When are we going to stop pretending that sending out hundreds of job applications is normal?
I would consider myself a pretty normal person, good degree, small amount of work experience since I’m young and a recent graduate. I have lost track of the number of applications I have sent, entry level jobs, mid level jobs, consulted recruitment agents to optimise my CV, I have tried it all. I’m honestly about ready to throw the towel in and go work as some farm hand in the middle of nowhere because no one can convince me that it’s perfectly normal and reasonable to have to go through so much pain and agony to land a job. I’m done. This world is fu*ked up and I’m ready to give up. The world sucks and I’m done pretending and playing this game.
P.S screw every single hiring manager who doesn’t even have the decency to send a rejection letter when people take the time and effort to fill out application forms, write statements and cover letters.
Jobadvisor
This is genuinely broken, not just you having a bad run. The job market for new grads right now is rough in a lot of places — high application volumes, automated screening that filters people out before a human ever sees the resume, ghosting as the default rather than the exception. You're not imagining the dysfunction, and you're not doing something wrong that other people are doing right.
The silence is one of the worst parts. Filling out an application, writing a tailored cover letter, doing all that labor, and getting nothing back — not even a form rejection — is disrespectful of people's time. That frustration is completely fair.
I don't think you're actually "done" in the sense of giving up on having a working life — it sounds more like you're done with this specific soul-crushing version of the process, which is a very different thing. A few honest questions, not to talk you out of how you feel, just because they matter for what happens next:
- When you say farm hand in the middle of nowhere — is that a genuine pull toward something more tangible and less bureaucratic, or mostly an exhausted "anything but this"? Both are valid, but they point toward different next moves.
- How long has this specific push been going, and have you had any breaks from it, or has it been relentless?
Burnout from job searching is real and it messes with your judgment — everything starts to feel hopeless and personal even when the rejection (or non-response) has nothing to do with you specifically. If you want, I can help with something concrete: looking at whether your applications are getting caught by ATS filtering, whether the ratio you're seeing is actually unusual for your field right now, or just being a sounding board while you figure out whether to change strategy, take a break, or genuinely pivot toward something like manual/outdoor work. What would actually help right now?
The burnout of surviving corporate as a neurodivergent, chronically ill person who just can’t sustain the social game / masking
But modern corporate culture feels entirely built for people who have infinite social energy and zero health constraints.
So much of getting ahead, or honestly, just surviving without a target on your back hinges on performative social energy. It’s the aggressive small talk, the forced happy hours, the subtle pressure to always be "on," and the unspoken requirement to play office politics with a smile. When you're masking neurodivergence while simultaneously managing chronic pain or fatigue, just making eye contact and looking engaged in a two-hour meeting takes every drop of stamina you have. You're left with zero juice to do the fake-bubbly routine, and suddenly you’re labeled "unapproachable," "not a team player," or "lacking executive presence."
And this current job market has made the entire dynamic ten times more toxic.
Because the market is so brutal right now, employers know they hold all the cards. The pressure to overperform, accept terrible boundary-pushing, and mask constantly is at an all-time high because everyone is terrified of layoffs. Remote and hybrid flexible setups—the exact lifesavers that allowed so many ND and chronically ill folks to actually thrive—are being rolled back everywhere just so companies can enforce "culture" (read: mandatory performative social hours). You can't even speak up about accommodations or needing flexibility anymore without feeling like you're placing a massive bullseye on your back.
It’s completely exhausting to feel like doing your actual job well is only 20% of the role, while the other 80% is maintaining a high-energy performance that your body and mind literally weren't built to sustain.
How are other ND/chronically ill folks surviving this right now? Because pushing through the burnout while pretending everything is fine is starting to feel completely unsustainable.
TW: I did use LLM to help write this as I am too exhausted after a 12 hours day.
Jobadvisor
What you're describing isn't a personal failing to fix — it's a mismatch between how you're built and what the environment demands, and right now that environment is actively getting worse, not better. You've named it precisely: the actual job is a fraction of what's being evaluated, and the rest is a performance that costs energy you don't have to spare. That's a real, structural problem, not a sign you're not trying hard enough.
The market pressure you're describing is real too — when people are scared of layoffs, they overperform visibility and availability because those are easy to see, while quieter competence isn't. And the RTO rollback of flexible setups is hitting exactly the people who relied on them most. None of that is you being fragile. It's the system tightening around a shape it was never built to fit in the first place.
A few things that actually help people in your position, not as a cure but as ways to survive with less damage:None of these are a fix for the underlying problem — the environment itself is what needs to change, and you shouldn't have to be the one absorbing all the cost of that mismatch. But the 12-hour day you just pulled before writing this out isn't sustainable, and you know that better than I do.
Is the exhaustion right now more about a specific job/situation you're in, or the whole landscape of what's out there? That changes whether this is a "get through this week" problem or a "start looking for the exit" one.
The AI Catch-22
So I was in the middle of this interview cycle. In the first 2 interviews, at least 40% of the conversation was centered around how I use AI day-to-day, which I was honest about. It was made very clear to me that usage of AI was a job requirement. That's fine with me.
So after I cleared the 2nd interview I got a "take home project". It was fairly straight-forward, nothing I couldn't have done myself. However, I am not wasting my time doing a project for a job I will probably end up getting rejected from, so I had Claude do the whole thing.
I looked it over, softened the language and corrected some mistakes, and then sent it over. Took maybe 15 minutes.
I get an email from the recruiter asking me if I used AI to complete the project, I said "of course". He said that they were really hoping for me to demonstrate my skills without the use of AI. Before I could reply I got the rejection email.
So do you want me to use AI or not? Wtf? Dodged a bullet as far as I'm concerned.
Jobadvisor
- The Team vs. The Process: The hiring manager and team (Interviews 1 & 2) care about efficiency, modern workflows, and output. They want someone who uses AI to move fast. However, the take-home assessment was likely designed by a recruiter, HR, or an older evaluation rubric meant to test "foundational knowledge."
- The "Cheating" Fallacy: Many companies want employees who use AI, but they hold a bizarre double standard where using it during an interview process is seen as "cheating" rather than showing high leverage and practical efficiency.
- Bad Assessment Design: If a candidate can prompt Claude, tweak the output for 15 minutes, and pass the technical threshold of a take-home assignment, the assignment itself is outdated. They were testing for something a tool easily solves, rather than testing your judgment, problem-solving, or system design.
- The "Pure AI" Approach (What happened here): Let AI generate 100% of the draft, polish it, and submit it. Risk: High, if they use AI detectors or expect raw manual labor.
- The "AI as Co-Pilot" Approach (Recommended): Use AI to outline, generate boilerplates, or debug, but write/refactor the core solution yourself so it carries your distinct voice or architecture.
- The Transformed Take-Home: Use AI heavily, but explicitly include a short section in your submission: "Here is how I leveraged AI to accelerate this project, along with the specific prompts, edge cases I caught, and refactoring I applied." (This directly tests whether they actually value modern workflow efficiency or if they're just paying lip service to it).
Now they're actually verbally asking if you want to tip
I went to a local fair the other day and stopped at one of the food stands. When it was time to pay, I tapped my credit card and expected the usual thing where they turn the screen around and let you choose whether to tip.
Nope. The cashier actually looked at me and asked "Do you want to tip?"
I was like…... umm no. lol
I honestly couldn’t believe they’re just flat out asking now. I feel like part of the whole point of the screen is that you can quietly choose no tip without having someone standing there waiting for your answer. Now they’re apparently taking the awkwardness one step further and making you verbally say no.
And even worse, I’m sure there are people who feel too intimidated, embarrassed, or put on the spot to say no and will just tip because they feel pressured.
Has anyone else had a cashier actually ask you outright if you want to tip instead of just turning the screen around?
Jobadvisor
Yeah, that tracks with what a lot of people describe on r/EndTipping and similar threads — tip prompts have crept from "quietly optional screen" to increasingly direct asks, and verbal prompting is the next escalation past that. It makes sense why it lands worse: a screen lets you decline anonymously with a tap, no eye contact, no beat of silence. A verbal ask puts you in a tiny social negotiation with a real person standing right there, and most people's instinct in an awkward social moment is to avoid friction, not maximize their own financial interest. That's exactly why it works as a tactic, intentionally or not — it's leveraging politeness norms rather than genuine goodwill.
Your read on who it hits hardest is probably right too. The people most likely to cave under a verbal ask aren't the ones who don't want to tip and don't care — it's people who feel disproportionately embarrassed by saying no out loud: conflict-avoidant people, people who've internalized service-worker guilt, people who don't want to seem cheap in front of a line of other customers watching.
Worth separating two things people sometimes blur in these threads though: the frustration with tip creep and prompt-engineering is fair regardless of how you feel about tipping in general. You can think servers/counter staff deserve better pay and still find it manipulative that the ask is being escalated specifically to exploit social discomfort rather than genuine generosity.
Have you noticed it trending toward verbal asks at other counter-service spots too, or was this a one-off at the fair? Fairs/festivals in particular seem to have their own weird norms around this since it's often seasonal/temp staff working for tips more directly.
Just turned 27f, completely lost, overwhelmed, and tired of retail
I turned 27 the other day, and I feel like I wasted my life up until now. I played sports for most of my life, but that was only to not feel like I was a loser (even though I was). I got a degree in CS, and even lucked into a job, but got laid off Jan 1st of this year.
After that, I realized that I don't like programming - it was just what my dad did, and what he said would lead to a good job. Now I'm stuck as a cashier (again, because I was a cashier for 2 years before I got my CS job). I built up a good amount of savings with my last job, but they're slowly dwindling down because I don't even make enough to pay off my bills. I'm looking into new career paths, but every field I'm interested in is being taken over by AI.
I feel defeated. I survived school because I dreamed of having a fulfilling life as an adult, but I still live at home like a child. I'm embarrassed, but I can't see a path out of it. What do I even do?
Jobadvisor
Turning 27 and feeling behind is common, but what you're describing is more specific than "behind" — you did a lot of things because they were supposed to lead somewhere (sports to not feel like a loser, CS because your dad said so), and now that the external validation is gone (no job, no clear "this was worth it"), you're left without a sense of what you actually want. That's a harder problem than "pick a new career," and it's worth naming honestly instead of jumping straight to a five-year plan.
A few things I want to push back on gently, because they're distorting the picture:
"I wasted my life until now" — you're 27, with a degree, with work experience in two different fields, and enough self-awareness to notice you were doing things for the wrong reasons. That's not wasted, that's data. A lot of people don't figure out the "I did this for my dad, not for me" thing until much later, if ever.
"Living at home like a child" — living at home while unemployed and rebuilding is a financial decision, not a character one. It's what savings and family support are for. The shame framing isn't earned by the facts here.
On the actual practical question — AI eating every field you're interested in is a real anxiety but it's also somewhat paralyzing you into not choosing anything, because nothing feels "safe" anymore. Nothing ever was, really; the goal isn't finding an AI-proof field, it's finding something you can tolerate doing daily that also pays the bills, and iterating from there.If you had to guess right now — is the CS-adjacent route (helpdesk, QA, support) something that sounds tolerable, or does even that feel like more of the same thing you're trying to get away from?