u/buybacklyre

This literally just happened and I'm extremely upset.

I had an interview on Thursday for a position. The next day they asked me for references, so I sent them several. I intentionally did not include contact details for a place I used to work at before. Yes, it's listed on my resume. Someone at that company was stalking and harassing me. I had to get the police involved, and I absolutely do not want that person to know where I am or where I might work next. The stalker works in HR, so if anyone contacts that company, they'll know right away.

The job I'm interviewing for called them anyway because "he felt like doing that." So now that person may have information about me that I specifically did not want shared. I am burning with anger. I gave them plenty of references, and this jerk ignored all of them.

Sorry. I'm concerned this is a serious issue for my safety. Why are employers allowed to do whatever they want without any accountability? He may have put me in danger if I accept this job now, and I may still have to do that because I don't have many options at the moment.

We always see job interviews as a two-way street - an opportunity for us to evaluate the company just as they evaluate us. Some of our closest friends see this as a bit naive, but it has led to many amusing situations.

Anyway, my partner had a job interview recently, and when the interviewer asked her the classic question, 'Can you multitask?', she literally gave them a look of astonishment. Then she replied directly, saying: 'I can certainly switch between different responsibilities quickly and effectively, but true multitasking? No. No one can do that. Can you, for example, write an email and simultaneously talk about a complex topic? That's simply not how our brains work.'

The interviewer was surprised and admitted he had never heard such a frank response before. A few days passed, and guess what happened? She received a job offer via email, with all the usual benefits. It was for a position at a large hospital group.

But here's the surprise: she rejected the offer. What was her justification? She told them it was genuinely about that an institution whose primary work is patient health would include such an outdated and scientifically unsupported question in its hiring process. Her exact words were something like: 'While I appreciate the offer, I have strong reservations.'

I thought perhaps this little story might appeal to some of you who are tired of all this corporate buzzword talk. I hope it brought a smile to your faces.

Okay, work has been really chaotic lately. We've been understaffed for a while, which has caused us to fall behind on some daily tasks, like organizing and inventory checks. Because of this, today we received news that our two breaks, each 20 minutes long, would be canceled. I just sent a quick message to our union representative to ask if this was even allowed. I didn't want to cause any trouble; I just wanted to clarify the situation.

It seems my simple question reached all the supervisors in our area, informing them that they couldn't cancel the breaks. Then, at noon, my manager stormed into my workspace, extremely agitated. He started yelling, saying, "You went and reported it to the union, didn't you?" and "Is this how we're going to do things now, huh?" He then accused me of not being a "team player" and not being good enough at multitasking (which, by the way, is completely untrue). He also remembered to mention that I usually arrive at work five to seven minutes early, instead of the twenty minutes or more that everyone else does, before he walked away angrily, not giving me a chance to say anything. Honestly, I'm close to quitting this nightmare job right now; I need advice.

A quick clarification: many people asked if the union told my manager about me. There are only a few of us in our branch, and I'm usually the only one who objects to unfair things. So, it didn't take a genius to figure out who contacted them. I don't see the union as being at fault here at all; this is naturally what happens when you work in a very small team.