r/ultracode

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.

I'm a sales engineer and achieved almost 2.5x my target, but they're refusing to give me my commission, saying that the company's overall situation isn't good. But at the same time, from the projects I brought in, they sent other colleagues for trainings abroad and didn't send me.

When I brought it up with the big boss, he told me that I'm getting sales experience and that this should be enough for me. Honestly, after hearing that, I stopped caring. Now I waste time, say I'm visiting clients, go to the office around 2:30pm, and leave at 4:45pm.

I'm planning to change jobs in a few months, but until that happens, I don't know what the right thing to do is. Should I keep pushing to get my commission, leave quietly, or do something else?

What's going on in your head? Why don't you just leave people alone? Do you realize that half the people on the call are silently annoyed with you?

I'm exaggerating a bit, but seriously. This specific type of person irritates me more than almost anything else.

I'm posting this because my friend Maya is so broken by it that she can't even vent about it properly, and honestly, the whole thing deserves to be documented as evidence. She applied to a mid-sized PR/communications company in November, and they got back to her after two days, which, thinking about it now, should have made everyone suspicious, because when does that ever happen? Then a long obstacle course of pointless work began: a recruiter screen, a manager interview, a written strategy assignment that took up most of her Sunday, a panel with five people, a "team values" chat with someone whose official job seemed to be in charge of the vibes, another conversation with a senior director, and finally a wrap-up call where the VP told her she was "basically the profile we had in mind" and said she would hear back from them within a few days.

After six weeks of absolutely nothing, she got a generic rejection email saying they had moved forward with an internal applicant. Not even an email from a human being. A template. And they even misspelled her last name, which was like a nice little garnish on top of all the garbage. Maya eventually found out from a friend of a friend that the internal person had been unofficially lined up for the role before the posting was even published, and that the outside interviews only existed because HR needed external candidates in the system before approving the promotion.

She wasted an entire Sunday on that assignment. She presented ideas to five strangers on a Thursday afternoon. And apparently she passed the corporate vibe inspection. There honestly needs to be a public ledger for this stuff, just so everyone can see which companies run fake hiring processes and stop pretending this is normal.

The situation is pretty much what the title says - I'm in a job where I make $215k, and most of my "work" consists of responding to a Slack thread every now and then, sending a quick email, and attending a meeting from time to time. I'm not saying this as some weird kind of bragging or because I feel like I've beaten the system. Honestly, I feel guilty and like I'm waiting for the whole thing to blow up in my face at any moment.

Part of me is grateful, of course. I started this role at a different company about 14 months ago, and my family and I didn't grow up in very comfortable circumstances. So I always try not to forget how lucky I am, especially knowing that a lot of people would do anything to be in this position.

But another part of me feels awful that I'm being paid this much money when I'm not doing much actual work. I know I'm capable - I led very important projects in a previous role, and I've always been seen as a strong performer. But here I feel like I'm just floating along, while everyone around me seems extremely stressed. My manager seems happy with me, no one has said there's a problem, and all the feedback I've received so far has been good. Even so, I can't get out of my head the feeling that if cuts happen at any point, I'll be an easy target because I don't feel like I'm adding enough compared to my cost.

Has anyone gone through a similar situation? I'd be grateful for any advice on how to handle this.

I swear to God, I work with some of the pettiest women on this planet.

I work at a medical clinic, and drug reps come by several times a week with free drinks, pastries, and fully catered lunches. I usually skip all of it because I'm shut away in my office doing Telehealth visits, and honestly I'm kind of picky about food anyway.

Yesterday afternoon, one of the reps - someone I knew back in grad school - brought in a big spread from Einstein Bros. Since she knew I worked there, she asked where my room was, came in, gave me a latte, and we talked for maybe eight minutes. No drama. Just catching up.

After that, I was standing by the printer, and one of the most miserable employees there asked me why I was accepting "personal favors" from a pharmaceutical rep that no one else got. I laughed because I thought she was joking.

Nope.

She stood up straight and told me that "unapproved gifts" could be reported to HR, and that she was going to file a complaint.

Meanwhile - the exact same women had been eating the bagels, muffins, and sandwiches the reps brought. I didn't eat a single bite. I told her the coffee was from an old friend from school, who just happened to be the rep. She rolled her eyes and said that was "interesting" because she'd never noticed me talking to her before.

I reminded her that I see around 14 patients during a 9-hour day, finish all my notes, return calls, and don't spend half my shift hovering around the free food - unlike certain people.

I seriously cannot deal with these women.

I have six years left until retirement. Maybe I'll make it through them peacefully... If I don't find myself catching an assault charge in the break room first.

I just got off a call with a recruiter and honestly, I'm still furious. I went through an exhausting 9-step interview process with this company. A large take-home assignment, hours of preparation before each call, and several panel interviews that were 75 minutes each. In the end, I'm pretty sure I spoke with around 25 people.

The pay range in the posting was $120k to $160k. The process was messy from very early on. Around the fifth interview, they kept telling me I was in the "last step," and then, magically, another call would appear that same week. I already have a job, so I didn't have to do this, and that's probably the only reason I was able to put up with all of it for this long.

After I did everything they asked for, they dragged out the decision and postponed it 3 separate times. This morning, they finally called me. The recruiter said there had been an "error" in the job listing and that the highest they could go was $95k.

That number is insulting given my experience, especially since I match all the "required" skills and most of the "nice to haves" they had listed. Honestly, I'm shocked by the audacity. How are companies allowed to waste people's time like this with no consequences?

All I have to do now is find a suitable offer that matches my experience and skills. During my search, I came across some posts about interviews that I think might be really helpful. There were things I didn't know, and I learned a lot from them. One of these posts is this post that discusses the most common questions asked in interviews.

The last seven times or so this happened, I would stay late and then also go in on a weekend morning to clean it up, without a single extra penny or even a word of thanks. Management treats downtime and unexpected problems like some mythical thing that is impossible to plan for. Their backup plan is simply my time for free. I still remember when I fixed a really annoying issue, and one of the new supervisors nudged the plant manager and basically said: maybe the team deserves recognition for this. The PM made a sour face and said: "This wasn't supposed to happen in the first place." It's hard to stay motivated under "leadership" living in a fantasy.

So I thought about wasting another Saturday because of them and said no. No one was going to get hurt. It was just money. When I came back on Tuesday, everything had gone sideways. Line stoppage, ruined parts, escalations, and people running around everywhere pissed off. And I didn't feel anything.

After that, I stopped reviewing the reports at the end of the week. If some messy issue shows up before the weekend and the automation or the off-shift crew doesn't catch it, then that's that.

edit: some friends advice me to quit ,I will not take this step until i got the right offer and as for now I will never take an extra time for free ,but just in case I read some useful tips for interviews ,good luck for everyone to find green flag work

My current job is remote and pays me 68K. They expect your Slack dot to stay green all day. I was also asked about my childcare setup on the very first morning. They already feel rigid, and that kind of undermines the whole idea of the job being remote in the first place. I was told that younger employees in the past would get up to take out the trash or move laundry. Honestly, I think that's normal, and I feel like it's unreasonable to expect someone to sit glued to their laptop all day, even though people in an office definitely don't do that.

I noticed that one coworker put "quick restroom break" as her Slack status. That was the moment I said to myself... Yeah, no. The only real advantage of this job so far is that I don't have a commute.

The other offer is 31K higher, but it's 4 days in the office each week. The benefits start earlier, and there's almost double the PTO, student loan/tuition assistance, and up to a 7% 401K match. There's also a bonus plan, which my current job doesn't have.

Is the commute really that bad with all of that taken into consideration? I feel like I'll probably be monitored less in the office than I currently am at home. And either way, it's clear I'll need childcare. My daughter is very quiet, but I can already imagine their reaction if they heard her even once on a call.

Someone I know turned down around 40K to stay fully remote, but her setup seems much calmer than this.

I was at camp for the last 8 days, and when I got back I found 41 missed calls, 24 texts, and 7 voicemails from people at work. I didn't have my phone with me the whole time, and I had literally told them that when I requested time off 4 months ago.

The weird thing is that my manager left me voicemails that were honestly way beyond the limits of any work call. I mean, not just "hey, call us back," but inappropriate and kind of unhinged.

When I finally got my phone back, I texted the big boss to make sure everything was okay. That's when she told me my "time off" had been denied almost at the last minute. Then I found out the reason was that she had also taken time off during the same week, and since 4 of her kids work there too, she realized they wouldn't have enough people to run the place.

Instead of telling me any of this before I left, they put me on the schedule for 11-hour shifts every day while I was gone, which would have been 66 hours over 6 days. And I'm a minor and part-time, so I'm only supposed to be allowed to work up to 18 hours a week.

Then she said I no longer work there because I had done multiple "no call no shows." I have never done that before all this mess. And the reason I didn't know there was even a problem is that she forgot to tell me my days had been denied until 3 days into the trip.

So now I'm going to HR at the end of this week because this is bs. But I'm not sure what to say or what to bring with me, especially since I don't even know if I want to keep working there after what happened. And this also isn't the first time they've done something like this.

So, yeah... Does anyone have advice on what I should do going into this?

My husband made a very stupid decision. He was supposed to be working and was logged in as if everything were normal, and then he left without anyone noticing and went to a sportsbook a few blocks away, and got caught sitting there placing bets. They fired him, and yes, I'm very angry.

I work too, so we're not in a state of panic right this second, but with 4 kids at home, the situation could change very quickly if he doesn't get another job soon.

He had been at this company for 8 years, and now I'm assuming he won't be able to use them as a reference. There was a manager there who knew him outside of work before all of this, and he reluctantly said he would vouch for him, but I don't know how much that will help.

What is he even supposed to say on applications or in interviews? The company is small and the owner might be vindictive, so if a background check or reference call reaches them, I'm afraid they'll say exactly what happened if he tries to gloss over it with something general.

He understands that he was wrong and is acting remorseful now, but I'm not sure that makes much difference to someone deciding whether or not to hire him. I'm stressed and trying to understand what the realistic picture looks like here. Any advice would be appreciated.