r/ProtectHire

The company owner wants to meet with everyone next week. What should I expect / how do I not make things worse? The gist of it is the title.

I destroyed a machine because I ran it the wrong way. I've been at this place for 4 months, and I have about 14 months of experience doing this exact kind of work. I have 6 years in very closely related fields, but I'm still the newest person on this team (26 years old). They showed me how to operate this thing during my first week. And apparently I've been running it wrong pretty much the whole time since then.

The part that's making me not know how to deal with this is that I wasn't 100% sure I was doing it right, so I asked about it more than once. And the answer I was given was basically: "Yeah, technically that's not the correct way, but everyone does it that way sometimes, don't worry about it."

Well, running it that way, plus a few unlucky things happening at the same time that weren't entirely under my control, caused the machine to be completely destroyed. As in total loss, no repair, it's done. Thankfully nobody got hurt, but the sound/violence of what happened was strong enough that everyone in the shop afterward had that adrenaline crash and shakiness.

Now the company owner wants to meet the whole team face to face. Not a single one of us has met him before. All I know is that he's in his late sixties, has been doing this work for about 45 years, and people here talk about him like he's half genius and half thunderstorm. Supposedly he's calmed down a lot compared to the old days, but that is not making me feel reassured at all right now.

I'm honestly very scared about what's coming. I really don't want to lose this job. It's easily the best job I've had so far. I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to say in this meeting, so that I take responsibility without looking like I'm throwing the rest of the team under the bus. Any advice on how to handle this or what to prepare would be appreciated.

My resume is good, or at least that's what I thought. Most places either don't answer at all, or they tell me I'm overqualified. I'm applying for roles that I honestly know I'm overqualified for, because my options are running out and I just need anything at this point.

My background is in Cerner, office/admin work, and non-clinical healthcare positions. What's frustrating me is that all these skills should transfer easily to any similar job. I went back to school to get into nursing, but now I'm wondering if I should pause that for a while and go get a few certifications instead.

I am a 23-year-old young man, and honestly, I feel like I'm starting from below zero. I don't have a university degree. I don't have skills that are useful in the market. I work long shifts at a nearby shop just to barely survive - and even then, there are nights where I eat less so that the money lasts.
I don't want to spend the coming years feeling like I'm wasting my life. I am ready to work hard, learn the right things, and build something bit by bit. I'm not looking for a quick way to become a millionaire or fake motivational talk. I just need a real starting point.

I come from a family that didn't have much, and school didn't really work out for me. Now I see people talking about saving, learning trades, side hustles, and getting ahead - and I want that very much. But from where I am now, it all feels confusing and far away.

If you were in the same situation and managed to get out of it, I would really appreciate hearing from you. What helped you? What should I focus on first? And what advice would you give yourself if you went back to where I am now?

Even one practical step would make more of a difference to me than you can imagine.

Hi everyone,

Earlier this week, my manager pulled me aside and told me that I take about 50 minutes for lunch, even though, according to him, I'm only supposed to take 35 minutes. I work in an engineering office, and lunch here is very flexible. People take it whenever they want, and for whatever length suits them, as long as they complete 8 hours a day.

I usually arrive around 7:45 and leave at 4:20, which comes out to 8 hours and 35 minutes in the office. Most days I take about 55 minutes to eat and decompress a bit, so on paper I'm about 20 minutes short. Some people have asked me why I don't take a full hour like a lot of my coworkers, but honestly I don't need that much time, and I don't want to stay late just for the sake of staying.

The part that bothers me is that I get my work done on time, and often ahead of schedule, too. On many afternoons, I'm sitting around waiting for something else to do. I'm not missing deadlines or causing problems for anyone.

Apparently, the person who told my manager about this is an older woman in the office who regularly stays late because she struggles with the software we use. It seems she got annoyed that I come in after her and still leave before her. So to me, this feels less like an actual productivity problem and more like office politics.

My manager said we'll talk about it again tomorrow, and I'm not sure what the best response is. I'm salaried, and if I don't get paid extra when I stay late during busy periods, I don't see why I should just sit around to hit a specific number down to the minute when my work is already done.

How can I explain this without making it sound like I'm arrogant or that I think the rules don't apply to me?

! I feel like I'm really angry on behalf of my best friend after watching him spend around 14 hours just to get through 7 interviews.

He applied to a company and the job was almost exactly identical to what he already does. In terms of the title, it would have been a step down, but the salary would have been better.

He had a few screening calls, three long interviews where he had to do presentations almost the entire time, and two regular video interviews. Throughout all of this, the person who would have been his manager kept saying how excited they were about him and asking whether he was talking to other companies or not.

He had to take time off for each one of these. We had to change childcare arrangements, and I had to leave work early twice to pick up our kids on days when he was supposed to handle it. All of this gave the impression that he was a top candidate and that they were genuinely considering him. Of course, he knew nothing was guaranteed, but still. He said there was one person from the team he would have joined who seemed completely uninterested and a bit cold, while everyone else seemed genuinely happy to have met him. He was excited too, because the company seemed full of good people who were warm to deal with.

Then he got a 3-minute phone call telling him they had chosen someone else. The call was from the person who would have been his manager, and my husband said his tone suddenly became dry and almost scripted. He was thrown off by the change and asked for feedback since he had spent so much time preparing presentations, but all he got was a vague, canned response.

Now he's awake, unable to sleep, trying to figure out what happened. Was it one of the presentations? Did he accidentally annoy someone? Was there something strange in a reference check that he doesn't know about? No one knows. He asked, and they refused to say.

Seven interviews is way too much, especially since some of those interviews were with people he probably would have had very little interaction with in the actual job.