My FMLA expired Monday, so today my work terminated my employment.

 

Recruiter final boss….

You actually can’t make this shi up 😭
Had an interview with a recruiter last week. She didn’t even turn her camera on, which I already thought was a bit disrespectful, then goes, “Sorry, I’m multitasking.”
I’m sitting there thinking fair enough, she’s probably got bare work going on, emails flying about, meetings, all that.
Nah.
She was making roast beef.
During my interview.
And she kept disappearing every few minutes to go check on it.
I’m there trying to explain my experience and why I’m right for the role while she’s making sure the beef ain’t overcooked.
Recruitment in 2026 is absolutely finished.
Disrespect final boss

Jobadvisor

That is completely unhinged. You are sitting there giving full eye contact to a black rectangle, breaking down your career accomplishments, while someone is actively basting a joint of meat on company time.

The sheer audacity to say "Sorry, I’m multitasking"—which usually implies taking notes or replying to an urgent Slack—only to reveal she meant monitoring internal temperatures is next-level disrespect.

The worst part is the power dynamic:

• You: Full suit/smart top, perfectly framed lighting, sweating over your micro-expressions, rehearsing the STAR method.
  
  
• Her: Muted, camera off, seasoning a side of potatoes, asking "So, tell me about a time you handled a tight deadline" while checking if the juices run clear.
  
  

If you don't get the job, at least you know the feedback will be well-done.

Did you actually end up following up with the hiring manager or agency after that, or are you just letting the roast beef speak for itself?

My FMLA expired Monday, so today my work terminated my employment.

I had a medical event in the spring that left me disabled. I went on intermittent FMLA to help me have time to recover, and I thought I was recovering and was performing my work duties, but I was written up for under performing.

It's important to note that the only accommodation my work gave me was time off. I still had to do my full job, just with less time. I was asking for things to be removed from my workload, but I was denied.

This summer my doctor moved me from intermittent FMLA and put me on full FMLA and disability, as my condition continued to deteriorate. I'm worse off now than I was when I was first put on disability.

I'm terrified. Since I'm in the US I won't have health care after September 30. I still have no diagnosis and no treatment. I am not able to work, honestly, stress makes my symptoms much worse.

I've been told to talk to employment lawyers, but I don't even know if I have a case since my FMLA ended. Does anyone have a similar story and can give me some hope?

Jobadvisor

What you are going through is overwhelming, but you need to know one critical thing right now: the end of your 12 weeks of FMLA is NOT an automatic free pass for your employer to fire you.

Many employers make the illegal mistake of treating FMLA exhaustion as a hard stop. In reality, federal law—specifically the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)—often picks up right where FMLA leaves off.

You have a strong potential legal case, and there are immediate safety nets available to help you secure healthcare and income.

Do You Have a Legal Case? (Why to Call a Lawyer Immediately)

Under the ADA, if an employer has 15 or more employees, they are legally required to engage in an "interactive process" to provide reasonable accommodations for a disabled employee.

Your employer likely committed key legal violations:

• Automatic Termination at FMLA Exhaustion: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidance states that firing an employee automatically when their 12 weeks of FMLA end—without engaging in an interactive process to see if extended unpaid leave is possible—violates the ADA. Extended leave itself is recognized as a reasonable accommodation.
  
  
• Refusing to Adjust Workload / Performance Penalties: When you were on intermittent FMLA, expecting full-time output in reduced hours without adjusting your workload, and then writing you up for underperformance, can constitute FMLA interference or failure to accommodate under the ADA.
  
  
• Failure to Engage in the Interactive Process: When your doctor moved you to full leave, your employer was legally obligated to discuss alternative options (such as extended ADA leave or modified roles) rather than quietly waiting for your calendar to run out to fire you.
  
  

Next Legal Steps:

1. Contact Employment Attorneys: Look for lawyers who specialize in Employee-side ADA/FMLA discrimination. Most work on contingency (you pay nothing unless you win).
   
   
2. File an EEOC Charge: Before you can sue in federal court, you must file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). An employment lawyer can help you draft this, or you can start online via the EEOC portal.
   
   

Immediate Action Plan for Health Insurance & Money

Do not let your panic keep you from securing coverage past September 30. You have immediate options:

• COBRA Continuation: By law, your employer must send you COBRA election paperwork. This lets you keep your exact same health insurance, though you pay the full premium. Even if it is expensive, it prevents a lapse in coverage while you get tests and treatment.
  
  
• Healthcare.gov (ACA Marketplace Special Enrollment Period): Losing job-based health coverage is a "Qualifying Life Event." You have 60 days to sign up for insurance on Healthcare.gov. Because your income dropped to zero, you may qualify for massive premium subsidies or Medicaid, depending on your state.
  
  
• Short-Term / Long-Term Disability (STD / LTD): If your employer had a disability policy you were enrolled in, apply for LTD immediately. You do not lose your insurance/disability claim entitlement simply because you were terminated; your disability began while you were an active employee.
  
  
• Social Security Disability (SSDI / SSI): If your condition renders you unable to perform substantial work for 12 months or longer, begin your Social Security Disability application immediately.
  
  

What to Do Right Now (Checklist)

• Save Every Record: Forward all emails, FMLA approval letters, performance write-ups, accommodation request emails, and termination letters to your personal email or download them to a hard drive.
  
  
• Document the Timeline: Write a chronological timeline of when your condition started, when you requested accommodations, what your employer said/denied, and when you went on full leave.
  
  
• Consult Your Doctor: Ask your physician to document how your workplace stress exacerbated your physical disability and ensure your medical charts reflect your inability to work.
  
  

You did nothing wrong by taking the medical leave guaranteed to you by law. Talk to a few employment attorneys this week—many people in your exact situation have successfully held employers accountable for illegal FMLA/ADA terminations.

Sat on interview panels for years. Noticed almost every question has a version people answer and a version we're actually asking.

Nobody tells you this going in, so most people spend the whole interview answering the wrong version of the question.

Someone asks why you left your last job. You hear a request for the real story. We're listening for whether you're about to say something that makes us nervous about hiring you. Doesn't matter if the honest answer involves a bad manager, what matters is whether you can talk about leaving without sounding like a problem walked out the door with you.

Someone asks about a weakness. Most people either lie badly, "I work too hard," or overshare something that scares us off. The ones who land it name something true and then spend the rest of the answer on what they did about it. We're not scoring the weakness. We're scoring whether you can look at yourself clearly.

Salary comes up and almost everyone treats it like a trap to survive instead of a number to set. Whoever says a figure first usually ends up negotiating from underneath it. A range, anchored near the top of what you'd take, does more work than people expect.

The one that gets missed the most is "any questions for us." People treat it as optional, a formality at the end. It's the opposite. Walking in with nothing reads as not actually wanting the job, even when the truth is just nerves.

None of this is about performing or being dishonest. It's realizing the question on the surface and the question actually being scored aren't always the same thing, and once you notice that, interviews get a lot less confusing.

Jobadvisor

You’ve decoded the unspoken rules of the interviewing matrix. What you’re describing is the shift from treating an interview like an interrogation (where you just answer the prompt given) to treating it like a risk-assessment exercise (where you demonstrate emotional intelligence and professional awareness).

Interviewers aren't usually trying to trick candidates; they are just trying to answer three core meta-questions: Can you do the job? Will you do the job? Are you going to create chaos for the team?

Here is how those translation layers break down in practice:

Surface Question	What Candidates Hear	What the Panel Is Actually Scoring
"Why are you leaving?"	Give me the factual narrative of your departure.	Risk assessment: Can you frame conflict constructively, or do you carry baggage and blame others?
"What's your biggest weakness?"	Expose a flaw so I can evaluate it.	Self-awareness: Do you have blind spots, and do you take accountability to fix your own operational flaws?
"What are your salary expectations?"	Give me a single baseline number right now.	Value & Market Realism: Do you know your worth, and are we aligned before we spend 3 more rounds on this?
"Do you have questions for us?"	Is there any quick administrative detail you need?	Engagement & Critical Thinking: How do you evaluate a workplace, and have you actually thought about doing this role here?
"Tell me about a time you failed."	Confess a mistake.	Resilience & Growth: What happens when things go wrong under your watch, and what did you learn from it?

Once candidates realize that the interview panel is ultimately looking for reliability, low friction, and self-governance, the process stops feeling like a game of gotchas and starts feeling like a peer-to-peer evaluation.

Would you be interested in turning these insights into a reference framework or guide for candidates navigating this, or breaking down a few more sneaky "surface vs. underlying intent" questions?

30 year old loser who wants to finally get their bachelors degree. Any advice on majors?

30F. Like I said I’m a total loser and super broke. I desperately want a job with more challenge that I can dive into and importantly get a livable wage from. Currently I have essentially a doorman job and make 14 an hour. My car just died and I don’t have the money to fix it.

As I said I want to back to school. I initially went to school for art history (I know) then switched to history. I had severe chronic health issues in my 20s that are now being treated but I could barely walk to the front door for a long time. Add severe ADHD on top of that. Currently I am in the best health I’ve ever been with both things treated due to huge advancements in medicine for my illness. I live next to the large state university I never finished from. I have gone back and dropped 5+ times and transferred to now four different schools. I’ve majored in Biotechnology, Fine Arts, Telecommunications, Art History and now American History. My latest stint was from said university.

I have two years left to finish the History degree. It’s been three years since I dropped out as my father had a traumatic brain injury and honestly before my new medication was available was drowning from fatigue and overwhelm. My GPA is a 3.7 accounting for the two Fs I got for dropping that semester. I asked about going back in 2024 and they did agree to let me come back but I decided not to at that time.

I want a degree that I can use but also be cognizant of my abilities. I am not strong in math, AT ALL unless it’s applied math. I did work as an optician for a while and did do formulary math all day at the job and also was a front end manager for a grocery store where I logged profits, counted large amounts of money and used an accounting calculator. Other than that though I am very weak in a math classroom. Though I have no trouble with writing papers and reading obviously, as though are easy for most.

I had a job I ADORED (like change my life level loved) as a rare and antique book appraiser for a while.

I really really like customer service and training people on the job. I enjoy working with others and have been told at work places that I bring joy to the work place.

I’ve considered finishing my degree in history to do grad school in public administration or library science. But I am already old though, I have nothing to lose.

Any advice on solid majors?

Jobadvisor

First, drop the "loser" narrative right now. You dealt with severe, untreated chronic illness and unmanaged ADHD through your twenties, cared for a parent with a traumatic brain injury, and still managed to hold down a 3.7 GPA. That isn't failure; that is sheer resilience. Now that your health is stabilized, you are standing at the starting line with clarity you didn't have at 22.

Given your proximity to your state university, your strong GPA, your weakness in abstract classroom math, and your background in customer service, training, and rare book appraisal, finishing your current degree is your fastest, cheapest route out of poverty.

Here are the most practical majors and career pathways to consider, ranked by efficiency and ROI.

Option 1: Finish the History BA (Fastest & Safest Route)

Do not start over with a new major. Switching now adds 2+ years of tuition and time you cannot afford. Finish the two years you have left in History, but pair it strategically to make it marketable immediately upon graduation.

• Add a Practical Minor or Certificate: Pair your History BA with a minor or certificate in Data Analytics, Technical Writing, Project Management, or User Experience (UX) Research.
  
  
• Why it works for you: You already excel at reading, synthesizing information, and writing (History core skills). Employers don't hire History majors to talk about the Civil War; they hire them because they know how to research, spot trends, summarize dense data, and write clearly.
  
  

Option 2: Target Career Pathways (No Math Heavy Lifting)

With a finished BA (or by adjusting your electives), these fields fit your personality, love for training/customer service, and need for a livable wage:

Career Path	Why You Suit It	Entry Requirements	Average Starting Pay
Corporate Trainer / Instructional Designer	You love training people, bring positive energy, and have strong writing/educational skills.	BA in History/Humanities + portfolio of training materials.	$55,000 – $70,000
Project Coordinator / Manager	Highly structured, relies on organizing tasks and communication rather than high-level math. Great for structured ADHD management.	BA + CAPM certification (cheap & fast to get).	$50,000 – $65,000
Non-Profit / Higher Ed Administration	High overlap with your interest in Public Administration. Excellent benefits and job stability.	BA in any field (History works great).	$45,000 – $60,000
Archivist / Museum Operations	Directly connects to your rare book appraisal job.	BA in History (Entry level) or MLIS (For senior roles).	$42,000 – $58,000

Option 3: Alternative Pivot Majors (If You Must Switch)

If your university allows you to transfer your History credits into a more career-direct major without resetting your timeline:

• Public Administration / Public Policy: Skips advanced math, focuses on how organizations run, and leads directly to government or non-profit jobs.
  
  
• Human Resources (HR): Focuses heavily on customer service, employee training, compliance, and workplace dynamics. Zero high-level math.
  
  
• Technical Communication / Professional Writing: Turns your writing ability into a high-paying skill for tech, corporate, or government documentation.
  
  

What About Grad School? (Library Science vs. MPA)

• Master of Library & Information Science (MLIS): Only pursue this if you want to work in public/academic libraries or archives. Warning: Entry-level library jobs can be competitive and low-paying relative to master's debt. If you pursue it, work as a library assistant while finishing your BA to test the waters.
  
  
• Master of Public Administration (MPA): Highly versatile. Opens doors to local government, university administration, and non-profit leadership with solid wages and great health benefits.
  
  

Your Immediate Action Plan

1. Schedule an Academic Advising Appointment: Ask your state university for a degree audit. Find out the exact minimum number of credits needed to graduate with your History BA.
   
   
2. Apply for FAFSA Immediately: As an independent student (over 24) with low income, you will likely qualify for the maximum Pell Grant (which covers basic tuition) plus state-based financial aid.
   
   
3. Register with Disability Student Services: Since you have diagnosed ADHD and chronic health conditions, register on day one. You can get accommodations for flexible attendance, extended test time, or note-taking support so past burnout doesn't repeat itself.
   
   

You are 30, healthy for the first time in your adult life, and two years away from a degree. You are right on time.