc., just to stay afloat. Me losing my job meant we lost about 66% of our household income. We moved states, bought our first house, and bought a new car, all about 5 months before I was laid off, meaning we had pretty much drained our savings and other funds in order to pack, move, make down payments, do home repairs, upgrades, maintenance, etc., so the timing of the layoff was particularly awful from a financial standpoint. We were about 3 months out from foreclosure and I was looking into filing for bankruptcy if things continued to spiral. We had no family to fall back on, no friends in the immediate area, and definitely no financial assistance of any kind.

The only reason I landed a job was through my network and previous coworkers. And even that was a stretch. Most people were totally unable or unwilling to help. Cold applying wasn't getting any traction and it was incredibly discouraging to see each and every posting had legitimately hundreds or even thousands of applicants. Felt like a massive waste of time each time I finished the application process... and it mostly was. I only ended up getting three callbacks from recruiters that way over the span of the last 4 months.

I made it past final rounds just to only get told "it was close, but we went with another candidate." Fucking soul crushing. A couple years back I used to keep my LinkedIn notifications turned off because I was getting inundated with recruiter messages constantly. I used to know that if I made it to the final round, I had the job in the bag. No question in my mind. Well... not anymore. Spending so much time in interviews, prepping and studying, going through rounds, building up momentum, etc., thinking I'd maybe finally gotten out of this nightmare to only get told I wasn't being picked was absolutely brutal on my psyche. I must have aged 4 years in the last 4 months.

I genuinely empathize with everyone who's on here, day in and day out, searching, trying, applying, interviewing, worrying about bills, watching their bank account go negative, dealing with interview anxiety, and so on. It's just a horrible time to be in the market. Horrible. I never want to experience anything like this again.

The one thing I kept telling myself over and over was a saying that's stuck with me for a long time: "The only way out is through." Meaning, there was no escape from my situation but to find a job. Nobody was coming to save me. I wasn't going to win the lotto. Nobody was just going to hand me a job. Nobody really cared about my situation. It was on me to keep pushing.

Shit sucks. If you've read this far, I genuinely hope you find the mental strength and ability to persevere because most days I really didn't feel like I had it in me to continue.

Good luck out there. I mean it.

Jobadvisor

This is a genuinely brutal five months, and you got through it. Foreclosure looming, savings gone, bankruptcy on the table, wife and kids... whatever it looked like at home... watching the money drain while you kept sitting through interview after interview that ended in "close but no." That's not a mild rough patch. That's the kind of stretch that changes how a person sees stability, even after it's over.

The detail that sticks out is the shift you noticed in yourself — used to ignore recruiter messages, used to know a final round meant an offer, and then that certainty just wasn't true anymore. That's a real recalibration of how the market works, not just bad luck a few times in a row. You're not wrong that it's a different beast right now, especially at senior IC comp levels where the pool of open roles is smaller and the applicant pool per role is enormous.

And I think it's worth naming plainly: you did the thing that actually works when cold applications aren't landing — you leaned on network and former coworkers, kept showing up to interviews that didn't pan out, and kept going anyway. "The only way out is through" isn't just a nice line, it's literally what got you here. No one else was going to do the work of getting you through final rounds four separate times.

Take a minute to actually feel the relief before you move into recovery-planning mode. You just spent months in survival math — now there's room to breathe.

When you're ready, a few practical things worth thinking through: an emergency fund rebuild plan given how thin the cushion got, what to do with the debt you took on to stay afloat, and whether it's worth talking to whoever holds your mortgage about the loans/cards situation now that income is stable again. No pressure to get into any of that tonight though — sounds like tonight's for the win.

And truly — congratulations. You earned this one.

Nontraditional post, late 40s former surgeon looking to find a path back to contentment. Anyone find a way out of depression, or pivoted from medicine to something that made them better?

I hope I’m not too old for this group.

I had a mostly normal life, until my partner had a psychological crisis. Wife and daughter deceased now.

I got really depressed and eventually just stopped working. The past few years of my life I’ve just been trying to get out of the depression.

I’ve gone backwards in life, I don’t really trust myself, even as a surgeon anymore. I used to teach, I was very involved and social.

I’m in therapy and I’ve been in therapy. I’ve been on every med class known to man.

I’m wondering if there’s another path. Anyone pivot from medicine? I’m not looking to be who I used to be before. Just a settled life with less pain would be fine. Something to distract enough.

I’m wondering if there might be something that’s stimulating enough to get me excited enough and distract enough. I think any pivot might be difficult due to the effort required.

it’s so hard to pursue anything new. I basically just eat, sleep, therapy, attempt stuff.

I’m perfectly healthy physically. I imagine the exhaustion is the depression. Labs are all clean. Imaging all clean.

For background:
Microbiology and education for bachelors.
MD/JD
In a bad financial place now. I’ve spent all of it on trying to fix the depression. I think if I can get some energy back, it won’t be a big deal. But right now I just can’t function. I’ll go days without eating because it’s too much work.

Any ideas welcome and appreciated. Thank you

Jobadvisor

I'm sorry. Losing your wife and daughter, and then losing the version of yourself that could function, teach, and trust his own hands — that's an almost unimaginable amount to carry alone. It makes complete sense that "getting back to who I was" isn't even the goal anymore. Wanting something quieter, something with less pain in it, isn't a lesser ambition. It's a reasonable one given what you've survived.

A couple of things I want to say before the career question, because I think they matter more right now:

Going days without eating because it's "too much work" is your body running on empty, not just your mood being low. That's worth telling your therapist or psychiatrist directly and specifically — not "I'm still depressed" but "I am not eating for multiple days at a time." That single symptom can worsen everything else (energy, cognition, medication efficacy), and it's the kind of thing that's easy to under-report because it feels like a symptom of the depression rather than its own problem needing attention. If you've been through "every med class known to man" without relief, it may also be worth asking specifically about treatment-resistant depression protocols — things like TMS, ketamine/esketamine, or ECT if it hasn't come up, and whether your current team has expertise there or can refer you to someone who does. You clearly haven't been passive about your treatment, so this isn't a suggestion that you haven't tried — it's that treatment-resistant depression sometimes needs a different lane of care than serial medication trials.

On the pivot — your background actually gives you unusual options that don't require the stamina of a surgical career or the social load you mentioned you don't have right now:

Lower-activation options that use what you already know:

• Medical-legal consulting / chart review — insurance companies, law firms, and medical malpractice defense firms pay physicians (often JD-holders especially) to review records and write opinions. It's solitary, deadline-driven rather than people-driven, and can often be done from home on your own schedule.
• Expert witness work — similarly solitary, uses your MD/JD combo directly, and is compensated well per hour without requiring you to reenter clinical practice.
• Medical writing/editing — regulatory writing, case report editing, or curriculum development for med ed companies. You mentioned you used to teach; this is teaching without the live-performance pressure of a classroom.
• Utilization review / telehealth-adjacent admin roles — some are part-time or contract, lower stakes than direct patient care.

None of these require you to have your old energy back first. They're things you could do in small, low-pressure doses while still rebuilding.

Given the financial pressure you mentioned, is it the money or the structure/purpose you need most right now? That might change which of these makes sense to chase first.

I also want to gently flag: what you've described — the grief, the exhaustion, the not-eating, the financial strain — is a lot of risk stacked together. If things ever feel like more than you can carry, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988 in the US) is there, and it's fine to use it for exactly this kind of grinding, chronic depression, not just acute crises.

You're still here, still asking questions, still trying to figure out the next thing. That's not nothing.

26, unemployed, living with my parents, and I have huge dreams

I don't really know where to start with this, but I need to get this off my chest.

I'm 26, (everyone thinks I'm much younger, usually around 19 and I'm frequently mistaken for being underage). I live with my parents, I'm currently unemployed, and I don't have much money. I have a Bachelor's degree in History and am finishing a Master's degree in Anthropology, but right now I feel like I spent years studying without really thinking about what kind of life I wanted afterwards.

My parents supported me financially throughout university, and sometimes I feel incredibly guilty about that. They helped me get a degree and a master's, but I chose those paths mostly because I liked the subjects and because, at the time, I was kind of daydreaming about my future rather than actually planning it.

Now I'm looking for work and realizing that the degrees I have don't exactly open a huge number of doors, and I feel completely lost. I will start next week as a chess teacher, but for only 1 hour a day, and I will barely earn any money.

I also think COVID affected me much more than I realized at the time. Afterwards, I feel like it took me years to mentally recover and start feeling like myself again, I don't really know what I was doing in 2022, 2023 and 2024. I feel like I lost a lot of time just trying to get back on my feet and find myself again. Now I'm 26 and I keep thinking that I should already have my life figured out.

And besides, I have this incredibly strong desire to explore the world.

I've always loved nature, and it feels impossible to ignore. I want to see more forests, mountains, wildlife, deserts, national parks, remote places, ancient trees, and landscapes.

I'm very grateful that, with the little money I've made, I've travelled quite a bit in my country, Portugal, a little in Spain, and for a week in Norway; this year, I went to California and Nevada for 10 days with my cousin (who also likes adventure and nature). I walked more than 100 km during the trip, saw Yosemite, giant sequoias, the bristlecone pine trees, deserts, canyons, etc. It was even better than I could imagine; I was made for this, for adventure, for nature and to explore. I can't put into words what it was like seeing sequoias like Grizzly Giant and General Grant firsthand or seeing the Yosemite landscapes. I'm forever grateful for these adventures. But even though the trip was incredible, it felt like far too few days, everything was in a hurry to see the most we possible could, I came back whole, but after a while the depression came back, and I feel like I need constant adventure and wilderness to live. Sleeping some days in hostels made me realize what it's like to meet fellow travelers, and It's such an incredible feeling connecting with people from the whole world, it made me realize how small the bubble I live in is. Even the rural american towns made me feel connected to it in such an incredible, already nostalgic way.

I thankfully have another trip to Costa Rica planned for next year with my cousin, and I'm incredibly excited about it. But again, it will only be for around 10 or so days. Instead of satisfying this desire, I'm already thinking that the trip will be far too short.

Sometimes I imagine just leaving for months. Getting a backpack, travelling through different countries, hiking, seeing wildlife, cultures, sleeping in different places and not knowing exactly where I'll be a few weeks later. There are so many places in this world I want to see and feel.

And then reality hits me that I don't have much money, I don't have a job, I live with my parents and I have a girlfriend who means an enormous amount to me and who I don't want to leave behind. She's still studying, btw. My mother would probably be devastated and in constant stress if I suddenly decided to disappear around the world for months. My parents have supported me for years, including financially, and part of me feels that I owe them something in return.

And I don't actually want to abandon them and what they built to me and that's what makes this so difficult.

I'm constantly caught between two completely different lives.

One part of me desperately wants to get a job, become independent, move out eventually, build a home, stay close to my family and girlfriend, and finally feel like I'm becoming an adult.

Another part of me wants to say:

"You're 26. You have one life. Go and see the world while you can."

Social media has made this ultimately far worse by constantly comparing myself to others who travel the world or have their lives figured out, often younger than me.

And I don't know how to reconcile those two things.

Sometimes I feel like I'm already too late. Like I wasted the years when I should have been figuring myself out, and now I'm starting from almost zero at 26 with degrees that don't give me many obvious career options.

I know objectively that 26 isn't old.

But when you're unemployed, living with your parents, broke, and watching people your age move forward with their careers and lives, it can feel very different.

I don't even necessarily want to "escape" my entire life.

I love my family. I love my girlfriend. I want a future with her and I don't want to hurt my parents.

I just also desperately want to live.

Maybe the answer is to find a way of having both.

Maybe I need to build a career that gives me enough freedom to travel regularly. Maybe I need to accept that I can't spend years travelling and still have everything else exactly as I want it.

I honestly don't know.

I'm just tired of feeling like I've already messed up my life when, technically, I'm only 26.

Has anyone else been in a similar position?

Unemployed people, living with their parents, unsure about their career and simultaneously had this huge desire to just go and see the world?

How did you reconcile the need for stability with the feeling that there is an entire world out there that you haven't seen?

I'm open to advice from anyone. Thanks.

Jobadvisor

First, breathe out. You haven't ruined your life—not even close. Millions of people in their mid-to-late twenties experience this exact existential tension, particularly those who graduated into or spent pivotal years during the disruptions of 2020–2022. Feeling "behind" is an illusion amplified by social media highlights, not a measure of your real potential.

You do not have to choose between abandon-everything nomadism and a soul-crushing 9-to-5 that locks you in one place. Your deep connection to nature, history, and culture isn't a distraction; it's a compass. The goal right now isn't to pick a path forever, but to build a bridge between financial independence and a lifestyle that honors your love for adventure.

Here is a practical framework to shift your mindset and start taking control:

1. Reframe Your Degrees

History and Anthropology degrees do not bind you to academia, nor are they "useless." They train you in:

• Qualitative research & field analysis (crucial for UX research, policy, market analysis, and journalism).
  
  
• Narrative synthesis & storytelling (highly valued in content strategy, tourism management, heritage conservation, and non-profits).
  
  
• Cross-cultural communication (a key skill in international development, remote project management, and diplomacy).
  
  

Stop seeing your degrees as a mistake; start framing them as training in understanding human environments and cultures.

2. Leverage Career Pathways Built for Travel & Nature

Instead of viewing work and travel as opposing forces, focus on careers that integrate them naturally:

• Field-Based Roles: Look into nature conservation NGOs, environmental education, national park management, or eco-First: You have not messed up your life.
  
  

At 26, it feels like everyone around you is hitting milestones, but you are actually sitting on a remarkably common—and salvageable—crossroads. The "COVID gap" (2020–2023) stunted the momentum of millions of young adults. Combine that with two humanities degrees, and feeling adrift right now is not a personal failure; it is a predictable systemic outcome.

What you are experiencing isn't an identity crisis; it is a misalignment of your current setup with your core values.

Here is how you shift your mindset and start building a life that reconciles your love for adventure with your commitment to your family and girlfriend.

1. Deconstruct the False Binary

You are framing your life as a choice between two extremes:

• Option A: Settle down, get a local office job, stay in your hometown, and give up on the wild.
  
  
• Option B: Become a dirtbag backpacker, abandon your girlfriend, devastate your parents, and wander forever.
  
  

This is a false dichotomy. The most fulfilling life for you exists in the middle: building a career that finances and enables long-term exploration while giving you a stable base.

You don't need to choose between stability and adventure—you need stability to afford sustainable adventure.

2. Reframe Your "Shortcomings" into Assets

Your Current Reality	Mindset Shift	Actionable Advantage
Living with parents	Low overhead cost	You have virtually zero financial risk right now. You can afford to take lower-paying entry jobs or spend time retraining without worrying about rent.
History & Anthropology degrees	You know how to research, write, and analyze human systems	Companies don't hire "anthropologists"; they hire people who understand human behavior, user research, content strategy, and project management.
Mistaken for 19	Youthful energy & low social expectation	You have time. Nobody expects a 26-year-old to have it all figured out except social media.
Teaching chess (1 hr/day)	A foot in the door	It proves you can teach, manage a group, break down complex logic, and hold responsibility.

3. Practical Bridge Careers for Your Skillset & Passion

Since you love nature, cultural connections, and travel, but also want a stable life with your girlfriend, stop looking for generic "jobs" and look for enabling careers:

Category A: Nature & Field-Based Careers

• Ecotourism / Adventure Guiding: Companies leading tours in Europe or Latin America look for people fluent in Portuguese/English, with degrees in history/anthropology, who understand local landscapes and cultures.
  
  
• Environmental/Cultural Resource Management (CRM): Public and private sectors hire people with history/anthropology degrees to conduct field surveys, map historical sites, and assess natural parks.
  
  
• Outdoor Education / Park Operations: Working with national parks, conservation non-profits, or outdoor leadership organizations (like Outward Bound).
  
  

Category B: High-Flexibility / Remote Work

• User Experience (UX) Research: Anthropology is the ultimate background for UX research (understanding how people interact with systems). UX researchers can often work remotely or flexibly.
  
  
• Technical Writing / Content Strategy: Synthesizing complex information into clear narratives—a core skill of history/anthropology majors.
  
  
• International NGO / Project Coordination: Organizations dealing with heritage, conservation, or community development.
  
  

4. Re-architecting Your Mindset: The 3-Phase Plan

Instead of daydreaming about a 6-month backpacking trip you currently can't afford, structure your next 2 years logically:

Phase 1: Establish Traction (Months 0–6)

• Treat job hunting as your 9-to-5: The 1-hour chess job is a great anchor. Use the remaining 7 hours of the workday to upskill, network, and apply for jobs.
  
  
• Mute the comparison noise: Delete or heavily restrict social media accounts that showcase hyper-curated "digital nomad" or "twenty-something millionaire" lifestyles. They are selling an aesthetic, not reality.
  
  
• Own your narrative: When people ask what you do, don't say "I'm unemployed." Say, "I just finished my Master's in Anthropology, I'm coaching chess, and I'm transitioning into [target field]."
  
  

Phase 2: Build the Capital (Months 6–18)

• Save aggressively: Because you live with your parents, every euro you earn from your first real job can be split into three buckets:
  
  
  1. Independence Fund (moving out with your girlfriend when she finishes school).
     
     
  2. Adventure Fund (financing 3–4 week dedicated expeditions).
     
     
  3. Parent Gratitude Fund (taking them out, helping with bills, showing them their investment paid off).
     
     

Phase 3: Transition to "Micro-Expeditions" (18+ Months)

• Realize that 10-day trips feel rushed because you are starving for adventure. Once you build an active weekend routine (local thru-hiking, camping, trail running in Portugal/Spain), a 2-week trip will feel like a celebration, not an emergency escape.
  
  
• Work toward negotiating remote flexibility or taking jobs with seasonal downtime (e.g., teaching, field research, guiding).
  
  

A Final Thought on Guilt and Gratitude

Your parents didn't support your education so you could feel trapped by debt to them; they supported you so you could build a thoughtful, meaningful life. You don't "owe" them a life of staying small. You owe them—and yourself—a life where you take action.

You are 26, healthy, highly educated, culturally aware, and deeply capable of loving both people and the planet. You haven't lost time; you were just waiting for the right direction. Start taking small, deliberate steps toward a career that feeds both your need for stability and your hunger for the wild.