I'm 29 and currently make around $78k working in corporate communications.

Got approached about a position paying $130k for a CEO at a midsize company. Went through two interviews and found out the actual job is pretty much managing his entire public personality.

LinkedIn posts, replies to comments, congratulating employees, sharing personal stories, even writing opinions on industry news. All under his name. Apparently he doesn't have time for any of it but wants to appear more involved and approachable.

The recruiter called it executive communications, which I know is an actual career. But during the second interview they made it clear he wouldn't even be reviewing most of what I write.

I'm having trouble deciding whether this is a great opportunity or a really weird direction to take my career.

Would you consider this legitimate experience for future communications roles? Because explaining that I spent 3 years pretending to be somebody's CEO on LinkedIn sounds ridiculous.

I spent the last four years being the undisputed workhorse of our operations department. I was the one who fixed the broken vendor pipelines, worked late during client emergencies, and trained every single onboarding class. When our department lead resigned in November, I figured the promotion was a no-brainer.

They passed on me and hired an external guy who spent his first two months asking me how to pull basic internal metrics. During a casual lunch last week, my manager finally let his guard down. He told me: "Honestly, if I promoted you, my entire department would fall apart because you are the only one who actually knows how to run this place."

I sat there staring at him while my salad sat untouched. Being indispensable is the fastest way to get TRAPPED. If you are too good at the gritty, load-bearing work, they will never move you into leadership because replacing you is too inconvenient for management.

I stopped being the office savior on Monday morning. I deleted my weekend Slack notifications, stopped jumping onto unassigned tickets, and started letting broken processes sit until someone officially asks for them in writing. Its crazy how much loyalty gets weaponized against women who keep the lights on. Why should being competent at your job be the exact reason your career stalls? Why is this even a thing?

About 6 months ago, I took an opportunity with a much higher salary than my last job. At my last job I was swamped with work, in office 5 days a week, and in a much smaller firm, but I enjoyed being busy every day. Now at this job, I spend pretty much all day with nothing to do. I ask for work constantly, but my co workers are inundated with tasks they can’t always delegate to me, and my manager just keeps telling me “the work will pick up it will I promise” and now that i’m approaching the 6 month mark i’m starting to lose hope. I commute almost an hour each way, and spend $10 a day on train station parking. I am grateful for my one WFH day on fridays because atleast then I can do things around the house and feel somewhat productive. But the other 4 days of the week, I come into the office to just sit here and take up space. I feel as if I have no purpose at this job, despite being told in the interview process that there was a great amount of work that would need to be done that my co-workers simply don’t have time for. I genuinely feel as if it’s taking a toll on my mental and physical health as i’m exhausted every day from nothing. And I know I sound silly and ungrateful to complain about being paid a great salary, with great benefits to do jack all day because I know that’s some peoples dream. But I genuinely don’t know how much more of it I can take. Is this normal? How do people deal with this?? I feel like i’m going insane since it just has not picked up or gotten better. I know I am qualified, capable, and have more than enough work ethic to want to do more but no matter how hard I try nothing comes to fruition here. I’m consumed by the thought of this being my life forever and it makes me so sad.

I work in operations at a company with around 60 employees. My director recently offered me a management position with a $25k raise, which would've been an easy yes under normal circumstances.

The catch is they're restructuring our department and eliminating 3 positions. If I accept, I'll be expected to evaluate the team and recommend who stays. HR will handle the actual layoffs, but my input will carry a lot of weight.

I've worked alongside these people for almost 4 years. One of them literally trained me when I started.

My director keeps framing it as a great opportunity to prove myself as a leader, but I'm struggling to see how I could manage the remaining team after being involved in that decision.

Has anyone taken a promotion under similar circumstances? Feels like I'm being offered a better career at the expense of my reputation with everyone I work with.

Offered the team lead position on Thursday. It came with a 7% salary bump, exempt status, and the unspoken expectation of being on call for weekend fires and attending 25 hours of useless sync meetings every week.

I did the math on my actual hourly rate, looked at how miserable our current director looks every single day, and politely declined. Told them I prefer staying strictly IC because I genuinely enjoy the hands-on technical work.

You would think I insulted their mothers. My manager spent twenty minutes trying to figure out what was "wrong" with me, asking if I had personal issues at home or if I was planning to quit. Even a couple of senior coworkers caught wind of it and pulled me aside like I was throwing away my entire future.

It feels like corporate culture has conditioned people to believe that if you aren't actively trying to trade your sanity for a marginally shinier title, you must be clinically depressed. i just want to do my 40 hours, get paid, and close my laptop at 5 PM without dreaming about spreadsheets. Is not wanting to climb the ladder really that radical now?

I’ve been working in corporate marketing for several years and have steadily progressed into management. On paper, my career is going well. I’ve received promotions, increased my salary, and taken on more responsibility.

The problem is that I’m completely burned out, and it has very little to do with the actual work.

My company has undergone significant restructuring, with layoffs and departures resulting in increasingly large workloads being distributed among fewer employees. Responsibilities that previously belonged to multiple people are now being consolidated into individual roles, and the expectations haven’t really adjusted to reflect that.

On top of everything, the company is pushing a return-to-office mandate that would require me to relocate. It’s becoming difficult to justify uprooting my life for a job that’s already taking a toll on my mental well-being.
Recently, I came across an opportunity managing a small outdoor recreation business. The position involves overseeing daily operations, interacting with customers, managing a small team, and spending a considerable amount of time outdoors.

It’s a completely different environment from what I’m accustomed to, and the idea of doing something tangible, physical, and relatively straightforward sounds incredibly appealing.

The catch is that it would involve taking roughly a 40–50% pay cut. $90k - about $50k

I’m not necessarily looking to abandon my professional career permanently. I have experience and skills I could return to, and I could potentially supplement my income with freelance work. But part of me wonders whether stepping away from the corporate world for a year or two might be exactly what I need.

There’s also the psychological aspect of walking away from a career you’ve spent years building. It feels counterintuitive to voluntarily move backward financially after working so hard to progress.

At the same time, I’m starting to question the value of a higher salary when the trade-off is constant stress, uncertainty, and increasingly little control over my own life. There’s also the option of serving tables a few nights a week in addition to the nature tour manager gig.

Has anyone here taken a substantial pay cut to leave a corporate environment for something simpler or more fulfilling? Did it improve your quality of life, or did the financial trade-off eventually create a different kind of stress?

I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who made the change temporarily and later returned to their original careers.

Please don’t roast me too hard, I already feel physically sick even typing this out.

I got hired six months ago as an internal operations specialist. Three weeks in, the manager who hired me abruptly quit, teh rest of the team got shuffled into different departments, and I somehow completely slipped through the cracks. For months, nobody assigned me anything. I reached out twice early on asking where I should jump in, got vague "we’re restructuring, just sit tight" replies, and then... silence.

I won't lie, at first it felt like a weird blessing, but after a while the guilt just ate me alive. I basically spent the last four months logging in, moving my mouse, and fixing maybe two broken spreadsheets a week while collecting a solid paycheck.

Well, reality finally caught up. We got a new regional director on Monday, and out of nowhere she put a 45-minute "Q2 workflow and portfolio review" on my calendar for tomorrow afternoon. She explicitly asked me to walk through my "core deliverables and current bottlenecks."

i dont even have a folder to show. Do I just come clean and explain that management completely dropped the ball on onboarding me, or do I frantically invent six months of busywork tonight?

I've wanted to get into trade for quite some time and i'm particularly interested in plumbing, but i've been hesitant because of my size and people in my life have been discouraging or look at me like i'm crazy. I'm not easily grossed out by things, I'm stubborn and have a lot of willpower, i'm not the strongest yet but I'm also interested in strength training. But practically speaking, does it sound like a lost cause? I imagine there might be some limitations to what I can do by myself, but is there a place for me in this field?

I graduated from college about 18 months ago and got a job as an engineer at a small company. I was excited because I'd be the only engineer, and during the interview, they presented all these new things they wanted to do. The first few months were great. I had plenty of engaging projects and challenges, stayed busy without being overwhelmed, and felt like I'd found the perfect job.

Eventually, I started working on what is by far our largest and most complicated project. It'll likely span multiple years, with dozens of smaller projects along the way. One of the first steps required purchasing new capital equipment. I did extensive research, presented the best options to the GM and company president, and they thought everything looked great and wanted to move forward.

Then the company owners got involved. There are three of them, and they essentially inherited ownership when the founder retired. None have ever worked here or have much technical knowledge. Despite previously supporting the project, they suddenly put everything on hold when it came time to purchase the equipment. They bombarded us with questions, many of which were incredibly basic or things we'd already considered. One issue is that it all came from AI. The main owner, who's around 70, seems to believe AI is all-knowing and infallible. We'd carefully answer every question and explain the technical details to get him up to speed on a subject he knows nothing about, resolving every concern, but nothing has moved forward.

That was about eight months ago. The president and owners still meet occasionally to discuss it, but all I hear is that they're "still considering it." I don't know what the real issue is. The investment is around $200k, which sounds significant, but three of our four largest customers, representing about 40% of our sales, are asking for this capability. Based on the volume they're projecting, we'd recover the investment in roughly 3–6 months. From a business perspective, it seems like a no-brainer. My only theory is that the owners are content collecting their monthly profits and don't want to take any risks to grow the company. I'm not the only one. The GM has said the same explicitly and the president has implied that he's correct. So its a big divide not just between engineering and the owners, but even between upper management and the owners.

The problem is that this is seriously limiting my professional growth. This project was supposed to take up like 70-80% of my time. Without it, I often have very little to do and spend my days trying to stay productive while feeling like I'm wasting everyone's time.

I'm not sure what to do. I genuinely like my coworkers, the pay is great for someone this early in their career, the benefits are solid, and I enjoy the work when I actually have projects to tackle. I don't necessarily want to leave, but I'm wondering if I should start looking elsewhere (maybe that'll wake them up). Ideally, I'd stay and see this project through, but I'm not in a position where I directly interact with the owners and have no idea how to get things unstuck.

[edit] First off thanks to several of you for your input. It's given me a few things to think about and I have found that helpful. Next, I want to clarify that this is not my idea or my proposal. This is something they were discussing for years before I was hired. Hiring me was supposed to be the first step in making it actually happen. The owners knew it was coming and allegedly even said they wanted to start investing more back into the company. So it is not like I sprung this on them unwarranted. It is also not just a "me"/engineering problem. We've involved the finance manager, the sales manager, the general manager, and the president. We all agree this is the right way forward and makes sense from a business perspective. It's just that this problem impacts me the most. The sales guy can still sell the products we already make, theres obviously still plenty of stuff for the GM and president to do to run the company, but if we're not going to innovate what is the point of an engineer? I guess what I'm trying to say is that we've analyzed everything we possibly can, and made every argument we can currently think of. What I want to know if if anyone has had any similar situations should I move on, should I wait another 6-months, should I propose we abandon this project and move onto another smaller one (I have some ideas I just don't want to add them to the list). So, thoughts?

So many of my peers are fixated on escaping the 9-5 and I see so many romanticized things online about doing more with your life and career to make more money and enjoy doing it.

I’m 22 in a very good finance program, I’m getting my mba part time while making 90k a year, in 2.5 years upon off-placement from the program i’ll be making 130k with a great resume at 25. Logically I know I have a great setup.

Then I think of the people I know and see in big cities, or traveling, or trying to start something, and It makes me feel behind and unsure if I’ll ever live the life I want or just be a slightly wealthier rat in the race.

I know comparison is the thief of joy but I’d love some reassurance that this is a good thing. It’s not like I have the balls to do anything else or throw away what i’ve built, I just wish I knew that it’d all be worth it.

For people with more life experience than me: How did the people that went down a hardcore career-focused path turn out compared to those who didn’t? I want to make a lot of money, I want to enjoy the fruits of my labor and have the luxurious things I’ve dreamed of. It’s just really hard to look down the barrel of 30-40 years and say I’ll enjoy my life or that it will feel fulfilling.

Hello! I am 19F, and am currently in my sophomore year studying Biology. Im pretty much at a crossroads for picking a career to go into.

I have looked into a lot of different fields, and have consistently came back to healthcare. As cliche as it sounds, I feel so drawn to helping people in the physical aspect. I’m also so intrigued by the way the human body functions and how it heals itself.

That being said, I have looked into so many difference careers in healthcare. MD, DO, Pa School, radiology, pharmacy, PT, OT, DMD,OD, DPM, Pharma, you NAME IT!!!!!

What doesn’t help is the job market. Some of my values in finding a career are: a predictable schedule (im very family oriented and would love to live for my family), job stability, good salary, good debt to income.

Now I do understand we can’t have the best of every world, and I’m flexible on some of those more than others.

But I just wanted to hear from some people in the field and their careers! To hear a bit about your life, what you love about it, etc.
Thank you guys!!!

I’m in my early 20s with a bachelor’s degree in business I.T, currently working for the federal government making around $56K. I also have previous state government experience in quality assurance, data auditing, and reporting.
I’m looking to get out of my current job and find something with better pay and more room to grow. Ideally something remote or hybrid, starting around $65K–$80K with the potential to make $100K+ down the road.
I’ve been looking into business analyst, operations, and project management roles, but I’m open to other ideas. Just not looking to get into heavy coding or go back to school.
Anyone been in a similar position or know of any careers or companies worth look into?

I've been considering medical coding for a while now and am finally in a position to start taking courses for it. But I do wonder how much of it is being outsourced by AI and whether or not it will continue being a stable career.

I just graduated this spring with an Econ degree, and it seems like my degree essentially means nothing nowadays as I don’t have any internships, because those are hard to get as well.

I have a general interest in Econ, finance, and accounting but I’m not completely sure which one would best suit me.

I’ve thought about getting enough units to sit for the CPA exam as it looks like it makes it much easier to land a job.

I’ve done all the resume and interview workshops and it’s incredibly hard as nothing on my resume particularly stands out, and I’m pretty introverted so the aspect of selling myself in an interview is very tough for me.

Is there any way I can build upon my degree with any kind of certifications? It feels like there’s not much I can do to stand out as I didn’t have a super high GPA or do any internships. Would getting a master’s degree be worth it?

Hi,

I graduated with a bachelor degree in business. Graduated years ago. I have been unemployed all my life. I literally never worked a single job my entire life. I’m upset with that and I feel like I lost it. Some of my peers even called me a “loser.” I’m terrified of turning 30 and remaining unemployed especially with AI displacing entry level jobs even professional ones. I am on the spectrum and got some low motivation issues. What should I do?

I’m currently a freshman in college on the pre-pharmacy track, but I’ve recently started looking into becoming a Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant (CAA) instead. I’m having a hard time deciding which would be the better long-term career.

I’m majoring in Spanish with a chemistry minor and trying to graduate after 6 semesters. I don’t need a Bachelor’s for pharmacy school but with the Spanish program I did in high school I don’t need many classes for a degree so I would major in that while doing any prerequisites. I currently work as a pharmacy technician in a long-term care pharmacy, so I already have some experience in the pharmacy field. I’ve been planning on becoming a pharmacist for a while, but the higher salary and shorter graduate program for CAAs is really appealing. One of the pharmacists I work with said pharmacy has changed so much and that she would steer anyone away from it and towards CAA so it got me thinking.

One of the biggest factors is cost. My plan would be to attend pharmacy school at the University of Utah and work at their hospital for 1/2 off tuition, where I could complete my PharmD for around $60k total in tuition and graduate without any student debt. For CAA school, I’d have to move out of state since Utah doesn’t have a program. From what I’ve researched, tuition would likely be around $125k–$160k, and I’d probably need to take out loans. I’d also have to factor in moving and living expenses. However, CAA programs are only about 2–2.5 years compared to four years for pharmacy, meaning I could start working sooner and make more money.

I’m trying to figure out whether the higher salary and shorter schooling would make CAA worth the additional debt and having to move. I’m also considering job stability, work-life balance, career flexibility, and long-term satisfaction. I know CAAs can’t practice in every state, although Utah does allow them.

I’m still early enough in undergrad that I could complete the prerequisites for either path, so I want to make an informed decision before committing to one.

I’d especially love to hear from pharmacists, CAAs, or anyone who has considered both careers.
Do you enjoy your career, and would you choose it again?
What does your typical schedule and work-life balance look like?
How realistic are the salaries I’m seeing online, especially for new graduates?
Is the higher earning potential of CAA worth taking on significantly more debt?
How difficult is it to find CAA jobs in Utah or other states where they’re authorized to practice?
Would you choose a debt-free PharmD or take on loans for CAA school?
Which career do you think offers better long-term opportunities?
I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences!

Dentistry was once praised as being the best career for someone that wanted to help people, make tons of money, and work 9-5 or less hours with tons of job security. However, the industry has changed a ton and dentists aren’t doing nearly as well as they used to. Dentists that were once praised for helping people are now being seen as scammers and patients won’t trust you, insurance doesn’t pay anything, and schooling has become disgustingly expensive. All while running a practice is very costly too.

I was considering dentistry as a career because I thought it’d be a lot more recession and AI proof than law but that doesn’t seem to be the case. With inflation now, dentists are seeing a massive drop in patients and money making procedures like cosmetics are dropping like crazy. Leaving only bread and butter procedures which isn’t enough to sustain a lot of dentists. Then you now have Medicaid trying to creep their way in.

I also love law but with the debt, I just didn’t think it’d be worth it but then I stumbled upon personal injury. It’s like the Wild West of law and you basically get commission off of the cases you settle whereas other areas are based on billable hours. So a $1 million settlement could yield roughly $300k since attorneys take roughly 33% for normal cases. Those settlements seem to be rare though so they take in a lot of smaller cases that add up quickly with small solo attorneys doing $500k/year which a lot of dentists can’t even do unless they were super successful but a super successful personal injury attorney could make millions which would be nearly impossible as a dentist unless you have celebrity clientele. It’s also nearly recession proof because personal injury attorneys don’t charge anything unless they win so during economic downturns, people are more likely to use them because it’s free money.

I had no idea that area of law existed. I’ve tried doing a ton of research online and while some say that the higher salaries are survivorship bias and a lot of PI attorneys don’t make a lot, there seems to be enough that say they’re successful unlike dentists who all say they’re struggling.

So I’m curious, if there’s any PI attorneys and dentists on here, which career do you feel is better for someone that wants to help people, make money, and but also wants job security during economic downturns?

And if anyone knows of a PI attorney and/or dentist, please give your inside as well.

Hi All!

I'm 24M, currently working at an industrial automation company(Top 3). This is my 3rd company i joined 6 months back after grinding in previous companies for 9 to 10hrs of working straight and enjoying.

Here it is 5 days of work with 2 days WFH. I literally have just 1 hr of work everyday and just use 10% of my skill. I'm feeling like being in a clerical role.

Did process automation of my daily work, learnt new courses in linkedin but am still not able to get out of boredom. It's a open office setup so need to act as if being busy.

Asked my TL for work but he said he is also in a similar position and told me to learn something (even gave me freedom to use youtube).

Kindly suggest whether to continue or look for other jobs which can pay me in a similar range but less flexibility.

I’m almost 28 and have had 7 jobs in the past 6 years since graduating college. I got my degree in a social science that I never worked in, and ended up going back for an accounting degree recently.

My most recent jobs have been accounting related (2 yrs with a promotion and current position is 4 months). 2 years has been my longest role, but I felt ready to quit well before then.

At every job I was either promoted or discussed getting promoted soon before leaving, and I always received good feedback, so it’s not a performance issue.

I’m at the point in my current job where I’m looking to leave, and there are definitely issues with the company, but maybe I just need to suck it up.

After this many jobs, there’s no way it’s really been an issue with the environment every time. I think it’s just hard for me to actually settle in somewhere.

I don’t want to keep feeling this way, but I also don’t want to accept having to dread going to work every day for the rest of my life. Is this just what life is, or can find a job/workplace I’ll tolerate? I probably need to shift my mindset but it feels so easy to blame the outside factors that make me frustrated.

I’d appreciate hearing from anyone who has felt similarly or has any advice.

Since every business seems to be sending their entire financial team overseas

Hello! I am having issues deciding whether to stick with this job for a bit longer to see if it pans out or if I should quit. I’ve been here for 4 days and was put in a specific position by said boss the same who hired me. Since my first day being last Thursday, I’ve had maybe 30 minutes on said position. I shadowed yes, but did not have hands on learning. I was told they are flexible in all learning methods and yet they left me hanging. They have been making me stock seasonal items for the last 3 days. Then 10 minutes before my shift ended, they put me alone on said set position. I didn’t receive any info on sales for the next two weeks (sales started yesterday). Boss said I’d figure it out and brushed me off. Management wasn’t much better. I feel pressured and rushed. Am I right to want to quit?

I’ve got a degree in Accounting & Finance and have worked in finance for a few years.

I was most recently on a finance graduate scheme at a large company, earning around £30k with funded CIMA Study support, but unfortunately failed my probation after 11 Months (probation was extended) and was dismissed.

After being unemployed for a couple of months and applying for different roles, I’ve now managed to land an AI & Automation Analyst position at another company, on roughly the same salary.

From what I’ve been told, the role involves identifying processes within the business that could be improved using AI, building automations and helping different departments adopt AI tools.

I don’t have a technical or computer science background, so it’s a bit of a career change for me.

Just wondering what people think. Is this an upgrade or downgrade from a finance graduate scheme in terms of career prospects, salary progression and long-term opportunities?

Would be interested to hear people’s thoughts, especially anyone working in AI/automation or finance.

I’m 26, no degree, some college, working as a receptionist at a doctors office. I’ve had mostly customer service jobs in the past with a few production/warehouse gigs doing embroidery and large format printing. The job is fine, however I’m only working 2-3 days a week because I have school, (I’m 40 mins away from work, which is 40 mins away from school, which is 40 mins away from work, kms), and as the only receptionist there and with no one picking up the slack when I’m not there, those few days I do work are hell, and the “office manager” is a complete bitch to me, like accuses me of doing things I didn’t do, nagging me about little mistakes she also makes, making more crazy demands of me despite all the shit I do for the office. But that’s a different story I suppose.

I’m only in this position bc I thought about pursuing radiology a few months ago, had a few prerequisites complete and anatomy and medical terminology under my belt, and decided to at least get into a medical related job. At the same time, I’m still in school, I am taking physics with an 86 year old professor (i WISH I was exaggerating here), which literally pisses me off to have to pay this place to have this walking skeleton talk about him and his grandads war stories instead of doing any teaching.

On the other hand I’m taking anatomy 2 and doing okay. I like it, it’s interesting, I have enough common sense to know what’s going on most of the time without doing a ton of extra studying.
Im reconsidering radiology because of the physics aspect and realizing I want even less patient facing work than what that would entail.

I’ve toyed with the ideas of pathology tech, histology tech, vascular tech, optician or opth assistant, dental hygienist, things like this that seem like they might only take a few more years of school but pay better than my current situation and maybe more enjoyable… bc like I said I’ve come to realize I can’t stand working with people most of the time, it actually physically pains me to be nice to mean people, get berated for things I can’t control, get zero fucking credit for anything I do, punching bag as the middle man between client and provider, the list goes on. I want to do something cool and maybe somewhat meaningful or artistic with my hands that won’t pay dirt and suck ass. Is it possible. I’m not so sure. Oh yeah I also have to consider if AI would take it over by the time I’ve invested my whole life in it. Fun!

TLDR: I have no idea what career path is right for me when I hate doing pretty much everything and don’t want to endure school for too much longer.

For context, I was recently laid off from my job. I’m not officially laid off until the end of next month but they let me know ahead of time. This was due to outsourcing workers in other countries who are cheaper to pay than workers here in the us. When I started, the company was just acquired but still had the close family startup culture from when they were independent. Over time it’s become all about corporate profits and cutting costs. I don’t feel supported anymore by the people in my team and for my next job, I want to avoid this same situation again.

That context was important because the first job offer I got is at a company that essentially sounds the same. They also recently started outsourcing work from the same country, had high turnover recently that I would assume are also from layoffs like my company did, but I took it since they offered me a promotion from my current job and I just needed a job before I was laid off.

The second offer I got was from a company that seems to be opposite. Still the same work and role, but it’s an extremely small company with a big focus on culture, and a unique bonus structure that consistently hits 25% due to it being from the owners sharing profits directly with employees. I connected a lot with all the people I interviewed with and for the last interview the owner even flew me out to talk to him and his wife to make sure that everything was a good fit.

I have never rescinded a job offer before and I’m worried about how to go about it, since HR from the first company mentioned how much the team liked me, which was evident by them giving me an offer only hours after I finished my final interview. I don’t think I would ever interview there again unless I was in the same situation and desperate for any job, so I’m not too worried about burning bridges. I’m not great with conflict, so I’m worried about upsetting them or creating problems.