Arduinna

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/why-does-job-searching-feel-like-actual-torture.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32438

A reader writes:

I have been trying to understand something about myself for years. You may not be able to help, but I figure it’s worth a shot.

My last job was an admin assistant role working with the same VP for 10 years. I eventually felt burned out and found a similar job where I’ve been for two years. This job has been a solid 5 out of 10, and I anticipate that dropping significantly in the coming months because of a looming project and issues with management.

The obvious solution is to find a new job, but I just … can’t make myself do it? This also happened several years ago when I decided to start searching. It seemed to take more energy than I could ever hope to have just to look for and apply to jobs. It ended up taking at least a year (maybe even two — it’s hard to remember) to find my current job. I finally managed to apply for two jobs and got the second one.

I’m a high performer with only glowing references, a solid work history, and an agreeable personality. I am also a recovering perfectionist and have my fair share of anxiety, and I’ve been going to therapy for 3.5 years, which has been extremely helpful for functioning in life overall.

I have used your advice on resumes, cover letters, and interviews. It feels like I freeze up during interviews despite my best efforts to prepare (maybe I should try a swig of vodka beforehand — ha!).

I guess my questions are: Why does it feel impossible to look for jobs? Why does reading every job description for which I’m qualified instantly make me lose the will to go on (job-searching, not in life)? Am I the only one who feels this way? Is this a lingering mental-health issue?

In case those questions are un-answerable, my other question is: What are some things I could try to make job-searching feel more like cleaning my house, which I don’t enjoy but manage to do regularly, and less like trying to lift a house with a crowbar?

You are not the only one who feels this way. But it’s also indicative of some kind of problematic thinking.

Part of me hates saying that, because it’s actually quite reasonable to dread the job-search process, which is dehumanizing in countless ways.

But because it’s also something that would be in your best interests to do — since you’re unhappy at work and think you’re about to be even more unhappy, and you seem well-positioned to find a new job, as these things go — the fact that you literally can’t bring yourself to do it does indicate something is going on.

My guess is that it’s some combination of:
* feeling like you won’t get hired, so it’s a waste of time
* feeling like even if you do eventually get hired, it will take a huge amount of work to make that happen (since last time it took at least a year)
* worrying that even if you do find another job, you won’t like it
* feeling like the stakes are unbearably high
* dreading the process itself — you mentioned you freeze up in interviews so I’m guessing it’s the opposite of enjoyable to you
* generalized anxiety latching onto this whole thing because it’s such a good target for the reasons above

A lot of those beliefs don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Yes, it took you a year last time, but you only applied for two jobs during that time. How much faster might it have been if you applied to two a week? Or five a week?

And that means your application-to-offer success rate is 50%. That’s unusually high. That says you have better chances than most people, and most people still find jobs.

You also say you’re a high performer with only glowing references, a solid work history, and an agreeable personality. Those are … pretty much the ideal conditions to search from.

All of which means anxiety is probably playing a much bigger role here than you’re allowing for. Are you actively treating the anxiety? Have you talked to your therapist about anxiety meds? If you haven’t, that’s worth doing — and it’s possible that could be the thing that takes this from “feels like trying to lift a house with a crowbar” to “not fun, but still doable.”

The other thing that helps a lot of people: lower the stakes in your head dramatically. If you’re freezing up in interviews because the stakes seem so high, it can help to go in assuming you’re not going to get the job / the interview is just for practice / they’ve already decided to hire the CEO’s nephew / you’re skeptical about whether you even really want the job and they’d need to prove to you that you do.

But I think you’ve got to tackle the anxiety first, and this will get easier once you do.

The post why does job-searching feel like actual torture? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/why-does-job-searching-feel-like-actual-torture.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32438

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/updates-my-bosss-wife-cheated-on-him-in-front-of-me-sob-stories-on-linkedin-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32027

Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. My boss’s wife cheated on him in front of me, and now he’s icing me out at work

I took the part of your advice that involved just being cool and it sort of worked, for a while. I am American but this all happened while I was working at an office in Ireland. They do have a different attitude to drinking there (that stereotype is true) and it’s much, much more common to mix work and booze. They also have a very different approach to clear conflict resolution — in my experience, it is very unusual and rare in Ireland to just address a conflict directly and they find it very American and deeply uncomfortable. If I were to bring that whole thing up to my boss directly, he would likely self-combust before my eyes … so I didn’t. Or rather, felt like I couldn’t. And eventually, it got better.

I started feeling that if someone chooses to drink that excessively with people they give performance reviews, then they need to expect that there might be some wobbles in the professional relationship. And it definitely changed my willingness to drink with people who manage me (or fund our work)! When I think about the whole situation as well, the boss’ wife was falling over drunk, and I see it more through the lens of her being taken advantage of rather than some sort of affair. I wish I had framed it to him that way when we spoke about it. It makes the whole thing uglier. The boss ended up leaving in a spectacular fashion — lawyers were involved — and I haven’t been in touch with him since.

2. Does posting sob stories on LinkedIn hurt your job search?

I wrote to you asking if posting sob stories on LinkedIn hurts your job prospects.

As suspected in the comments, the majority of these colleges are much younger than me (mid-late 20s/ some early 30s) and spent most of their childhood / adolescence years constantly online. While some of my former colleagues eventually found jobs, quite a few have admitted that they felt that posting those sob stories definitely hurt their prospects (especially when one found their posts posted somewhere else mocking them). However, some have dug their heels in the sand saying that “naming and shaming” companies who do not hire or ghost them is the new norm.

As for myself, while I was able to continue to work in my field, the effects of the industry layoffs are really starting to show its effects. I am currently doing the job of 2-3 people, and have been averaging 70 hours a week. I experienced burnout before in this field, and I do not want to compromise my mental and physical health, plus I want to spend more time with my family, which right now I sadly do not get to see often.

I am currently job hunting for positions outside of my field. Luckily, my position has given me a variety of skills that can be transferred to admin roles. I am positive that the skills I learned from reading your blog will help me in my future hunt.

3. My coworker won’t use women’s names

I did end up asking my coworker what was up, after a particularly baffling conversation where he was talking about a manager who had retired before I started working here while comparing her to our highest manager and never using either of their names.

He admitted he had a hard time remembering names on command and just kept things vague, hoping we’d understand through context because constantly pausing to make sure he had the right name would disrupt the flow of the conversation. That’s about what I thought was going on, since he would often use phrases that in our country’s dialect of English refer to a woman whose name you don’t know or can’t remember.

When I asked why he seemed better able to get the men’s names right, he said it’s because there’s so many fewer of them in the office and he supervises most of them, so he’s been able to memorize which guy is which by remembering what job they do, which is harder with the women because our jobs are less clearly defined and he doesn’t interact with our work area as much.

Some people in the comments (which I couldn’t reply to at the time because I didn’t see it, but did read after the fact) seemed to want to assign him some kind of Christian offshoot religion that explained it, but we’re not in the U.S. and those kinds of hyper-specific churches aren’t a thing here. People can be shitty to women at times but it’s the Catholic flavor of shitty.

Since I chatted with him about it, he’s started trying to use women’s names more often, at least when talking to me … which hasn’t really made things less confusing because he keeps calling people by the wrong names at first call. But I caught him mixing up two of the lads who don’t usually work in the same space as him, so at least it’s no longer so targeted?

The post updates: my boss’s wife cheated on him in front of me, sob stories on LinkedIn, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/updates-my-bosss-wife-cheated-on-him-in-front-of-me-sob-stories-on-linkedin-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32027

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/lets-talk-about-times-you-refused-to-do-a-coworkers-job.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=31658

A reader writes:

I would be interested in hearing experiences from people who have dropped the rope with bad coworkers (like the May letter about a coworker who simply didn’t do the parts of his job he didn’t like, and so his coworkers were having to pick up his slack).

I do think in some situations with a coworker let that, it’s good advice to just drop your end of the rope and stop doing the person’s work for them. But I also think it’s become a go-to  in the comments section, with some people advocating very aggressively for it “not being your problem” when I very much doubt a majority of them have handled a similar situation.

I think that advice becomes hardest to implement when the work not getting done will cause real problems for something you care about deeply. In some fields that means risking real harm to vulnerable populations (for example, health care, working with animals, etc.). Or it might mean a project you’re heavily invested in which will reflect badly on you if not completed well. Either of those, but particularly the first, can make it much harder to just drop your end of the rope.

The ultimate answer is to put the problem squarely on your management’s shoulders to deal with. Speak up, talk about what’s going on, be clear about what the impact is, be the squeaky wheel. Even then, though, if you have incompetent management, that won’t always work. So yes, I agree with you that “stop picking up the slack” can be more easily said than done. (It still does sometimes need to be the answer! It’s just worth acknowledging that it’s not always straightforward.)

In any case, let’s use that as today’s “ask the readers” question. In the comments section, tell us about times you decided to stop covering for a coworker and what happened.

The post let’s talk about times you refused to do a coworker’s job appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/08/lets-talk-about-times-you-refused-to-do-a-coworkers-job.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=31658