u/DragonfruitBubbly670

just like in the title. I got fed up with sending so many applications that just vanish into thin air with no response at all. Suddenly, I had the idea that most of these places have an insane amount of resumes, and they must be lost and no longer know who is talking to whom.
So this became my routine: I apply for the job, wait a few days, and then call them and tell them that someone contacted me and said I was shortlisted and that I need to call to schedule an interview on the calendar.
So far, I've gotten 5 interviews in the last 5 weeks, compared to only 2 interviews in the past 4 months. Out of the 25 times I tried this move, only two companies caught me.
In those two instances, I told them I must have confused the company name and hung up. Honestly, the response rate this way is much better than sitting around waiting for an email that never comes.

The people who came before us probably used to sleep 8-10 hours, and many of them also rested during the day. Compared to that, the average person in the modern working world is barely surviving. We're supposed to wake up peacefully, with light coming in through the window, not get yanked out of sleep by a hideous ringtone before the sun has even risen. There is nothing natural about forcing yourself to wake up in the dark, eat anything quickly, finish in the bathroom in under 12 minutes, and then sit in traffic just so you can enter an office and immediately act like you're useful.

And then people treat this as if it's discipline. As if dragging yourself out of bed every morning while your body is literally in a state of panic is a moral achievement. The truth is that you wake up with your cortisol already spiking, and that adds stress on top of a day that hasn't even started yet. You start hating the alarm before you even go to sleep. This isn't noble. This is a system built around productivity and output, with almost no real concern for the person being put through this experience. Something cold, harsh, and endlessly ongoing.

And I also can't stand it when those same people come back and lecture us about wellness or improving health. You can't do this to your nervous system day after day and then pretend you're giving serious advice about being healthy. It makes no sense. Waking up that early, in that rushed and unnatural way, has absolutely nothing to do with taking care of your body.

This was said during an interview on NYT podcast Matter of Opinion.. The context: they were talking about DOGE's ideas for making the federal government more efficient.

I'll point to the easiest example that they've already said out loud, which is that federal office space in DC currently has an occupancy rate of around 30 percent. Simply put, a very large portion of federal employees haven't fully returned to the office. And ask a Fortune 500 CEO, he'll tell you that people working from home don't work hard.

The assumption that just because someone is sitting in a cubicle means people have "returned to work" honestly makes me extremely angry. I started in tech in the Bay Area, and I used to look up to those VC guys as role models.

Fuck you, Marc Andreessen. I hope a16z keeps burning money forever.