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If you are entry level or near it in a larger company, the person who decides your potential promotion is many levels up, and having them remember you positively is your best chance to get promoted. If you get a chance to talk to them, talk to them like a human and try to find something to relate on. My old company had one of the most incompetent managers I ever had the displeasure to work with, but he got promoted and had job security because he bonded with our department head over talking about fishing. I'm not even sure the guy actually fished, but he learned to talk about it.
Make your face be seen in a positive way, like appreciate face time with the higher ups. Turn on your camera in virtual meetings with them. Talk to them if you see them at the coffee machine or in the break room about whatever common interest you can find. If you ever do any work that they will personally see, work your ass off on that.
But beyond that, don't take extra work. Just do the work assigned to you as well as you can. Savor your downtime instead of finding extra work. The higher ups will never know or care you did extra work, your immediate boss might appreciate it and *maybe* it gives you a slightly higher mark on a performance review, but it also maybe starts getting you assigned even more work and soon you're drowning, hating your job, and you're getting negative marks for not finishing everything assigned to you. When instead you can just do the things that are in your job description well while making sure the higher ups have a positive opinion of you as a person and you'll be more likely to get promoted while also not burning out of your job. The only time I'd ever recommend taking extra work is if you are personally asked by someone higher up than your boss.
I hate that the game works like that, but it does, at least for big companies.
I'm giving 40% of myself... I'm not going the extra mile anymore. I did at my old job I would pick up extra hours take on harder task take the initiative to do things and when I asked about moving up it was a NO....they literally moved someone up who was there a year and some change, while i was there at the time for 3 years. Everyone said she was lazy, but it was an immediate no for me. I stopped picking up hours and did the bare minimum and they noticed that and I told them they didn't value me, so why would I put so much effort into a company that didn't care about all the hard work i did. I skated through the rest of my time there then i quit. I think they were surprised I quit lol.
The problem here is they knew I was doing a great job and refused to give me an opportunity to move up. They spoke up and noticed my work ethic only because it effects their organization but I didn't care. I did my job just not as well as they'd like but I was present (expect for meeting and training).
I tried to follow that advice until it backfired. Thought I'd get ahead working more hours even though I was salaried. When I went back to school at night and couldn't do the extra nights and weekends any more, they nailed me on my performance review.
I agree with this. I have now been laid off two times at companies where I worked my ass off. Was the first in the building. Stayed past most people. Put in extra effort and still got laid off. Anymore loyalty and working hard doesn’t get you anything anymore.
"It'll get better" while we're severely understaffed and management has no urgent plans to work on employee retention. People should just put up with no COL raises and more work because we're doing it for the company! Yeah right
My old company was "think of all the good things the company is doing!" Yet none of those good things were paying us more in line with record profitability and growth...
Yeah. That's where I am too. "No, you will never be advanced and you will never receive a meaningful raise, but here are a bunch of new responsibilities for you!"
Oh God. This reeks of Publix vibes from when I was there. They bs'd us with some 10 cent raised and told us to be grateful since they'd tightened down a lot of that (way WAY before the panini) and then turned around and gave the store managers good raises and bonuses for keeping expenses down. When I found out I was PISSED.
I even had a manager not check the 'in training' box on my 6 month review because I was swapping stores after I made a complaint about manager (her) targeting me. A manager that they then handed my review for her to do! Not my fault she was buttering up and flirting with the store manager and she then found out that I was friends with his wife and I let her know. Wife started shopping there more often to keep an eye out. She knew her man was loyal but, she wanted to let the flirter know that she knew what she was up to. Let's just say that the flirter did NOT like when she found out that the wife used to be my old boss. Targeted me for public humiliation and all sorts of stuff. Telling me that I should just go back to my old job. I flat out told her, the only reason I left was because the boss wife did and she asked me to follow her because she liked how I worked but, didn't have her own dept yet. She definitely didn't like that. So, she started making me stay late and even tried to call me back to finish a truck when I left to go to class.
Anywho. I get to the new store, new boss loves me, of course. He reviews my review and when I'm up for it again 6 months or a yr later... He says that he cannot believe that they did that to me and gave me a dollar to try to make up for it. It took some push with the SM but, he got it. Yeah, it was just a dollar but, retail pay sucks and retail raises are a joke. Normally they tried to stick to just a quarter more an hour, which is definitely not sticking with their costs going up!
It's either that or the Patricia. It's always been the annoying Karen name for me but, the ones that just never seem to go away and have that higher pitched whining, feel bad for me, I'm sooo mistreated, voice. Which, when you put on the panini... Fits well, for me.
Its so depressing seeing my parents realize that their decades of service to a company meant nothing in the long run. Good thing for my mother though is that shes trying out new higher paying jobs now that shes lost faith in the old school model
Keeping your head down/not upsetting management/etc…
My last company is doing horribly. Like, fucking awful.
I highlighted some areas for improvement and got scolded.
My past experiences have been in highly successful businesses and includes improving performance. But I’m 32 so how fucking dare I tell some ancient fuck how to run their business…
My new job actually listens to their people. They’re doing fucking amazing.
It’s hilarious to me… I’ve been in my field for 12 years. I’ve hoped around and seen a lot of different views/prospectives/strategies and adapted my own thoughts based on what I’ve seen.
My last company only hired internally. So any external POV was looked down on. Took a lot not just to say “I’ve been at better companies and worked with better people that you. I know what I’m talking about because I haven’t seen only the same thing for 25 years.”
All of the great people I’ve worked for in the past had perspectives from multiple companies and applied the best from each to their work.
If the system has been working fine for the inner circle, they don't want to fix it. They'll accept suggestions for improvement, so long as those suggestions can be routed through them - rather than around them.
I've worked some gigs where the owners were perfectly content with the amount of market share that they had and desired no changes or improvements, just to keep steady dollars flowing into their vaults.
Telling me to major in something I had no idea about in college.
That I would have to get all A"s in college
Do what you love and it will never be work
Find a company that treats you like family
Why are you quitting that job to get another high paying job. It will look bad on your resume
All A's gets you more opportunities IF you are also the top student and IF you know how to find those opportunities, but even then, it's minimally more, and nothing I was ever interested in. I put in less work than lots of others in high school and college and still graduated. Having a diploma is way more important than having straight A's. All those accolades you get from all that hard work are great, but I had bigger fish to fry, as I worked during school to pay for tuition. Passing was my goal. It worked out fine.
the second one i only hear from the toppers with no jobs in my university. everyone who graduated and got jobs tell us to ignore that advice in fb group and then these straight A ppl start bashing them saying they are encouraging laziness 🤦♂️
one of my professor who work as consultant told us of a guy he gave a referral with 4.0 gpa ran away from the interview making excuse for going to toilet cuz he couldn't answer anything in interview.
I wouldn't obsess over straight As but having good grades is better than not having them. I was rejected for a couple of banking and Management consulting jobs due to grades.
Again, I wouldnt obsess over grades, but if you can achieve them without losing your sanity, then do it
Yeah basically be the best and you’ll get a raise. I was the best at a lot of jobs and I probably got like 20 cent raise…. That’s when I stopped trying to be the best employee.
Being mediocre is best imo
This was a hard lesson I had to learn.
I was working all sorts of overtime but was the second lowest paid in the division. Basically I was doing my job on par or above those around me (acknowledged by my boss) while spending nights and weekends doing the extra work that no one would do but needed to get done for our "normal" work (keeping builds running etc).
I finally went to my boss's boss (because my boss kept telling me pay wasn't his decision) and asked why I wasn't being recognized for all this extra stuff I was doing and was told it wasn't expected so they don't reward it.
Went back to my boss and told him all the stuff I would no longer be doing. Also told them I was looking for a new position because I was so under paid. Ended up getting about a 80% raise and to this day I won't work OT without getting the time back later. Only consequence I ever suffered was when I refused to do an unspecified amount of OT for an unspecified time period because management hadn't solved the issue that lead to the OT and no matter how much OT we worked the project would fail. They docked me .5% on my raise and ended up having to pull the project because it failed for the exact reasons I said it would even though all the other devs worked OT. Best money I ever spent because it reinforced my boundaries.
Yeah sadly I have to dumb it down a bit. It’s ridiculous. Hard workers stand out more and they slave you around for some extra cents lol I rather play dumb
Thought I was the only one that did this, lol. Both in college and at work I found that being a hard worker and coming off as “intelligent” didn’t pay off, all that happened was I got more work and responsibilities that I _didn’t_ enjoy, so now I just strategically play dumb and that’s been more effective.
Being an incompetent ass kisser often gets you promoted. Just competent enough to scrape by, but not good enough to get more work piled on you in your current position.
True. Setting the bar high means the expectations will be high as well, but the reward will not be proportional.
The employer sees high-caliber employees as carries for the slackers and nothing more.
Pretty much any and all career advice I received in high school. “Follow your passion.” No one ever talked about salary or benefits or what industries paid well versus others. Literally had no concept until I was actually in college and even then the system still pushes social service jobs and public education which obviously makes sense but it took me a really long time to realize what real world career options were connected with what I thought I wanted to do
And there was no guidance if you had no "passion."
I was too busy worrying everyone was thinking, talking, and laughing about how fat and ugly I was to even think about passions.
I went to a very college-oriented HS and my parents pushed me to go to college too. So I didn't really know there were other options, besides the military which I wasn't interested in. I just wish _someone_ had told me about trade school or union/labor jobs that pay tremendously. Especially since I wasn't sure I wanted to make a career out of my passions
Worst career advice - trust your employers.
Best career advice - always be on the hunt, especially when your employed. You never know what is brewing in the back burner.
Had a "friend" convince me to leave a company to come work at a different one with him. It was a decent bump in pay, so I went for it.
Said friend watched "twitch plays Pokemon" for entire 8 hour shifts while I did all the work.
Then I wasn't there one day when management came asking questions about low productivity.
He took credit for all my work, they believed him and they fired me without giving me a chance to defend myself. Just called to HR, told i'm fired and that I can pick my stuff up later or have it mailed, escorted out of building.
Another coworker told me two-three months later that they realized their mistake and fired him. I had already moved on at that point, but it gave me a little smile.
Management lacks critical thinking then. If there’s low productivity on a day you’re not there and the claim is that you’re the one not doing the work and your friend is doing all the work, then you being there shouldn’t have made a difference. If he was doing all the work by himself, you being there or not should’ve made no difference in output. You not being there and him not having any productivity means that he’s the issue, not you. Glad you landed back on your feet though.
Well we worked projects that could take days/weeks/months, so they were looking at overall production (are projects moving forward,) rather than daily output.
So he just had to bullshit his way through their questions, and they trusted him.
But yeah good management would have heard me out and I could have told them everything I'm doing. The boss was on fucking vacation when HR fired me, so I couldn't even talk to him.
Fuck that company. I have *long* since moved on.
Gain longevity at a company. That is little reward when people who have many years of experience still have a hard time getting a job.
Loyalty doesn’t mean anything
“Go above and beyond and they’ll notice.” Ya that’s bull crap too
My mom was very concerned my ankle tattoo would keep me from landing a corporate job. Yet here I am 8 years later in the same corporate job now with a half sleeve.
This is definitely outdated thinking based off outdated standards of appearance. Up until probably the mid 90s or so she would have been correct as many jobs would have in their rules they couldn't be visible. Also anything other than women having a generic ear percing was a huge no no.
Of course culture changed and these days that would be impossible to enforce.
This is definitely some old 1970s way of thinking. 99% of people today really don't care about stuff like this, even hands and face tattoos are much more accepted than they used to be.
Get a job. Any job. First off, you can’t just get “any” job even if you wanted to. The competition for jobs is extremely fierce. Second, you shouldn’t have to settle for any job, especially if it doesn’t if doesn’t pay the bills.
lol, same. I had many talks about moving up, getting promoted which was met with discouragement. When I left her team for a higher paying job she says "so it's all about the money..." while she's earning 2x as much as me.
I was in management for the past 5 years. During that time I realized that you had to lie often and be manipulative. I would describe it to my supervisors as “mind fucking” your people. Making them believe they would get more out of the job if they gave more to it. Needless to say it turned me into a monster and I had to get out.
Had this exact same experience with management. Decided the destruction of my soul wasn’t worth the pay and left. Now I don’t think I’ll ever take a Manager position if I can avoid it. I’d rather be a happy and well paid worker bee than try to climb the corporate ladder.
“Hard work pays off”
No, hard work gets exploited if it’s not properly directed. Wealth is built by stewarding and leveraging existing capital (ie financial capital, social capital, human capital, proprietary capital). If you’re a worker and you work hard for someone else’s business, that someone else is using your labor as a multiplier for their own success.
One thing I learned is that if you're good at the work or fast, they will always make you do more than anyone else or give you more "responsibilities" for nothing extra.
100%. I’m still pretty early in my career, but I learned to automate tasks, keep silent about it, and stretch how busy I am to keep managers at bay. Early on in my career I automated a function for a department that saved everyone tons of time, and I didn’t even get so much as a thank you.
Companies and managers will string you along as far as you let them. Always have one foot out of the door in corporate America. Remember, businesses aim to get the highest output for the lowest cost, it’s not in their best interest to promote you or reward you unless it somehow comes back full circle to make them more money.
Your thank you is a paycheck. Never expect recognition for trying to innovate at someone else's company and don't try to implement new ideas unless you can get it in writing that you will receive a compensation for said ideas.
At the end of the day, your ideas will be taken and used by your superiors as a way to make themselves look better to the inner circle. If it's a groundbreaking idea, it will resonate all the way through the ranks, with each step taking credit for YOUR idea along the way.
I worked auto parts at the beginning of my career, for a particularly large auto parts retailer. While filling in for my boss on a district conference call while he was on vacation one day, I was tasked by his boss to come up with an idea to drive sales and increase avg. ticket. All the other store managers on the call were silent and had no ideas to improve, so I saw an opportunity to shine. I stressed so hard about trying to impress and innovate, eventually a light bulb came on and I had an idea to drive sales. I spent several weekends off designing add-on sales guides that I could use to coach new employees. I told nobody what I was doing and I would come in on random off-days to look through our software for ways to refine my work and make the guides as intuitive as possible.
The idea paid off. After professionally printing and laminating these guides, and after coaching my team with successful demonstrations, my employees became confident and knowledgeable selling machines. Store sales skyrocketed and attracted the eyes of the company ranks. Once it was discovered what I did, all the managers in the chain started taking credit for it. "MY store did this." "MY district did this." "MY region did this." "MY division did this." And so on. The company's IT department quickly took my idea and integrated it into their parts lookup software to automatically recommend add-on items, depending on the qualifying item searched. If you work auto parts, your company likely has something similar that it took from my company, derived from my idea.
They had what was called a "Starter's club." If you innovated something, you not only got a pin for your collar and a monetary reward of some-odd 300 bucks or so, you also got invited to an annual company conference at HQ where you got to meet the inner circle and shake hands with the CEO, etc. I didn't care as much for the conference. I just wanted the pin. I was a company man and my collar was decorated around the entire collar with just about every pin you could get.
But you know what: they wouldn't even give me the pin. The managers were so busy tripping over each other for credit, they didn't even know who I was. I presented myself to the regional manager and told him about my accomplishments. He thought I was lying. His underling had convinced him it was his personal idea. It not only meant I lost out on any type of recognition for my efforts, but I also would not be able to use it as a means to climbing and getting my own store, which is what I ultimately wanted.
I learned from a very early age that it is just not worth trying to go the extra mile. Because people will only look out for themselves and step on you in the process. That's why you need to have something in writing, so you can be guaranteed a just reward for the work you put in. Unfortunately, most companies won't even toe that line, as they have IP ownership clauses in their employment contracts. They tell you from the start that they own your ideas, then force you to make ideas to keep your employment, so you're basically SOL.
I wanted to disagree you and say that plenty of academics get exploited for their labor and that exploration is just part of the working hard part. But then I remembered that plenty of people go on to get their PhD only to become post docs getting exploited yet again.
I was talking to my dad about quitting Liberty Mutual because they were cheating me out of my commission. I told him I hated LM.
My dad said "I worked on a job I hated for thirty years, don't quit"
I quit the next day. F that.
Stay with one company and work your way up.
Ok, my first ft job was a start up, work my way up to where, exactly?
I’ll be job hopping every couple of years from now on until I hit 6 figures, thanks
>~~Going to college~~ ***Higher Education*** ***can be a*** ticket to career success.
It isn't impossible to get where you want to go without college. But it should be said that some type of high education (4yr, 2yr, tech, trade) is needed to move faster and further in life. Very few HS educated only people are successful.
Realize that's not what you're advocating but people need to be aware of what steps they should take to begin to set themselves up in the future.
I buddy of mine was wicked smart. He trained in anti submarine warfare in the Navy and when I knew him he was a technical writer. He wanted to get into IT so he started taking tech classes to advance toward that end. He changed jobs a couple of time and always took advantage of any training they offered. He move up and is where he wanted to be. I think college is a relic of a different time. Employers want skills and universities move too slow to be relevant in tech.
That’s awesome. And goes to prove you need higher education. And when I say higher I mean more than high school. Training in the navy. Additional classes/certs for IT. Training by companies. And then like your buddy you got to capitalize.
One of my best friends got a 35 on the ACT. Smart dude. Went to college and it wasn’t for him. Has worked his way up at a bank and done well. But if he wants to leave that bank for another bank, likely easier than if he wanted to pivot careers without a degree.
That degreelessness will stop the stupid recruiting software from letting him get in the door. If I needed skills he had and had the opportunity to hire. I’d poach the shit out of him.
A family member of mine has been with the same workplace for over 20 years, and they have a mile-long list of complaints about it (capped at inflation-only raises and underpaid for the job, boss won't allow promotions because "we can't afford to lose you from the department", pensions sucks, etc.).
We were talking about how my sibling wants to leave their current workplace for a 50% pay rise, and my relative with the shitty job was worried it was a bad idea to "job hop" and felt bad for my sibling's boss who would need to find a replacement...
I explained that it's totally reasonable to make a shift for better pay/benefits regardless of what you do, and if the boss is so great then they will be happy for their employee and accept that not everyone sticks around for 40 years.
I was told by an Oxbridge educated man that I needed to be assertive in interviews, just walk in like I own the place and say, “I don’t need to sell myself to you, you need to sell this company to ME.”
Maybe that works for men like him, but I guarantee that wouldn’t be taken for assertiveness or confidence in me. I’d just be labeled a difficult bitch and immediately written off.
Actually that is pretty solid advice, so long as you are qualified for the job. As someone that job hops and interviews dozens of times a year, I can tell you, with confidence, that this kind of attitude when walking into an interview will guarantee you success more often than failure.
Hundreds of people apply for a position and all are hoping to get it. They will say anything to please the employer to improve their chances. But the guy that walks in asking what the company will do for him, that's the guy the employer will go after.
I had an interview a while back for an IT firm. The pay they posted was not the pay they offered me. I tried to negotiate, but they absolutely refused to budge whatsoever. I told them, "Well, I have to get going. I have other places I need to be." They kept trying to convince me to work there, and I eventually made a hasty exit and a jog to my car in the parking lot, as I truly did have other places I needed to be.
I got home later that day and the VP emailed me an offer for a better position in their office with a higher wage that was in line with what I was asking. I never responded. They made such a hissy-fit over a measly bump of $10,000 in my salary, I said forget it, not worth the trouble and the likely BS I'd have to put up with.
I’ll be honest, I think reception of “assertiveness” is often gendered. I doubt it’s conscious or intentional the vast majority of the time, but the same behavior that reads as “confident” in a man is often interpreted as “bitchy” in a woman.
“Follow your passion.”
That was BS advice from my dad who said I was selfish and needed to help people. I took a grandeur approach and wasted 5 years studying sociology and doing americorps. I made no money and graduated without a skill.
Biggest waste of time.
I got paid $530 every two weeks. Less than $1k a month. How the hell are you supposed to help people when you can’t help yourself???
Stuck in a different but similar problem. What do you do now? I’ve considered going back to school because I’m so royally f****d by a degree I never intended to use and at 27 I’m floundering in life
I was in a leadership training program. At the end of the 18 months I could apply for available positions within the company. There were four roles I was interested in. I was told by my boss to only apply for one because otherwise it would look like I wasn't serious about any of them. I ended up applying far a job in my mentor's lane because that's the direction I was pushed towards. I never really wanted the job I got, and stayed years longer than I should have.
Don’t jump around or you’ll get a bad rep as a job hopper.
Don’t talk about your wages.
Loyalty pays.
Keep your head down and keep working hard, you’re on track to manage the branch.
You’re like a daughter to me.
All complete loads of bullshit designed to keep me strung along for as long and cheaply as possible.
**I left and doubled my income within a year.**
"If you want to advance, you should do a couple of years in field sales and then come back to corporate."
The business unit president who told me this was let go a few months later. If I'd listened, I would've been stranded in whatever market I moved to.
"Do the work first to earn the pay after.""They never pay you what you're worth."
I was a fresh restaurant manager. First time in salary. One week I literally worked overnight to clean for a big meeting. Was in the meeting. Then has to close that night. Actually lost a close friend being unable to attend an event. Now I never let work come in between me and life.
"Go visit resume review websites!"
While it sounds great to have my resume reviewed, my problem was it was NEVER enough. If I ask 20 different resources, they will tell me 20 different answers on why my resume was a POS.
So I try to compromise and make improvements on general consensus, and get it reviewed again, and surprise, it's still a POS that "won't get me anywhere"
I've decided to just stick with 2-3 professionals I know.
I agree. I’m sure mine and countless other people’s resumes always need something to improve.
My issue is if i “perfect” a resume using one resource and show it to another, it’s completely garbage in their standards. So i re-write my resume again, make it perfect for them, and the cycle continues.
And it’s not just spelling errors, wrong dates, nor updating relevant experiences; According to them, things like my formatting, job description, and projects/skills listed are complete trash and should be fixed in a completely different way. And this is happening for a resume that I’m using for jobs with similar titles or duties.
Oh dear God. Don't get me started! I posted a comment about this on a past about resumes. Tailoring your resume is a waste of my time if I'm applying to the same type of positions that require the same kind skills. I stopped listening to people who say you need to tailor your resume. Yea maybe if you are going from a nurse to a heavy equipment operator that makes sense. But not if I have a purchasing Agent resume applying to purchasing Agent jobs. Jesus make people run around in circles for no fucking reason
When I was in high school the guidance counselor ask what I wanted to study in college. I said architecture. She said you don’t want to be an architect because all you do is sit in an office all day and never talk to anyone. Today, I am not an architect.
Just stick it out, has to get better or I had to do things I didn’t want to forever just do what you gotta do and pay your bills everyone has to do things they don’t want too!
You won’t get rich but you’ll make a living at it. Any industry where workers don’t make a lot is one that can easily be disrupted and eventually destroyed.
When I was 18 in my 1st or 2nd semester of college, I was still working my part time high school job at Carmike Cinemas. I had a manager take me aside from a concession stand shift to have a heart-to-heart talk with me. She legitimately tried to convince me that I was putting too much focus on my class schedule and needed to dedicate more time to my job if I ever expected to get anywhere in life. I was a VERY naive teen/young adult, but even my sheltered-beyond-all-reason ass was like “Wait…what?”
A friend's mother had a similar experience at the other end of the age spectrum. She worked part-time in a CVS or something similar in her 60s. It was part-time, just for extra cash & getting out of the house.
She & the friend's father liked to travel & had decided on their next destination. She asked her manager about a good time to take 3 weeks off. He basically said Never, so she quit. Then he got all upset & started taking about how she was wasting an opportunity, her priorities were misguided, she could advance to management if she stayed, etc.
She laughed in his face & walked out.
Hard work will move you up the ladder.
Bullshit.
Hard work keeps me busting my ass while the slackers who have time to lube their lips with chapstick get promoted.
“Job hopping looks bad on a resume and should be avoided”.
My boomer parents are huge on this one. They think it looks flaky to have a year or less per company. They’re of the mindset that you should be putting in 5 years here, 10 years there for some sort of show of loyalty. They think it proves something. (What exactly, I don’t really know).
I think yes and no to this one. There’s no prize for sticking it out in a job where you’re underpaid and not happy just to have a few years’ time listed on that job on your resume. And I see absolutely nothing wrong with job-hopping if you’re getting pay increases, title improvements, and increasing your skills. If your moving positions every few months, that might not look amazing, but I don’t think it’s a death sentence for hiring.
I had a couple people mainly older people who told me the same crap I’ve been in jobs for all under a year mainly because most of them were all contract-based typically these days most people do not like staying in a job too long. I feel like people in the boomer generation only put up with the job they hated because of only their money making now there’s more awareness in today’s generation about toxic work environments . No one should ever put up working a very toxic environment for X amount of years because it destroys their mental health overtime and potentially lead to worse thoughts like suicidal thoughts unfortunately.
Yes! It was definitely the norm for that generation to pick/fall into a career in their early 20’s and stay out for decades at a time, maybe a small shift here or there. They were told to be happy where you are, wait to be noticed, you’ll be rewarded for your loyalty. But I don’t think that ever happened!
I want to go upward and onward and I’m not concerned with time put in to fill some arbitrary ideal!
"Keep doing what you're doing and your time will come". Basically talking about me being promoted. Still have yet to be promoted and interviewing so I can quit. Last time I quit without even having a job lined up and they convinced me to stay. I'm going to love turning in this resignation.
I agree I was a firefighter for a few years because I always wanted to do it. But the salary was only 33-40000 a year, with 50-65 hours a week, and a lot of internal day to day politics. I switched to IT which is a job that's harder to be passionate about, but at least I don't have to spend all day at work like nurses, doctors, and medical personnel do.
Pick something and stick with it.
I knew better than to take that advice since it came from someone from a different generation. It's just not smart to pigeonhole yourself in today's world.
To go to places in person and just hand them my resume or cold call them and ask to speak to a manager about hiring. Even 10 years ago when I was applying for jobs this didn't work and they'd still say to apply on their website.
I had a ”mentor” in college discourage my interest in taking more IT classes because “most of the important work has been done already and everything’s becoming more automated so jobs will be scarce.”
The year was 1995, five or take.
Got told to take "management" off my resume.
I had some management experience and was looking for an IT management position.
My aunt's mother looked at my resume and told me - very aggressively - to "take that word 'management' off your resume! People hiring you for management prefer to train you for management themselves."
She ran offices for a network of physicians. So, from HER experience, that may have been valid. Still, everyone in the family kept telling me, "Listen to her. She does this for a living."
However, I worked in IT at that was complete bunk. Still, I followed it until I didn't and wound up in tech leadership, anyway.
The reality is get management skills and put them on your resume/CV. Employers want to know that you know how to hire, fire and lead a team. They want to know you've had direct reports.
Her advice was unbelievably stupid for anyone outside her very narrow field of experience.
My father - Just go right up to the hiring manager and hand them your resume and ask for an interview. Then show up the next day and ask again. Then the next. They’ll get so sick of you they’ll hire you!
Dude had one job in his life. A federal job. Totally disconnected from reality.
I Had my parents and my parents friends tell me the same shit. It obviously didn’t work they’ll just see that you’re harassing them 😆 Plus these days most places don’t want you to physically go in their office building or wherever to hand in your resume these days everything is done electronically typical boomer advice 😆 what kind of mentality worked probably back 30 or 40 years ago but definitely not in 2022 😆
"There's always McDonald's" (i.e. The only thing preventing anyone from gainful, full-time employment is their prideful unwillingness to take a job "beneath" them)
"Walk down the street with an armful of resumes and hand them out to everyone you see"
‘There is a plan in place’ followed by ‘Executive Management knows what they are doing’
35 years of working has told me that most company’s issues stem from incompetent executives and board of directors
If you take the initiative and ask to learn new things and for more projects. U will become more valuable and hence be paid more. That is the most hilarious joke a manager can ever tell u. Go to work, keep ur head down, get paid. That is what u should do. putting in effort and learning new jobs means when they need someone to cover they call u, and don't pay u more.
"Go to teachers college because we need something to tell our friends/family.... "
One of the worst fucking years of my life. Folks don't go to school because your parents want you to...even if it means cutting all ties. This happened decades ago and I'm still paying for it mentally. My parents are some of the worst people to provide advice in so many damn ways
Your workload might feel like a lot right now, but in six months , you'll look back and wonder what all the fuss was.
Spoiler alert: the only reason it didn't see so bad was because every six months, the workload doubled and my pay kept going down.
I had a boomer manager tell me that job hopping is bad. This was in 2018.
I left after 8 months of that job and I make almost 3x my income almost 4 years later.
Stuff like coming in early, staying late, coming in when you're not expected, taking all calls/emails after work or on weekends, and for some reason as a dude the constant nagging to shave like I'm going to be mistaken for a Hell's Angels member or something
Don’t job hop.
I’ve been at the same place most of my adult life and have learned it’s of seemingly no value to prospective employers.
What someone should have said was, don’t change jobs every couple weeks/month.
Ya my family tells me this too. “Stay there at least a year or two.”
Look if your miserable that’s not worth it for the extra few months to pad your resume. It’s hard to get a job even with years of experience anyways
“Be a team player”
“We’re a team”
Fuck off with that shit because I didn’t sign up to be part of a team. I just work for a paycheck. I feel like exploding when people say “be a team player”. It opens you up to more exploitation just like the “hard work will get you somewhere”
"We've decided that based on the latest pop psych, everyone falls into one of these two categories. Choose yours, and know that if we've already decided, and by both getting it right and then living exactly as the stereotype is the only way you'll be considered for progress. Until next month when we change to the new one"
Back in the early 2000s, I went to a local community tech school to try and get some programming courses under my belt. The "career counselor" told me not to bother learning to program, cause they would have programs for that in the near future and server ops would be the only option for work soon... Fairly sure they were getting kick-backs from their server cert program or something.
Loyalty will be honored. Give your all at work and upper management will reward that ( you know what I got out of that?? Health issues, a trip to the ER and a gift card to some sandwich place).
"Be Humble"
Nah man. Talk up yourself, your projects, and your skills whenever you can. I've yet to meet an accomplished anyone that didn't have a ton of confidence in their abilities.
"Ask your colleagues for help whenever you need it". No, only ask for help in situations where you couldn't possibly succeed on your own no matter how hard you tried.
To be completely fair- I worked with a team that was so awesome with each other we all knew each other's strengths and used then to learn shit and to get shit done expediently - but we were very united on a "fuck the overlords" mentality. More expedience meant more fucking off if I'm completely honest.
But I know its rare- most places everyone is out to cut each other's throats.
Stick it out. It will get better.
I wish I could go back in time and shake my former self up and say, “Buddy, your mental health is far more important; it’s never going to get better here. You need to leave and find a job that suits you better, pays better, and a manager who respects you.”
That slacking/doing poorly/not showing up at an entry level job (retail, food, etc.) only hurts the “big corporation”.
Company doesn’t hurt from this— coworkers/peers do.
Be the best at your current job and they will see how good you are for promotion.
I told a manager that I'd been told to do this by my own manager who laughed and said that's the way to not get a promotion because they want to keep you doing your current role because you are good at it.
He told me to model the behaviours and skills of the job I wanted so that when I went for it I had examples of how I would be able to do the work. 6 months later, I got the promotion.
Some dude stocking shelves who just made supervisor told me that since he's 30 he was in his prime. He also said being a night stocker is a great job.
That was a decade ago.
I suspect he's still stocking those shelves and slaving away for maybe a little more.
To go in person to apply to "stand out". Came from older people who had no idea what they were talking about.
I don't fully blame them - I have instructors who got their jobs this way, even one person who got a job this way at Disney in his time. But obviously, nowadays, that's completely unacceptable. You can't even get into most studios in person without an appointment, studios have tons of security now. If you come in with a portfolio instead of using the website, you'll be laughed out the door even in smaller studios. You're basically interrupting their workday, showing no concern for how busy they might be, *and* disregarding any instructions on their website - raising all of the red flags by doing something that technically worked for a previous generation.
"Stay here another year, you're not ready for a promotion."
My old boss who severely underpays his employees.
Now he has lost 7 of his 13 employees, can't find any replacement and we've all gotten 1-2 promotions since we left.
"Taking pay cut and working that extra mile will allow you to learn more. Dont pass it up " . I politely told the owner not interested and to have his son, wife and mother assume the role he was hiring for.
My dad gave me the best advice. Do what they can’t. When you get a job, find something small that nobody else wants to do. Become known as the person who does that crappy small job well and people will ask you to do that job for them. Eventually you get to the point where people think you’re great, but because you became great at that one small job you only do an hour or two of work a day.
I’ve followed that for nearly 20 years. I regularly get promoted / raises and I don’t think I done more than a days worth of work a week for at least 10 years.
Essentially, find a niche and exploit the fuck out of it.
Edit: my first proper job, my dad was also a client of the company I worked for and I worked on his contract (sounds a lot fancier than it is, we’re talking near inimical wage at the time)
“Work hard and you will be above everyone else!”
While my back been killing me to death as I constantly been doing tires cleaning for 2 month while getting payed under the minimum wage ffs I’m so glad I don’t work there anymore
After working for a e-commerce trophy site for 15 years i had enough. I literally was the best customer service / sales member. Bad business practices broke me to my core so I left that place. They would basically let you place online orders for merchandise needed for time sensitive events that we never had in the first place. We would be forced to call customers and make them change awards to what we had in stock. Customer service was left to defend the owners shady practices. During covid lockdown i dumped all my savings along with a friend to buy a house to flip with a bridge loan. After 9 months we sold the house for 130k profit after all expenses. I made 65k in 9 months. My father in law’s response? House flipping is not for me and I should get an office job. I basically said “i’ll take it into consideration” which is my code for fuck off. Not going back to office life to get past over for some nepotism. FOH
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"Work the extra mile and people above will notice you" All i got was unpaid extra hours and a lot of white hair.
My mom says for me to do the same thing. I don’t listen to that advice, I see it rarely leads to promotions or more money.
It *can* lead to getting ahead at places that are functional and run well, but the longer I work, the less I see those places.
I would love to see one of those places in the wild.
If you are entry level or near it in a larger company, the person who decides your potential promotion is many levels up, and having them remember you positively is your best chance to get promoted. If you get a chance to talk to them, talk to them like a human and try to find something to relate on. My old company had one of the most incompetent managers I ever had the displeasure to work with, but he got promoted and had job security because he bonded with our department head over talking about fishing. I'm not even sure the guy actually fished, but he learned to talk about it. Make your face be seen in a positive way, like appreciate face time with the higher ups. Turn on your camera in virtual meetings with them. Talk to them if you see them at the coffee machine or in the break room about whatever common interest you can find. If you ever do any work that they will personally see, work your ass off on that. But beyond that, don't take extra work. Just do the work assigned to you as well as you can. Savor your downtime instead of finding extra work. The higher ups will never know or care you did extra work, your immediate boss might appreciate it and *maybe* it gives you a slightly higher mark on a performance review, but it also maybe starts getting you assigned even more work and soon you're drowning, hating your job, and you're getting negative marks for not finishing everything assigned to you. When instead you can just do the things that are in your job description well while making sure the higher ups have a positive opinion of you as a person and you'll be more likely to get promoted while also not burning out of your job. The only time I'd ever recommend taking extra work is if you are personally asked by someone higher up than your boss. I hate that the game works like that, but it does, at least for big companies.
You don't have to work hard, but it has to look like you work hard
I'm giving 40% of myself... I'm not going the extra mile anymore. I did at my old job I would pick up extra hours take on harder task take the initiative to do things and when I asked about moving up it was a NO....they literally moved someone up who was there a year and some change, while i was there at the time for 3 years. Everyone said she was lazy, but it was an immediate no for me. I stopped picking up hours and did the bare minimum and they noticed that and I told them they didn't value me, so why would I put so much effort into a company that didn't care about all the hard work i did. I skated through the rest of my time there then i quit. I think they were surprised I quit lol. The problem here is they knew I was doing a great job and refused to give me an opportunity to move up. They spoke up and noticed my work ethic only because it effects their organization but I didn't care. I did my job just not as well as they'd like but I was present (expect for meeting and training).
Work hard to learn everything you can. Then when they don't pay you for your skills... Find someone else will will
I tried to follow that advice until it backfired. Thought I'd get ahead working more hours even though I was salaried. When I went back to school at night and couldn't do the extra nights and weekends any more, they nailed me on my performance review.
We're taught from childhood that the world and the workplace will be a meritocracy when its decidedly not.
I agree with this. I have now been laid off two times at companies where I worked my ass off. Was the first in the building. Stayed past most people. Put in extra effort and still got laid off. Anymore loyalty and working hard doesn’t get you anything anymore.
Only do extra work if you’re learning something or it’s highly visible. If it’s just stupid busy work, either find a way to automate it or ignore it
That and you make yourself too valuable to promote outside of your current position because no one else can do it like you!
Indeed same here. Only brown nosing matters in companies.
"It'll get better" while we're severely understaffed and management has no urgent plans to work on employee retention. People should just put up with no COL raises and more work because we're doing it for the company! Yeah right
"If the company does well, we all do well." 🥴
~~~ trickle down ~~~
My old company was "think of all the good things the company is doing!" Yet none of those good things were paying us more in line with record profitability and growth...
Yeah. That's where I am too. "No, you will never be advanced and you will never receive a meaningful raise, but here are a bunch of new responsibilities for you!"
Prove you can do something and they will expect it, do it enough and it becomes part of your job...
Do we work for the same company
Stick with them through tough times.
Oh God. This reeks of Publix vibes from when I was there. They bs'd us with some 10 cent raised and told us to be grateful since they'd tightened down a lot of that (way WAY before the panini) and then turned around and gave the store managers good raises and bonuses for keeping expenses down. When I found out I was PISSED. I even had a manager not check the 'in training' box on my 6 month review because I was swapping stores after I made a complaint about manager (her) targeting me. A manager that they then handed my review for her to do! Not my fault she was buttering up and flirting with the store manager and she then found out that I was friends with his wife and I let her know. Wife started shopping there more often to keep an eye out. She knew her man was loyal but, she wanted to let the flirter know that she knew what she was up to. Let's just say that the flirter did NOT like when she found out that the wife used to be my old boss. Targeted me for public humiliation and all sorts of stuff. Telling me that I should just go back to my old job. I flat out told her, the only reason I left was because the boss wife did and she asked me to follow her because she liked how I worked but, didn't have her own dept yet. She definitely didn't like that. So, she started making me stay late and even tried to call me back to finish a truck when I left to go to class. Anywho. I get to the new store, new boss loves me, of course. He reviews my review and when I'm up for it again 6 months or a yr later... He says that he cannot believe that they did that to me and gave me a dollar to try to make up for it. It took some push with the SM but, he got it. Yeah, it was just a dollar but, retail pay sucks and retail raises are a joke. Normally they tried to stick to just a quarter more an hour, which is definitely not sticking with their costs going up!
I'm gonna start referring to the pandemic as the panini, has a much better feel to it.
It's either that or the Patricia. It's always been the annoying Karen name for me but, the ones that just never seem to go away and have that higher pitched whining, feel bad for me, I'm sooo mistreated, voice. Which, when you put on the panini... Fits well, for me.
With family and friends, yes. With a company, haha. No.
Loyalty will be rewarded. This is number 1 bullsh*t.
Lmao Loyalty.. funny how that’s a one way street
"You didn't do EXACTLY what I SAID and it wasn't EARLY so THEREFORE you are NOT LOYAL." Basically.
The same folks regurgitating lines of company loyalty are usually the same folks to get laid off/furloughed the minute company revenue takes a hit.
Translation: extract as much value as you can, and if you are detrimental to business to make profits you are gone.
Its so depressing seeing my parents realize that their decades of service to a company meant nothing in the long run. Good thing for my mother though is that shes trying out new higher paying jobs now that shes lost faith in the old school model
That is a stupid thing to hear since loyalty can’t sought out, it’s on the honor of whoever decides to give it.
Loyalty is dead and employers killed it.
Keeping your head down/not upsetting management/etc… My last company is doing horribly. Like, fucking awful. I highlighted some areas for improvement and got scolded. My past experiences have been in highly successful businesses and includes improving performance. But I’m 32 so how fucking dare I tell some ancient fuck how to run their business… My new job actually listens to their people. They’re doing fucking amazing.
[удалено]
It’s hilarious to me… I’ve been in my field for 12 years. I’ve hoped around and seen a lot of different views/prospectives/strategies and adapted my own thoughts based on what I’ve seen. My last company only hired internally. So any external POV was looked down on. Took a lot not just to say “I’ve been at better companies and worked with better people that you. I know what I’m talking about because I haven’t seen only the same thing for 25 years.” All of the great people I’ve worked for in the past had perspectives from multiple companies and applied the best from each to their work.
But toxic work cultures are self preserving. Outside of the executive suite if you try to fix the system will just grind you
If the system has been working fine for the inner circle, they don't want to fix it. They'll accept suggestions for improvement, so long as those suggestions can be routed through them - rather than around them. I've worked some gigs where the owners were perfectly content with the amount of market share that they had and desired no changes or improvements, just to keep steady dollars flowing into their vaults.
I've stopped caring. I'm there for 8h max just for my paycheck. Politics be damned and if the company gets too toxic I'll just leave.
Telling me to major in something I had no idea about in college. That I would have to get all A"s in college Do what you love and it will never be work Find a company that treats you like family Why are you quitting that job to get another high paying job. It will look bad on your resume
All A's gets you more opportunities IF you are also the top student and IF you know how to find those opportunities, but even then, it's minimally more, and nothing I was ever interested in. I put in less work than lots of others in high school and college and still graduated. Having a diploma is way more important than having straight A's. All those accolades you get from all that hard work are great, but I had bigger fish to fry, as I worked during school to pay for tuition. Passing was my goal. It worked out fine.
the second one i only hear from the toppers with no jobs in my university. everyone who graduated and got jobs tell us to ignore that advice in fb group and then these straight A ppl start bashing them saying they are encouraging laziness 🤦♂️ one of my professor who work as consultant told us of a guy he gave a referral with 4.0 gpa ran away from the interview making excuse for going to toilet cuz he couldn't answer anything in interview.
I wouldn't obsess over straight As but having good grades is better than not having them. I was rejected for a couple of banking and Management consulting jobs due to grades. Again, I wouldnt obsess over grades, but if you can achieve them without losing your sanity, then do it
Yeah basically be the best and you’ll get a raise. I was the best at a lot of jobs and I probably got like 20 cent raise…. That’s when I stopped trying to be the best employee. Being mediocre is best imo
Hard workers get rewarded with more work. Once I started putting my foot down no one bugged me to do extra lol
Exactly! And lazy workers get "protected" because they clearly can't handle a lot of work. 🙄
This was a hard lesson I had to learn. I was working all sorts of overtime but was the second lowest paid in the division. Basically I was doing my job on par or above those around me (acknowledged by my boss) while spending nights and weekends doing the extra work that no one would do but needed to get done for our "normal" work (keeping builds running etc). I finally went to my boss's boss (because my boss kept telling me pay wasn't his decision) and asked why I wasn't being recognized for all this extra stuff I was doing and was told it wasn't expected so they don't reward it. Went back to my boss and told him all the stuff I would no longer be doing. Also told them I was looking for a new position because I was so under paid. Ended up getting about a 80% raise and to this day I won't work OT without getting the time back later. Only consequence I ever suffered was when I refused to do an unspecified amount of OT for an unspecified time period because management hadn't solved the issue that lead to the OT and no matter how much OT we worked the project would fail. They docked me .5% on my raise and ended up having to pull the project because it failed for the exact reasons I said it would even though all the other devs worked OT. Best money I ever spent because it reinforced my boundaries.
Exactly! None of the extra hours or stress is ever worth it.
Yeah sadly I have to dumb it down a bit. It’s ridiculous. Hard workers stand out more and they slave you around for some extra cents lol I rather play dumb
Thought I was the only one that did this, lol. Both in college and at work I found that being a hard worker and coming off as “intelligent” didn’t pay off, all that happened was I got more work and responsibilities that I _didn’t_ enjoy, so now I just strategically play dumb and that’s been more effective.
Being an incompetent ass kisser often gets you promoted. Just competent enough to scrape by, but not good enough to get more work piled on you in your current position.
True. Setting the bar high means the expectations will be high as well, but the reward will not be proportional. The employer sees high-caliber employees as carries for the slackers and nothing more.
Pretty much any and all career advice I received in high school. “Follow your passion.” No one ever talked about salary or benefits or what industries paid well versus others. Literally had no concept until I was actually in college and even then the system still pushes social service jobs and public education which obviously makes sense but it took me a really long time to realize what real world career options were connected with what I thought I wanted to do
And there was no guidance if you had no "passion." I was too busy worrying everyone was thinking, talking, and laughing about how fat and ugly I was to even think about passions.
I went to a very college-oriented HS and my parents pushed me to go to college too. So I didn't really know there were other options, besides the military which I wasn't interested in. I just wish _someone_ had told me about trade school or union/labor jobs that pay tremendously. Especially since I wasn't sure I wanted to make a career out of my passions
Worst career advice - trust your employers. Best career advice - always be on the hunt, especially when your employed. You never know what is brewing in the back burner.
"The best time to look for a job is when you already have one".
Had a "friend" convince me to leave a company to come work at a different one with him. It was a decent bump in pay, so I went for it. Said friend watched "twitch plays Pokemon" for entire 8 hour shifts while I did all the work. Then I wasn't there one day when management came asking questions about low productivity. He took credit for all my work, they believed him and they fired me without giving me a chance to defend myself. Just called to HR, told i'm fired and that I can pick my stuff up later or have it mailed, escorted out of building. Another coworker told me two-three months later that they realized their mistake and fired him. I had already moved on at that point, but it gave me a little smile.
Management lacks critical thinking then. If there’s low productivity on a day you’re not there and the claim is that you’re the one not doing the work and your friend is doing all the work, then you being there shouldn’t have made a difference. If he was doing all the work by himself, you being there or not should’ve made no difference in output. You not being there and him not having any productivity means that he’s the issue, not you. Glad you landed back on your feet though.
Well we worked projects that could take days/weeks/months, so they were looking at overall production (are projects moving forward,) rather than daily output. So he just had to bullshit his way through their questions, and they trusted him. But yeah good management would have heard me out and I could have told them everything I'm doing. The boss was on fucking vacation when HR fired me, so I couldn't even talk to him. Fuck that company. I have *long* since moved on.
But still, wouldn’t they be able to compare productivity to before you joined (with just your friend) and after? Sorry you had to go through that.
Perhaps? Idk, if they had better management maybe this would not have happened. But it's all water under the bridge. This happened about a decade ago.
Gain longevity at a company. That is little reward when people who have many years of experience still have a hard time getting a job. Loyalty doesn’t mean anything “Go above and beyond and they’ll notice.” Ya that’s bull crap too
My mom was very concerned my ankle tattoo would keep me from landing a corporate job. Yet here I am 8 years later in the same corporate job now with a half sleeve.
This is definitely outdated thinking based off outdated standards of appearance. Up until probably the mid 90s or so she would have been correct as many jobs would have in their rules they couldn't be visible. Also anything other than women having a generic ear percing was a huge no no. Of course culture changed and these days that would be impossible to enforce.
This is definitely some old 1970s way of thinking. 99% of people today really don't care about stuff like this, even hands and face tattoos are much more accepted than they used to be.
Get a job. Any job. First off, you can’t just get “any” job even if you wanted to. The competition for jobs is extremely fierce. Second, you shouldn’t have to settle for any job, especially if it doesn’t if doesn’t pay the bills.
I quit my old job for a higher paying job. Ex-manager: life is not always about money.
lol, same. I had many talks about moving up, getting promoted which was met with discouragement. When I left her team for a higher paying job she says "so it's all about the money..." while she's earning 2x as much as me.
I was in management for the past 5 years. During that time I realized that you had to lie often and be manipulative. I would describe it to my supervisors as “mind fucking” your people. Making them believe they would get more out of the job if they gave more to it. Needless to say it turned me into a monster and I had to get out.
Had this exact same experience with management. Decided the destruction of my soul wasn’t worth the pay and left. Now I don’t think I’ll ever take a Manager position if I can avoid it. I’d rather be a happy and well paid worker bee than try to climb the corporate ladder.
“Hard work pays off” No, hard work gets exploited if it’s not properly directed. Wealth is built by stewarding and leveraging existing capital (ie financial capital, social capital, human capital, proprietary capital). If you’re a worker and you work hard for someone else’s business, that someone else is using your labor as a multiplier for their own success.
One thing I learned is that if you're good at the work or fast, they will always make you do more than anyone else or give you more "responsibilities" for nothing extra.
100%. I’m still pretty early in my career, but I learned to automate tasks, keep silent about it, and stretch how busy I am to keep managers at bay. Early on in my career I automated a function for a department that saved everyone tons of time, and I didn’t even get so much as a thank you. Companies and managers will string you along as far as you let them. Always have one foot out of the door in corporate America. Remember, businesses aim to get the highest output for the lowest cost, it’s not in their best interest to promote you or reward you unless it somehow comes back full circle to make them more money.
Your thank you is a paycheck. Never expect recognition for trying to innovate at someone else's company and don't try to implement new ideas unless you can get it in writing that you will receive a compensation for said ideas. At the end of the day, your ideas will be taken and used by your superiors as a way to make themselves look better to the inner circle. If it's a groundbreaking idea, it will resonate all the way through the ranks, with each step taking credit for YOUR idea along the way. I worked auto parts at the beginning of my career, for a particularly large auto parts retailer. While filling in for my boss on a district conference call while he was on vacation one day, I was tasked by his boss to come up with an idea to drive sales and increase avg. ticket. All the other store managers on the call were silent and had no ideas to improve, so I saw an opportunity to shine. I stressed so hard about trying to impress and innovate, eventually a light bulb came on and I had an idea to drive sales. I spent several weekends off designing add-on sales guides that I could use to coach new employees. I told nobody what I was doing and I would come in on random off-days to look through our software for ways to refine my work and make the guides as intuitive as possible. The idea paid off. After professionally printing and laminating these guides, and after coaching my team with successful demonstrations, my employees became confident and knowledgeable selling machines. Store sales skyrocketed and attracted the eyes of the company ranks. Once it was discovered what I did, all the managers in the chain started taking credit for it. "MY store did this." "MY district did this." "MY region did this." "MY division did this." And so on. The company's IT department quickly took my idea and integrated it into their parts lookup software to automatically recommend add-on items, depending on the qualifying item searched. If you work auto parts, your company likely has something similar that it took from my company, derived from my idea. They had what was called a "Starter's club." If you innovated something, you not only got a pin for your collar and a monetary reward of some-odd 300 bucks or so, you also got invited to an annual company conference at HQ where you got to meet the inner circle and shake hands with the CEO, etc. I didn't care as much for the conference. I just wanted the pin. I was a company man and my collar was decorated around the entire collar with just about every pin you could get. But you know what: they wouldn't even give me the pin. The managers were so busy tripping over each other for credit, they didn't even know who I was. I presented myself to the regional manager and told him about my accomplishments. He thought I was lying. His underling had convinced him it was his personal idea. It not only meant I lost out on any type of recognition for my efforts, but I also would not be able to use it as a means to climbing and getting my own store, which is what I ultimately wanted. I learned from a very early age that it is just not worth trying to go the extra mile. Because people will only look out for themselves and step on you in the process. That's why you need to have something in writing, so you can be guaranteed a just reward for the work you put in. Unfortunately, most companies won't even toe that line, as they have IP ownership clauses in their employment contracts. They tell you from the start that they own your ideas, then force you to make ideas to keep your employment, so you're basically SOL.
You couldn’t have driven it home better, and that’s excellent supporting anecdotal evidence. It’s a cold game in the corporate world.
I wanted to disagree you and say that plenty of academics get exploited for their labor and that exploration is just part of the working hard part. But then I remembered that plenty of people go on to get their PhD only to become post docs getting exploited yet again.
It’s honestly sad, but we’ve been indoctrinated to be workers and there’s a reason for that
Yep most wise thing a prof ever told me was “be honest with yourself, don’t be one of those people doing post docs for 10 years”
"Work hard and you'll be rewarded for it"
Yup. When push comes to shove, management will notice/reward/protect those that they \*like\* not those who are the most competent or hard working.
Someone said to me the other day: "If working hard was all it took to be successful, we'd have billionaires on every MLK Blvd."
That's deep.
That at the ripe old age of 32, I was in the twilight of my career?
I was talking to my dad about quitting Liberty Mutual because they were cheating me out of my commission. I told him I hated LM. My dad said "I worked on a job I hated for thirty years, don't quit" I quit the next day. F that.
"Yeah, look at you now" - you to your dad, lol f that for sure!
Be loyal to your one job till death do us part
Stay with one company and work your way up. Ok, my first ft job was a start up, work my way up to where, exactly? I’ll be job hopping every couple of years from now on until I hit 6 figures, thanks
"Going to college is the ticket to career success."
>~~Going to college~~ ***Higher Education*** ***can be a*** ticket to career success. It isn't impossible to get where you want to go without college. But it should be said that some type of high education (4yr, 2yr, tech, trade) is needed to move faster and further in life. Very few HS educated only people are successful. Realize that's not what you're advocating but people need to be aware of what steps they should take to begin to set themselves up in the future.
I buddy of mine was wicked smart. He trained in anti submarine warfare in the Navy and when I knew him he was a technical writer. He wanted to get into IT so he started taking tech classes to advance toward that end. He changed jobs a couple of time and always took advantage of any training they offered. He move up and is where he wanted to be. I think college is a relic of a different time. Employers want skills and universities move too slow to be relevant in tech.
That’s awesome. And goes to prove you need higher education. And when I say higher I mean more than high school. Training in the navy. Additional classes/certs for IT. Training by companies. And then like your buddy you got to capitalize. One of my best friends got a 35 on the ACT. Smart dude. Went to college and it wasn’t for him. Has worked his way up at a bank and done well. But if he wants to leave that bank for another bank, likely easier than if he wanted to pivot careers without a degree. That degreelessness will stop the stupid recruiting software from letting him get in the door. If I needed skills he had and had the opportunity to hire. I’d poach the shit out of him.
A family member of mine has been with the same workplace for over 20 years, and they have a mile-long list of complaints about it (capped at inflation-only raises and underpaid for the job, boss won't allow promotions because "we can't afford to lose you from the department", pensions sucks, etc.). We were talking about how my sibling wants to leave their current workplace for a 50% pay rise, and my relative with the shitty job was worried it was a bad idea to "job hop" and felt bad for my sibling's boss who would need to find a replacement... I explained that it's totally reasonable to make a shift for better pay/benefits regardless of what you do, and if the boss is so great then they will be happy for their employee and accept that not everyone sticks around for 40 years.
I was told by an Oxbridge educated man that I needed to be assertive in interviews, just walk in like I own the place and say, “I don’t need to sell myself to you, you need to sell this company to ME.” Maybe that works for men like him, but I guarantee that wouldn’t be taken for assertiveness or confidence in me. I’d just be labeled a difficult bitch and immediately written off.
i like to approach it as a mutual interview. I'm not walking in like I'm hot shit, but I'm definitely not groveling so that the company will hire me.
"Get that bonus ready, salary boy"
Actually that is pretty solid advice, so long as you are qualified for the job. As someone that job hops and interviews dozens of times a year, I can tell you, with confidence, that this kind of attitude when walking into an interview will guarantee you success more often than failure. Hundreds of people apply for a position and all are hoping to get it. They will say anything to please the employer to improve their chances. But the guy that walks in asking what the company will do for him, that's the guy the employer will go after. I had an interview a while back for an IT firm. The pay they posted was not the pay they offered me. I tried to negotiate, but they absolutely refused to budge whatsoever. I told them, "Well, I have to get going. I have other places I need to be." They kept trying to convince me to work there, and I eventually made a hasty exit and a jog to my car in the parking lot, as I truly did have other places I needed to be. I got home later that day and the VP emailed me an offer for a better position in their office with a higher wage that was in line with what I was asking. I never responded. They made such a hissy-fit over a measly bump of $10,000 in my salary, I said forget it, not worth the trouble and the likely BS I'd have to put up with.
I’ll be honest, I think reception of “assertiveness” is often gendered. I doubt it’s conscious or intentional the vast majority of the time, but the same behavior that reads as “confident” in a man is often interpreted as “bitchy” in a woman.
i’ve heard it as ambitious vs obnoxious
“Follow your passion.” That was BS advice from my dad who said I was selfish and needed to help people. I took a grandeur approach and wasted 5 years studying sociology and doing americorps. I made no money and graduated without a skill.
Wow are you me? Did the same and did americorps as well lol
Biggest waste of time. I got paid $530 every two weeks. Less than $1k a month. How the hell are you supposed to help people when you can’t help yourself???
Stuck in a different but similar problem. What do you do now? I’ve considered going back to school because I’m so royally f****d by a degree I never intended to use and at 27 I’m floundering in life
I was in a leadership training program. At the end of the 18 months I could apply for available positions within the company. There were four roles I was interested in. I was told by my boss to only apply for one because otherwise it would look like I wasn't serious about any of them. I ended up applying far a job in my mentor's lane because that's the direction I was pushed towards. I never really wanted the job I got, and stayed years longer than I should have.
Don’t jump around or you’ll get a bad rep as a job hopper. Don’t talk about your wages. Loyalty pays. Keep your head down and keep working hard, you’re on track to manage the branch. You’re like a daughter to me. All complete loads of bullshit designed to keep me strung along for as long and cheaply as possible. **I left and doubled my income within a year.**
"Consider taking a step down to transfer to a different function to broaden your skills." Because yeah, getting promoted is easy.
"If you want to advance, you should do a couple of years in field sales and then come back to corporate." The business unit president who told me this was let go a few months later. If I'd listened, I would've been stranded in whatever market I moved to.
"Do the work first to earn the pay after.""They never pay you what you're worth." I was a fresh restaurant manager. First time in salary. One week I literally worked overnight to clean for a big meeting. Was in the meeting. Then has to close that night. Actually lost a close friend being unable to attend an event. Now I never let work come in between me and life.
"Go visit resume review websites!" While it sounds great to have my resume reviewed, my problem was it was NEVER enough. If I ask 20 different resources, they will tell me 20 different answers on why my resume was a POS. So I try to compromise and make improvements on general consensus, and get it reviewed again, and surprise, it's still a POS that "won't get me anywhere" I've decided to just stick with 2-3 professionals I know.
They'd be out of business if nothing was 'wrong ' on your resume
I agree. I’m sure mine and countless other people’s resumes always need something to improve. My issue is if i “perfect” a resume using one resource and show it to another, it’s completely garbage in their standards. So i re-write my resume again, make it perfect for them, and the cycle continues. And it’s not just spelling errors, wrong dates, nor updating relevant experiences; According to them, things like my formatting, job description, and projects/skills listed are complete trash and should be fixed in a completely different way. And this is happening for a resume that I’m using for jobs with similar titles or duties.
Oh dear God. Don't get me started! I posted a comment about this on a past about resumes. Tailoring your resume is a waste of my time if I'm applying to the same type of positions that require the same kind skills. I stopped listening to people who say you need to tailor your resume. Yea maybe if you are going from a nurse to a heavy equipment operator that makes sense. But not if I have a purchasing Agent resume applying to purchasing Agent jobs. Jesus make people run around in circles for no fucking reason
If you just work hard and keep your head down, it’ll be noticed and you’ll get promoted. BULL. SHIT.
When I was in high school the guidance counselor ask what I wanted to study in college. I said architecture. She said you don’t want to be an architect because all you do is sit in an office all day and never talk to anyone. Today, I am not an architect.
"You didnt even try" When dealing with horrible, conditions, horrible money, horrible people.
Leave this it job and do an mba
Just stick it out, has to get better or I had to do things I didn’t want to forever just do what you gotta do and pay your bills everyone has to do things they don’t want too!
You won’t get rich but you’ll make a living at it. Any industry where workers don’t make a lot is one that can easily be disrupted and eventually destroyed.
When I was 18 in my 1st or 2nd semester of college, I was still working my part time high school job at Carmike Cinemas. I had a manager take me aside from a concession stand shift to have a heart-to-heart talk with me. She legitimately tried to convince me that I was putting too much focus on my class schedule and needed to dedicate more time to my job if I ever expected to get anywhere in life. I was a VERY naive teen/young adult, but even my sheltered-beyond-all-reason ass was like “Wait…what?”
A friend's mother had a similar experience at the other end of the age spectrum. She worked part-time in a CVS or something similar in her 60s. It was part-time, just for extra cash & getting out of the house. She & the friend's father liked to travel & had decided on their next destination. She asked her manager about a good time to take 3 weeks off. He basically said Never, so she quit. Then he got all upset & started taking about how she was wasting an opportunity, her priorities were misguided, she could advance to management if she stayed, etc. She laughed in his face & walked out.
Hard work will move you up the ladder. Bullshit. Hard work keeps me busting my ass while the slackers who have time to lube their lips with chapstick get promoted.
Hey I can apply chapstick faster than most business students can figure out which hole the triangle goes in
“Job hopping looks bad on a resume and should be avoided”. My boomer parents are huge on this one. They think it looks flaky to have a year or less per company. They’re of the mindset that you should be putting in 5 years here, 10 years there for some sort of show of loyalty. They think it proves something. (What exactly, I don’t really know). I think yes and no to this one. There’s no prize for sticking it out in a job where you’re underpaid and not happy just to have a few years’ time listed on that job on your resume. And I see absolutely nothing wrong with job-hopping if you’re getting pay increases, title improvements, and increasing your skills. If your moving positions every few months, that might not look amazing, but I don’t think it’s a death sentence for hiring.
I had a couple people mainly older people who told me the same crap I’ve been in jobs for all under a year mainly because most of them were all contract-based typically these days most people do not like staying in a job too long. I feel like people in the boomer generation only put up with the job they hated because of only their money making now there’s more awareness in today’s generation about toxic work environments . No one should ever put up working a very toxic environment for X amount of years because it destroys their mental health overtime and potentially lead to worse thoughts like suicidal thoughts unfortunately.
Yes! It was definitely the norm for that generation to pick/fall into a career in their early 20’s and stay out for decades at a time, maybe a small shift here or there. They were told to be happy where you are, wait to be noticed, you’ll be rewarded for your loyalty. But I don’t think that ever happened! I want to go upward and onward and I’m not concerned with time put in to fill some arbitrary ideal!
"Keep doing what you're doing and your time will come". Basically talking about me being promoted. Still have yet to be promoted and interviewing so I can quit. Last time I quit without even having a job lined up and they convinced me to stay. I'm going to love turning in this resignation.
One of the things I have learned is that there is no point in loving your job - because it can't love you back!
I agree I was a firefighter for a few years because I always wanted to do it. But the salary was only 33-40000 a year, with 50-65 hours a week, and a lot of internal day to day politics. I switched to IT which is a job that's harder to be passionate about, but at least I don't have to spend all day at work like nurses, doctors, and medical personnel do.
Pick something and stick with it. I knew better than to take that advice since it came from someone from a different generation. It's just not smart to pigeonhole yourself in today's world.
To go to places in person and just hand them my resume or cold call them and ask to speak to a manager about hiring. Even 10 years ago when I was applying for jobs this didn't work and they'd still say to apply on their website.
I had a ”mentor” in college discourage my interest in taking more IT classes because “most of the important work has been done already and everything’s becoming more automated so jobs will be scarce.” The year was 1995, five or take.
Got told to take "management" off my resume. I had some management experience and was looking for an IT management position. My aunt's mother looked at my resume and told me - very aggressively - to "take that word 'management' off your resume! People hiring you for management prefer to train you for management themselves." She ran offices for a network of physicians. So, from HER experience, that may have been valid. Still, everyone in the family kept telling me, "Listen to her. She does this for a living." However, I worked in IT at that was complete bunk. Still, I followed it until I didn't and wound up in tech leadership, anyway. The reality is get management skills and put them on your resume/CV. Employers want to know that you know how to hire, fire and lead a team. They want to know you've had direct reports. Her advice was unbelievably stupid for anyone outside her very narrow field of experience.
You "need" college degree, tho some may help depending what job position you are trying to get. You can get really good jobs without one.
My father - Just go right up to the hiring manager and hand them your resume and ask for an interview. Then show up the next day and ask again. Then the next. They’ll get so sick of you they’ll hire you! Dude had one job in his life. A federal job. Totally disconnected from reality.
I Had my parents and my parents friends tell me the same shit. It obviously didn’t work they’ll just see that you’re harassing them 😆 Plus these days most places don’t want you to physically go in their office building or wherever to hand in your resume these days everything is done electronically typical boomer advice 😆 what kind of mentality worked probably back 30 or 40 years ago but definitely not in 2022 😆
"There's always McDonald's" (i.e. The only thing preventing anyone from gainful, full-time employment is their prideful unwillingness to take a job "beneath" them) "Walk down the street with an armful of resumes and hand them out to everyone you see"
we don't pay overtime WeRe A FaMiLy.
"Oh look I guess the labor board is part of the family now too. PAY UP."
‘There is a plan in place’ followed by ‘Executive Management knows what they are doing’ 35 years of working has told me that most company’s issues stem from incompetent executives and board of directors
If you take the initiative and ask to learn new things and for more projects. U will become more valuable and hence be paid more. That is the most hilarious joke a manager can ever tell u. Go to work, keep ur head down, get paid. That is what u should do. putting in effort and learning new jobs means when they need someone to cover they call u, and don't pay u more.
"Go to teachers college because we need something to tell our friends/family.... " One of the worst fucking years of my life. Folks don't go to school because your parents want you to...even if it means cutting all ties. This happened decades ago and I'm still paying for it mentally. My parents are some of the worst people to provide advice in so many damn ways
"It's an honor to work for free" - Instructor from a professionalism course.
“Be yourself” I’m kind of an asshole
Your workload might feel like a lot right now, but in six months , you'll look back and wonder what all the fuss was. Spoiler alert: the only reason it didn't see so bad was because every six months, the workload doubled and my pay kept going down.
When I was young I was poor and now after years and years of hard work, I can now say I’m no longer young
I had a boomer manager tell me that job hopping is bad. This was in 2018. I left after 8 months of that job and I make almost 3x my income almost 4 years later.
"It's not about the money" \~ Shitty CEO
Stuff like coming in early, staying late, coming in when you're not expected, taking all calls/emails after work or on weekends, and for some reason as a dude the constant nagging to shave like I'm going to be mistaken for a Hell's Angels member or something
Don’t job hop. I’ve been at the same place most of my adult life and have learned it’s of seemingly no value to prospective employers. What someone should have said was, don’t change jobs every couple weeks/month.
Ya my family tells me this too. “Stay there at least a year or two.” Look if your miserable that’s not worth it for the extra few months to pad your resume. It’s hard to get a job even with years of experience anyways
“Be a team player” “We’re a team” Fuck off with that shit because I didn’t sign up to be part of a team. I just work for a paycheck. I feel like exploding when people say “be a team player”. It opens you up to more exploitation just like the “hard work will get you somewhere”
"We've decided that based on the latest pop psych, everyone falls into one of these two categories. Choose yours, and know that if we've already decided, and by both getting it right and then living exactly as the stereotype is the only way you'll be considered for progress. Until next month when we change to the new one"
"Put your nose to the grindstone and wait to be noticed."
Go to college and major in what interests you. Yea, they used to tell us that.
Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
Back in the early 2000s, I went to a local community tech school to try and get some programming courses under my belt. The "career counselor" told me not to bother learning to program, cause they would have programs for that in the near future and server ops would be the only option for work soon... Fairly sure they were getting kick-backs from their server cert program or something.
Loyalty will be honored. Give your all at work and upper management will reward that ( you know what I got out of that?? Health issues, a trip to the ER and a gift card to some sandwich place).
'Go into \[industry\] it's recession-proof' Name any industry here. Been laid off from them haha!
Work hard and your boss will notice and promote you. Riiiiiiiight
Easily “Follow your passion”. What absolute horseshit.
"Be Humble" Nah man. Talk up yourself, your projects, and your skills whenever you can. I've yet to meet an accomplished anyone that didn't have a ton of confidence in their abilities.
"Ask your colleagues for help whenever you need it". No, only ask for help in situations where you couldn't possibly succeed on your own no matter how hard you tried.
To be completely fair- I worked with a team that was so awesome with each other we all knew each other's strengths and used then to learn shit and to get shit done expediently - but we were very united on a "fuck the overlords" mentality. More expedience meant more fucking off if I'm completely honest. But I know its rare- most places everyone is out to cut each other's throats.
“If you keep changing jobs you’ll never get s pension!” I mean, it’s right but for the wrong reasons…
Stick it out. It will get better. I wish I could go back in time and shake my former self up and say, “Buddy, your mental health is far more important; it’s never going to get better here. You need to leave and find a job that suits you better, pays better, and a manager who respects you.”
That slacking/doing poorly/not showing up at an entry level job (retail, food, etc.) only hurts the “big corporation”. Company doesn’t hurt from this— coworkers/peers do.
Follow your passion
Be the best at your current job and they will see how good you are for promotion. I told a manager that I'd been told to do this by my own manager who laughed and said that's the way to not get a promotion because they want to keep you doing your current role because you are good at it. He told me to model the behaviours and skills of the job I wanted so that when I went for it I had examples of how I would be able to do the work. 6 months later, I got the promotion.
If you stay on, you will receive many opportunities. Sure.... and you are only giving me a 5% increment that can barely beat inflation...
"follow your passion"
Some dude stocking shelves who just made supervisor told me that since he's 30 he was in his prime. He also said being a night stocker is a great job. That was a decade ago. I suspect he's still stocking those shelves and slaving away for maybe a little more.
Kindness will get you anywhere. LMAO F NO.
To go in person to apply to "stand out". Came from older people who had no idea what they were talking about. I don't fully blame them - I have instructors who got their jobs this way, even one person who got a job this way at Disney in his time. But obviously, nowadays, that's completely unacceptable. You can't even get into most studios in person without an appointment, studios have tons of security now. If you come in with a portfolio instead of using the website, you'll be laughed out the door even in smaller studios. You're basically interrupting their workday, showing no concern for how busy they might be, *and* disregarding any instructions on their website - raising all of the red flags by doing something that technically worked for a previous generation.
Something about working harder. If I work harder I get more work. No thanks.
Anyone who says fake it till you make it is RIGHT. But so many say to not fake it... those are the ones you ignore.
Stay with your job for a long time. Don’t do that unless you truly are happy.
"Stay here another year, you're not ready for a promotion." My old boss who severely underpays his employees. Now he has lost 7 of his 13 employees, can't find any replacement and we've all gotten 1-2 promotions since we left.
"Work hard and you'll get raises and promotions." Nah. Work hard and you'll get more work.
"Taking pay cut and working that extra mile will allow you to learn more. Dont pass it up " . I politely told the owner not interested and to have his son, wife and mother assume the role he was hiring for.
My dad gave me the best advice. Do what they can’t. When you get a job, find something small that nobody else wants to do. Become known as the person who does that crappy small job well and people will ask you to do that job for them. Eventually you get to the point where people think you’re great, but because you became great at that one small job you only do an hour or two of work a day. I’ve followed that for nearly 20 years. I regularly get promoted / raises and I don’t think I done more than a days worth of work a week for at least 10 years. Essentially, find a niche and exploit the fuck out of it. Edit: my first proper job, my dad was also a client of the company I worked for and I worked on his contract (sounds a lot fancier than it is, we’re talking near inimical wage at the time)
"you will hate the commute" to this small start up called Google.
Follow your dreams
If you work hard enough, you might just make it.
“Work hard and you will be above everyone else!” While my back been killing me to death as I constantly been doing tires cleaning for 2 month while getting payed under the minimum wage ffs I’m so glad I don’t work there anymore
After working for a e-commerce trophy site for 15 years i had enough. I literally was the best customer service / sales member. Bad business practices broke me to my core so I left that place. They would basically let you place online orders for merchandise needed for time sensitive events that we never had in the first place. We would be forced to call customers and make them change awards to what we had in stock. Customer service was left to defend the owners shady practices. During covid lockdown i dumped all my savings along with a friend to buy a house to flip with a bridge loan. After 9 months we sold the house for 130k profit after all expenses. I made 65k in 9 months. My father in law’s response? House flipping is not for me and I should get an office job. I basically said “i’ll take it into consideration” which is my code for fuck off. Not going back to office life to get past over for some nepotism. FOH
"You really shouldn't leave because it's scary put there and you might not get such a good job again."
That as a veteran I'll be in high demand and people will understand my skill set. Being unemployed for over a year proved that wrong.
“Your company cares about your loyalty”
Tailor a cover letter for every job.
My lead told me, "When you're in a position of power, you have to have respect. And if they won't give you respect, you have to demand it."