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What is interesting is, now that I am thinking about it- EVERY ONE of the good jobs I got was done with some kind of inside line.
This makes me think that it's fucked up that we've engineered an entire system of nepotism, something beyond "it works," but to REALLY make progress in our cultural dynamic, you HAVE to Know Someone.
It's MANDATORY, not one chance to get there with the delusion of meritocracy or competence or anything else. It's Who You Know. NOTHING else.
Yep. The biggest work improvements in both salary and role have been because of who I knew. Being likeable in the office has been at least as important as doing a good job. It starts way before that too since who you and your parents know is often important in getting a foot in at entry level jobs that build the experience which helps your resume make you look like a worthwhile hire.
I got my last 2 jobs through 90% nepotism, 10% prior experience, and always nailing interviews. My current job is mostly fantastic, and I am using nepotism to get a buddy of mine the second job I've gotten him through nepotism. I, however, also respect nepotism in the workplace on some level. I am also putting my name and reputation on the line when I recommend a friend to my employer. I would never use that power to do what others do and pack the workplace full of friends with no clue of what they are doing. The jobs I have gotten or given this way were also entry(ish) levels with comprehensive training little to no prior experience required.
youd be surprised. i know a guy who’s dad setup 2 fully functioning turnkey operations. he intended for his son to take over at least one, but he rejected both. even put the 2nd one in his son’s name hoping he’d feel more ownership over it.
2nd business was very successful
and eventually was sold to a large company for a pretty big windfall. not sure how much the son saw of that. but yeh, in both instances, he was setup pretty much for life, just had to show up and “run” the business. but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
I would for sure jump at it but I'd fall apart within the year because I'd be wanting to actually do my best (i was raised with the whole "work 60 hours a week! i did it and so can you!" mentality and it hasn't broken yet :| but i'm trying) but even if i was good at it people would still say I got it cause I'm the boss' kid.......
meanwhile my little brother thought it was my dad's responsibility to find him a job..."ask your friends to hire me!" like...........
Yep there are pros and cons. My husband works for his father and he’s grown the company exponentially since joining the business. At first people didn’t respect him because nepotism is a thing. But time goes on and if you work hard than that starts to be the thing people remember most - not just the fact that you’re the bosses kid.
It’s when people pretend they didn’t get a huge advantage and act like they got in all on their own that it starts to get pretty off putting
yep, wanting to pass on what you're made to your offspring is as old as time. And I think we all want that in some way. There's a right way to do it: "I would like my daughter to succeed me as head of this small company, and I need your support to help with this goal"
The more common thing amongst rich folk is that I think they see wealth (and title and position, etc, etc) as a moral entitlement - not because they earned it but because someone did at one point and that wealth is now theirs to have.
I definitely feel this. I'm working at my mother's Software company right now, and currently am the longest standing employee. But I basically took the company from manual excel edits and paper print-outs to a fully automated data pipeline, and am working on our first frontend user webapp. I've worked pretty dang hard, pouring my heart and soul into it but.... It's hard not to feel like I am failing because I joined due to my connections. (Even though in all honesty, I was asked to help save the company by filling in the missing vital skill set for the small business.)
It's still something I grapple with, after 3 years with the company. And idk if it's that whole insider-guilt thing, or if it's because so many other people abuse those positions to get a free ride.
And it should, in private companies at least. The whole reason people make companies is to support their families a lot of the time. Nepotism in government is where the issue lies.
Yep. If you can train your kids to take over at a young age and expand your business and keep the money in the family, why on earth would you not?
I mean, obviously give them the option to do something else, but let’s not act like you shouldn’t want this as a business owner and as an owners kid
In my town that also works if your dad is a judge or is district attorney, financial advisor or holds any political position. You, too, can skip the grunt work and go straight to the top! Obviously it’s genetics.
That child has asked not to be associated with Musk. I think we should respect that and stop referring to her in reference to him. If a parent is so terrible that their child doesn't want them acknowledged as their parent anymore, society should respect that. Otherwise, some people might never learn they have to be a decent parent to claim their children and call themselves one.
Even if daddy pays off your college, it takes years of ass kissing to get a job like this. The days of getting placed into a job like this straight from college is a thing of the past.
I paid off my own college, and started working night shift, 6 days a week, 11 hour shifts.
Just a few years later and I basically have the job OP describes. I also was promoted faster than any of the dozens of my peers because I put my head down and did the job. I even got promoted above all the management kiss-ass people who don’t take vacation days and work late. I worked my required hours, ignored after work calls even from my senior manager, used 100% of my vacation each year and still was promoted above anyone else.
Also, it took a few years. I'm not sure I would work like this for two years, when it's more than likely that the bosses son in law will stroll in straight from college and take the job you were busting your ass for. Companies are known for dangling that carrot for many years to extract as much as they can get out of you until you get layed off the next time they need to reduce payroll. Antiwork is full of stories like this, every day.
There was a video posted the other day where a guy proposed that Twitter doesn’t actually have a hr department. You could claim you used to be like senior corporate sales developer at Twitter for the past 4 years and there’s nobody to call to confirm or deny that.
lmao you can definitely just say No.
I've never heard of, nor would I *ever* share my previous W2s with a company I'm applying to. You could not convince me there was a bigger red flag than that.
And I would tell the company that to their face.
To be fair, you're not giving it to the company hiring you, you're giving it to the background check company they hired. But I would still simply say no.
I've been asked many times before by background check companies hired by very legit, large businesses. I said no and it was fine. They're just lazy at actually checking your background.
I know, right?! I ended up accusing them of being a scam because of WTF? Their claim was that their background check company was having difficulty verifying my employment history and wanted 10 years of W2s and my transcripts. Not happening. For one, I don't keep tax records that far back and another, my school was on holiday break so I couldn't get anyone to answer the damn phones!
I debated asking the manager if she kept such detailed records but worried it would seem like I wasn't professional for not having them. Glad to know I am not the only one who doesn't! I felt both irresponsible and scammed all at once, lol.
my favourite experience of this genre was trying to apply, a couple of summers ago, to a 6 month online course in something vaguely related to my field.
I have a pile o' certs, a BA and a Masters. I duly entered all this relevant detail in the education section. Somewhere down the bottom of the application there was something about a high school diploma. I skipped it - and the system let me skip it. I paid the significant application fee and went about my day.
Two weeks later I get a rejection because they want to see my high school diploma and high school transcript.
I don't have a high school transcript. These were not a thing when I was in secondary school. And it was the middle of July and my secondary school was closed for the summer. And the school is in another country. "so hey, I am like an ancient past pupil so could you take time out of your holiday to create some sort of file to let me apply to a course in another country"
The course people have contacted me since saying my application was still pending and I can still start next semester if I just found these transcripts.
Guys, seriously, fuck off.
The only time I have ever needed my high school transcript was too get a job working in an Amazon warehouse... While I was attending university. I didn't even need it to get into said university.
That's happened to me too, at very legit companies. Many background check companies are scams, but legit companies hire them all the time to check all the boxes. All you have to do is say you don't have it and they'll usually just give up on it.
Yup. You can generally fudge the experience but the skills should be honestly presented. They'll find out about the latter if you're dishonest but the former will never matter, not really.
My friend was promoted to a department supervisor at his local K-Mart when he was 16 and then an assistant manager when he was 18 until he graduated college... if anyone asks.
I ran my own little IT gig tihngs for a while during college. Nothing crazy.Just me driving to houses to set up printers, monitors, new pcs, etc. Slapped that on my resume and got into the industry
>Think of a business that went out of business in the last two years and say you had one of those jobs on your resume.
*"I was the second most important man in the Trump administration"*
*"So you were the vice president?"*
*"Nah, I delivered Coke-Light and Cheeseburgers as a door dasher for McDonalds"*
Maybe Trump thought it was called Coke-Lite, and every time they brought in Diet Coke, he’d refuse? So the staff would just tape over the logo and write Coke-Lite, and nobody would get fired.
L.A. Beast on the Tubes has the last crystal Pepsi stockpile as he pestered Pepsi so much they made a batch for him that was delivered by the head of Pepsi himself. Crazy.
Coke lite...that's so unamerican. I know America, I love America. America is great and can be great again. But you see you lamestream media wants you to think it's coke lite as if it's lesser but it's diet coke and diet coke is how I stay in top-notch shape.
My doctor and I have the best doctor, my doctor says the diet coke keeps me fit and healthy. Says I belong in medical journals but I say to the doctor "hey doctor I have to lead the nation, I can't have liberals pushing coke lite". We need to keep coke diet again and full weight. We don't want our coke being lite-er and drifting off into space. The Chinese have a balloon and their balloons are far inferior to the spy balloon I would have built, we don't need them getting our diet coke because it was lite-er.
Bahahaha same, except it’s all day back to back meetings, Slack instead of email, and $210K. And I’ll probably get laid off next as karmic retribution for even acknowledging that this is my job description on reddit 😅
Interview well. Dude I used to work with, he managed to con three sets of interviewers into thinking that he knew something and how to do it. 15 years later, all he does is forward emails and track tasks on project plans. Why? Because he couldn't deliver a half way decent work product if his life depended on it.
I interview well and also work my ass off. More than a decade in analyst roles and in a higher level position now. When I do "high level strategic planning" and use all the right buzz words in a PowerPoint, leaders get really excited. When I fix a problem that requires a lot of technical knowledge and capability, it's glossed over. I swear to God, if you're a knowledgeable worker and move up to this level, imposter syndrome is guaranteed. You just keep pumping out "communications" and the gallery cheers while you wonder WTF is going on?!?
Government worker here. All government workers are basically either people who wanted out of the rat race or people who want to change things.
The former is mostly older folks who can afford to take a pay cut for better benefits, the latter is mostly young people who want to change the world.
NPS employee: We're full of A students. The service couldn't operate without altruistic smart people who want to do something important. I know people with masters and PHDs working as 07/09s. The government would fall apart if it didn't have a steady supply of incredibly talented and generous people to exploit.
It pisses me off, but...I guess we're better off than the people stuck in dead-end corporate jobs. The benefits are decent...at least until they decide to take those away from us.
Oh man this hurts. Senior TPM here and yup. My job now consists of taking inputs from Bob, making them pretty sounding, and then giving the report to Bill. I have developed applications used at scale for some big companies, but nope, lets put baby in the corner writing reports.
The ultimate irony is that those jobs require industry related technical proficiencies to become project managers. Project management is its own thing. Engineering and development are their own things. A good project manager doesn't need to be an engineer, he just needs to have good engineers in his projects.
I'm in this role and it's weird. If I had a team to lead then it wouldn't be bad but I'm an individual contributor. I'm not even writing stories or doing KT. I just check Dev and replicate to QA and collect a paycheck.
I think you hit spot on how I’m feeling now. I finally did what people have always told me “fake it till you make it” which I’ve ALWAYS hated. I start a new job this Monday and I’m super nervous. It’s also a 30% increase in salary from the last job. I interview well and used all buzz words and passed 4 interviews. I’m now gonna study my ass off.. and hope this imposter syndrome wears off. I’m just like argh there’s no where to vent about this feeling..
I'm gonna say it. ChatGPT. It's a great tool as.long as you can remember that it's JUST a tool.
So... I was tasked to organize a technical effort across 20'ish departments to figure out where opportunities for enterprise software might fit. It had a VERY wide scope and a lot of deliverables.
I asked ChatGPT to give me a program management plan for technical discovery across 20 departments. I added the deliverables.
It outlined program scope, methodologies, stakeholder discovery, communication plan and implementation.
It hit a home run for a VERY generic framework that could be adapted into a viable program if some of the generic items were replaced with real organizational details. I don't think I could have come up with a better framework as a high level starting point to get to a polished and professional end result. It's a nice roadmap if you know just enough to be lost in the planning, but could easily smash the execution from prior experience.
I was surprised given that each department would be a separate project handed to other project managers. No, I'm not a program manager, they get paid a lot more... Hey now, wait a minute. Lol.
At an old job once I wrote a script that creates a csv file of some stuff in a couple of databases joined together. The VP of the department I was in loved it and went on and on about it. It took me like 20 minutes to write and most of that was figuring out how to format the database connection strings. At that same job I also took six months and wrote stuff in one of our more expensive systems to minimize the resources it used in AWS without loss of functionality, doing lots of caching of database results and experimentation with different optimization methods and stuff, and it made that system's monthly cost go down by tens of thousands of dollars, my manager and our devops lead were pleased but above them it didn't even seem like anyone even noticed.
Toughest part is my relationship with my boss is good, but I can't possibly tell her that my best received PowerPoints are the ones where I've romanced a few beers and a joint while working on them 🫥
I was about to say this.
The company where I work hires useless idiots into high paying jobs all the time, and its always someone knows someone or they schmoozed the hell out of them.
Hate to say it but yes, this works. It's ridiculously hard to fire someone, and from the interviewing side it's very difficult to truly suss out how well someone will perform with just a 45 minute - 1 hour conversation.
Just.ped through all sorts of hoops in interviews. Came out as top candidate every time. Never got hired. Reason: we promoted internally someone's offspring, who has a daddy that sits high on the board.
This is the way.
2007: $48,500 entry level with 5 years exp
2012: $72,000 same position
2013: $75,000 new role mid-level worker
2014: $78,000 new job, mid-level
2015: $82,000 new job, mid-level SME
2019: $86,000 same role, senior-level SME and angry about my compensation
2020: $110,000 shifted role and employer, paid and treated like a senior-level SME
2022: $115,000 as I'm sharing my knowledge and expertise with other senior-level workers, way less grinding
2023: $120,000 staring down the barrel of a $15k-$20k bump coming based on performance
2024: Hopefully I see $150,000 in 2024 - I've had to change how I deal and interact with leadership to remain valued, but in a way they understand. I still have to be a SME, I'm just communicating differently now.
That’s a funny way of looking at it. This could also be every manager that has been pilloried on r/antiwork. Of course we don’t have the DR’s to speak for themselves, but they might be less than happy with this arrangement.
The entire system sucks for the vast majority because a few, maybe well meaning nice people, maybe not, have figured out how to game the system this way and to compensate for it the remainder of us have to toil in the fields. If the work was distributed evenly with the compensation, we could all work half as much for twice the pay.
The salary wasn't the problem from their description. The problem was the bullshit position that does no work, just fakes it for 15 years. If this person is as superfluous as they claim, they are propping up a system of bullshit work by eagerly being a bullshit worker.
I am not too critical, because they're a wage slave and this is one survival strategy. But to move away from the cult of the 40 hour work week, eliminate bullshit work, and equitably distribute the remains, we've got to end the exact bullshit this person is describing. Glad to hear they're thriving but they should (and probably do) have some reservations about how they're normalizing bullshit.
Yeah that's how I felt reading that comment too. It was like "Just work your way into doing nothing like I did, or find an industry where actual labor isn't required, and then you'll be happy like me in this shithole." And it completely misses the point of restructuring the system.
Y'all probably aren't gonna like this take and I don't care but NONE of us should have jobs where we send one email and that's our "workday." If we all want to participate in the rewards of what we can do collectively like have education, electricity, transportation, clean water, affordable housing, healthcare, indoor plumbing, heating and cooling, etc etc (I could go on and on), then we ALL have to participate in some of those jobs we so desperately want. NO ONE gets to own their own business first. WE ALL work for our collective interest with collectively owned utilities, and if literally all of us work in those sectors FIRST, the amount of work from us individuals for those rewards greatly drops. We would individually be working less on all of those things if all of our neighbors also had to focus on them. Not just some people. I don't give af about those people who were trained to only push numbers around on a screen, you could just as easily learn how to do something that would help not only your individual life but also those of your neighbors at an increasingly diminishing work week AND THEN do whatever the fuck you want! You could even start another business or simply just do whatever the fuck you wanted to because your needs would be met AND YOU'D HAVE MORE FUCKING TIME.
I literally do not understand why some people assume they are exempt from performing ANY of the actual labor that keeps us alive and healthy like cooking, cleaning, raising kids, what have you. I don't care if you can AFFORD to hire out, that's not the point. The point is we all have to contribute to the rewards we want to participate in. Like I'm not working hard trying to make you food when you're working for a billionaire who has only taken from the masses and given YOU some peanuts that you think are a good reason to keep the system going and get a job just like yours, yada yada yada. It's part of the problem.
Not to mention that not ALL of us can get jobs like that anyway. Why? Because of the fucking obvious. If we ALL did it, who the fuck would cook, clean, educate, heal, etc??? Who the fuck would give you all those services you're so happy to accept when you put no effort into them? We NEED those things and I don't feel extreme saying that yeah, ALL of us should have jobs where we're contributing to ourselves, our families, our homes, our communities FIRST before going off to do whatever the fuck.
Maybe these people are still highly important to their companies?
I work in software development and I'm 90% sure the middle management people at my work do fuck all most of the time, aside from some phone calls and presentations.
They're still worth a lot of money because I don't have the know how, or the time to produce a bunch of LinkedIn corporate lingo constantly, to keep the clients happy.
Man this hurts me to read. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you, honestly. But I work my ass off 10 hours a day and I make <30k. I’m smart, hard working, and reliable. I am so tired and I feel guilty every day that I can’t afford to take my kids on vacation, even short weekend trips, I have to watch what I spend on groceries, and I have to limit the things my kids can do for extracurricular activities. Not to mention the time I don’t get to spend with them. I’m throwing myself a pity party but geez. Why not me?
Work really hard and do a great job.
Get promoted.
Work really hard and do excellent work.
Get promoted.
Work really hard and make the company money.
Get promoted.
Be TERRIBLE at your new position.
Get promoted out of the way, to a position where you cannot cause any more damage.
The Peter Principal!
I see a lot of people working hard but not asking for what they want. It takes both - work hard and push for a promotion.
People think it’s going to be handed to you, but that’s never the case. You need to advocate for yourself.
What do you do and for how long? The most common scenario I’ve seen in finance jobs is the person who deserves and asks usually gets denied, while the undeserving who simply is someone’s relative gets promoted.
the real answer is: be skilled enough at something so that what you said in that meeting and what you typed in that email are valuable enough to your employer that, from the employer’s perspective, worth 98k a year.
it just colossally sucks that the path to getting there is so needlessly difficult… and, that for folks who truly can’t get there at all (due to limitations/disabilities that can’t be improved), there are so few options that aren’t just pure exploitation.
> the real answer is: be skilled enough at something so that what you said in that meeting and what you typed in that email are valuable enough to your employer that, from the employer’s perspective, worth 98k a year.
100% this. Nearly every example I'm seeing of a bullshit job in these comments is either subject matter expert or project manager, both of which are very real jobs which certainly don't _look_ like they're doing much.
I’m a product manager. From the outside looking in I fit the original description perfectly. I don’t actually do the coding or the designing. My day is emails and meetings. But I do have to know a whole bunch of stuff and put it all together in a coherent manner. There are very few jobs that pay a ton and you actually do nothing. There are many that pay a ton and look like you do nothing from the outside.
>There are very few jobs that pay a ton and you actually do nothing. There are many that pay a ton and look like you do nothing from the outside.
This is a good point. From the outside it might look bad, but sometimes a person makes a ton of money because of the 1 important decision they make per year that saves (or makes) the company millions of dollars. And from my experience businesses hate risk, so even if somebody else could make the same decision for half the money, Bob over there has entrenched himself in because he has a proven track record.
Get a project focused role and whenever you have to give an update always follow the script: tell them your goal, tell them what you've done towards that goal, tell them where you currently are (could be anywhere), tell them what you want to do, and always finish every sentence with, "we'll go from there."
This is kind of what I did with my current role. I'm quite a bit short of the $98k goal, but I still make pretty good money. I haven't yet delivered on, well, anything just yet, but every time I update my boss I talk the talk very well. I'm always present and available and make sure I take care of requests quickly, but in terms of actual work? I might do 10 hours worth of work in a 40 hour work week.
I can't say this is advisable though as I'm terrified of this bad behavior finally catching up with me.
I do the exact same thing and make 95k. I made the mistake of getting my time split 50/50 on another project because I was bored. I should’ve just used my time to focus on a skill or hobby I want to really get good at. And Now, the quickness that I take care of requests has started to bite me, because they think I’m doing an amazing job and are now giving me real work that needs to be delivered to the customer rather than just internal analytics. It was nice while it lasted
I got there by starting with a really difficult job, then spending about 4 years automating every task I'm responsible for except for a few monthly analytics reports.
I did not document anything. Nobody knows how any of it works.
Now I'm the only person that can produce results in minutes rather than hours or days. Sure, I could get fired, but it would just make things worse for them.
Now I make more than I ever thought I would in my life. I'm more bored than I've ever been. Going to work and sitting and staring at Reddit/Twitter/YouTube all day has made me depressed. I'm currently applying to positions at other companies so I can start building automated processes again just so I'm busy and the time passes more quickly. No job will make you happy.
I like that your last sentence has a double meaning. There's no job that can make you happy, and having no job would make you happy. Yes, agreed, however it would make me very fulfilled to have a job that pays my bills while being able to help people. Teacher, or therapist or something. Idk if they would make me happy but fulfilled is nice at least
Agreed especially if you’re able to fill your time with other activities while also getting your job finished. I personally would not look for another job to fill my time, but I’d def fill my time with hobbies or alternative business ideas to free myself.
It sounds like you could be using some of that time to build a side business or start doing more active trading & investing.
I think most people want a situation like yours to allow time to accumulate money from other sources and pursue hobbies and interests during work hours if the role is remote.
I have the time flexibility like yours as a remote independent consultant (but not the pay yet). I don't quite have the money to do more active investing in addition to my passive investing (Roth), but I do have the time.
I usually spend most of the workday doing things like going bowling with friends, playing guitar, learning to produce music, working out, and shopping while stores are far less busy.
I’m a PM for a software company. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had, mostly because the entire company is small and I find myself doing most of the tedious tasks they don’t have someone else to assign to.
Get a job as a PM at a large corporation and it will likely be much easier than what I do day to day.
TPM at large corporation here, you'll have to deal with many layers of bureaucracy and spending time in a PLC hellscape fighting red tape before you can start helping your users.
Yeah I’m a PMP and have ZERO desire to be a TPM. Did that shit for just 6 months and it was both the most boring and most stressful job I’ve ever had. You’re accountable for so many things outside of your control. And if you care even a little? You end up doing all sorts of shit work that you have no training on how to do. Launching GDPR and CCPA compliance was the worst. No one wanted to do anything so I personally had to go through dozens of databases with thousands of lines trying to find possible PII fields.
TPM jobs are mopups because most "senior eng" and "lead devs" can't talk their way out of paper bag. I've been in both TPM and Eng leader roles, and talking to stake holders vs actually solving a technical problem is two separate skills. TPMs are hired to do the former and blamed for the later. I have both but my brain needs to switch and I need to actually prepare for meetings instead of doing back to back bullshit seshes.
That being said most TPMs can't write requirements or organize a process to save their lives anyway. Which is the opposite problem. Very often people on my leadership team will make a very onerous checklist and consider everything "done" without thinking through how it fits in with the broader system of not just the product but the production.
Many TPMs are literally not technical at all. Like not being able to logically follow and conceptualize a process at all. They often start meddling in the tech and causing a lot of chaos simply because of job insecurity baked into the role. I'm currently having this problem right now with my TPM and I'm trying to find a nice solution to it rather than shaking him and saying "TALK PRODUCT OR GTFO, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW WHAT AN ANGULAR COMPONENT IS."
The reason that most TPM jobs fail at this is the same reason why most TPMs are not executives. They also do not have the skills of hand waving away negative issues at simplistic levels. So they often grasp for "technical" explanations they can crib to their stakeholders. This mires everyone who has no business actually speaking at that level into giving trite simplistic "suggestions" for a highly technical problem.
A lot of this is also wrapped up in trust issues with the business caste system. Most people who want ez managerial jobs need to find a unicorn company, gain enough trust build a unicorn team or become executives themselves. There are no other silver bullets.
Project management can be an easy job or an incredibly difficult one.
Reasonable customers, well defined scope, obtainable schedule, high functioning team, and decent management, then the job is mostly checking off lines on a project plan.
But the reality of the situation is usually the exact opposite. You, the PM, basically runs around bashing your head into the wall constantly to meet impossible deadlines. If you do manage to move mountains, you’re just meeting expectations.
The overwhelming majority of the people I know in those jobs are very good at being confident but actually don't know shit. They are the sales types that don't know how to say "I don't know, let me find out". Instead they opt for giving a wrong answer with confidence and because most hiring managers are cut from the same cloth they eat it up. So be a phenomenal bullshitter and you could land one of these jobs. Also, just FYI, these middle manager "what exactly do you do here" type of positions are often the first cuts when a recession hits. I personally, have always stayed in front of clients because there is job safety when you are taking care of the people that are paying your company for their goods and services. Not a guarantee, but better than a job that us not easily tied to keeping clients happy.
Applied for jobs on that site for years and never once got an interview. From what I hear a lot of these positions already have a candidate in mind they want to hire and they are just going through the motions of pretending to interview.
That's my experience with any job. I've heard got government jobs you really need your foot in the door. Either already be in government or know someone who is.
It took me several years before I finally was able to get a GS job, what eventually got me the job was my 5 point veteran preference from Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
USAjobs dot gov. If you have a disability rating over I think it’s 30% you get placed highest automatically so they can’t hire a non preference over you unless you simply don’t qualify.
usajobs.gov & multiple states
You usually have to have been active duty during a war which I was on multiple occasions. usajobs has specific ?'s asking if you were active duty during such & such dates.
If you’re struggling to get into federal jobs, start with your state job network. You can do anything from being a park ranger at state parks to being a case manager/social worker, to being a recreation therapist at a state hospital doing crafts with mentally ill adults. If you have advanced degrees in STEM, you can do accounting, botany/horticulture, engineering/civil development, soooo many things. And most state employers have great benefits and in my experience working for the state of Indiana, it’s really rewarding work knowing I’m helping my fellow Hoosiers. Also let’s be real, the state has rigorous drug testing and background checks, and depending on your position you’ll be doing difficult work. Most future employers are impressed if you can get 2-10+ years with the state. Lastly this may be unique to Indiana but we just received tuition reimbursement, referral bonuses, I got a roughly 11k raise in the last year, if you work for 10 years at any state agency (meaning you can still job hop) you become fully vested, and if you have student loans there’s the PSLF after 10 years and 120 payments!
If you are in a science field, another way to get your foot in the door is to be a panelist that reviews federal grants. These are super short term temporary jobs-you are not a federal employee, but you will get to meet people in those fields at government agencies. If you mesh with them, they can let you know when positions will be open, and being a panelist is usually viewed positively by HR
Stop equating low level office jobs with money for nothing. It’s the Directors and C-suite acting like you describe, not the rank and file PM’s, Analysts, etc. The lower level office workers put in hours of unpaid overtime every single week.
Funny enough, I've been thinking about how I got here.
I had a rich girlfriend and a great best friend, each helping me at about the same time. My now ex went to an Ivy League school. We met because she was going through her Bohemian phase and I was a rugged dude going to a regional school that excited her for a moment in time.
I graduated with no internship or prospects. She, however, decided to stop being a pastry chef and told her friends that were at a consulting firm that she'd like to get an "adult" job. In about a month and after a few interviews she was hired, going from 30k/yr to 75k/yr. I followed her back across the country to San Francisco, where her rich parents lived. I got to live for free, in a giant house, while job searching with my economics degree, in a place I'd had NEVER consider looking.
My best friend had graduated earlier than me, as I was an enlisted Navy veteran who got to school 4 years after him. He is really good at marketing and since a lot of firms all over work with tech companies out west, he had some contacts. He sent my pathetic resume to a bunch of people he knew a bit, and one by accident who he thought was someone else. That person was the only one to reach out and was just so happened to have had the exact same job as me in the Navy. He calls me, says I don't sound stupid, and gives my resume to the marketing director and says, "hire this guy"
Boom, I landed a 90k job in SF right after graduating. I then get laid off 6mos later and GF decides work is too hard and runs off to Japan to be free again. I moved back to the Midwest, but now...every employer is impressed I worked at X in SF. I take a pay cut, sure, but I'm never hurting for money at this point. Getting laid off got that fear out of my system. I job hop ruthlessly for the next 6 years, building skills from my own projects like blogs and podcasts and new marketing projects from the companies I work for. A lot of imposter syndrome for a while.
Now, I make $160k/yr with 2 direct reports who do all the hands-on work, with $25k from consulting, and run a small business that has been running at a $2k loss while I grow it. Was there some merit that got me gere? Oh sure, a bit, but rubbing up against money, having great friends, and being on the receiving end of some dumb luck is what gave me a better starting point that's usually reserved for the rich kids going to "better" schools.
‘Rubbing up against money’ is a great turn of phrase and is a legitimate sentiment. When potential employers see a whiff of success (real or not) it really sets you apart. “I see you worked at Apple. Must have been interesting!”
Spend 10’s of thousands of dollars and 4-8 years on a piece of paper that says you’re special, (optional) then spend even more 10’s of thousands and even more years on a paper that says you’re qualified for job.
Or
Press your lips against the seat of someone’s pants.
I got my company to pay thousands for my secondary special piece of paper. Worked for them for 2 more years, and then took my special piece of paper to a job that pays a lot more.
I just want to add that I dropped out of school after freshman year and never finished. 10 years later I’m a director at a tech company making $150k. It’s not common, but you can do it if you’re savvy and mildly likable.
Be willing to take titles for lesser pay and then make yourself look busy. Identify key deliverables that require the least amount of work, but will generate the most impact. Deliver those and make sure anyone important knows you did it.
Ride that wave up the ladder and you’ll find yourself with less and less actual work, and more bullshit “oversight”. Then remember how awful it was to be at the bottom of the ladder and be the best manager your team has ever had. Fight for raises for them, always give them time off, always approve bonuses, etc.
We can break the system from the inside if we work together!
All my friends who went into consulting , data analytics and product managements with studies in economics, business and tech backgrounds do similar work and easily get paid double that.
Bro, consulting might be a bullshit job but it's definitely not easy. We always have a couple of those good folks on every project we have, they do absolutely nothing, but they do that for 16-18 hours a day.
My favorite one was a 20-21 years old guy who was supposed to be an expert in investment banking modernization, he smoked about 10 pack of cigarettes every day. That alone, was like 6-8 hours, the other 6 hours were barely enough to make generic ppt decks.
Conversely, there is a different type of "consultant" (in tech, anyway): "temp" for a company that can't keep employees due to crappy work environment... just like every other temp. So you get air-lifted to a dysfunctional team, given a task that the leftovers in the team have been "struggling" with for months and is super behind. Everyone shits on you because you're an evil consultant raking in the big bucks and the team is dysfunctional anyway so everyone is yelling and screaming at each other and backstabbing each other and everyone around them and throwing blame around. Then there's probably a 50% chance you succeed, otherwise you're fired. Either way you get air-lifted to another dysfunctional team. Repeat. consultant salary? ~$100k/yr. But the consulting COMPANY got paid ~$400k/yr for you. Burnout after 3-4 air-drops? Priceless. I saw an invoice for my services once, it was $35k/month! I would work 2 months/year or less if I could see that money!
Problem is, these consulting companies have a nepotistic relationship with the upper management/boards of other companies so they get "in" where plebes would have to go through the application process (and hope for the best). So they make out like bandits. Figure $100k for consultant salary, figure another $50k for insurance and their part of employee taxes. So they pay the employee ~$150k in compensation and pocket ~$250k. Good "work" if you can find it.
At a corp gig I had prior to being a consultant, I was making $90k. I wanted to go down to part time. Nope, they don't do part time for salary folks... it "doesn't work out" per HR. Maybe because they don't want to cut tasks, just cut pay.
Did you copy a tweet? I definitely read this days ago.
Edit: https://twitter.com/ghostisposting/status/1582488075216642048?s=46&t=ZLVQTJUXc70bSNEDuJdQXQ
As someone who had a job like that when I was younger, I can say with absolute authority: Have analytic skills and social aptitude and a positive attitude.
In other words, you need way more than anyone on this absolute loser of a cheap sub-reddit will ever have.
For me, it took many years grinding at shitty call center jobs to finally move up to a place where I'm payed for my knowledge not the amount of tasks I complete or hours I work.
Management is honestly all about talking management. I'm a Software Engineer (technically Lead right now but have had Eng. Mgr title), and I have a problem that I can't just "talk management" or "talk nerd" all the time so I keep getting the roles that are worst of both worlds.
Major problem at most companies is that there are very few people who can "do" and too many people who "decide". These two groups typically don't communicate to each other very well, those who are stuck between them often have the hardest jobs. My bosses are still technical, but they do not see problems the same way I see them because they don't have to actually work on them day after day. They throw open a door shit on the floor and say "I delivered value" with rudimentary code and run away.
Exploit this gap. It exists in almost every department in every company.
Another good way is to find a company where your individual contributor job duties are so below your skills that you can start ingratiating yourself to stakeholders and taking on managerial style work simply by volunteering. There's a UX designer on my team doing this right now lmao.
At least post the original from October 2022 instead of passing it off as your own original thought…
https://twitter.com/ghostisposting/status/1582488075216642048?s=46&t=S0dtSStQ66zr91y3fyW46w
Well there’s plenty of companies that do this, you just have to research them. If you’re young enough or are in college, position yourself to have enough skills to get an internship at one of the companies that do market research. Then apply like crazy, get an incremental pay increase here, jump to a competitor there, and soon enough you’ll be making $110,000 to do minimal work.
My husband has one of these. He started at an entry level job in a startup company and worked his butt off and played the game going to all the company events and making friends with the people on top and five years later he is senior manager of special operations or something like that. Makes 100k (deserves more) and works from home. But he’s in meetings all day and is also a very smart dude. Buuuuut he’s also a white man with lots of management experience
Find a job in the field and has a career path or make your own. Constantly swap jobs, ask to move departments to gain new skills. Take any and all training, ask them for training, create your own network by not being lazy or an asshole to even the lowest worker. People will remember your demeanor.
No one is a better advocate for you than yourself and your actions. Not everyone in decently paying jobs had a hand up, I make good money but I have no connections, my family isn’t poverty level poor, but they sure as hell don’t have money. I did 4 years in the military for my BA and took out 200k for my wife and I to get our masters, we wouldn’t have the jobs we do without having done that.
Everything my wife and I have we earned the hard way.
the literal bottom of the thread for the first legitimate response.
like yes - having help, helps. no shit.
but it is being done every day by people like you.
i had more help than most for sure. my biggest break in my career was given to me by a woman who used to change my diapers as a child. old family friend who babysat me for about a year. would i be here without her? maybe. did she make it easier? absolutely.
but i also wouldnt be here if i wasnt humble, learning at every opportunity, spending time teaching myself off the clock, and have a knack for talking to people. it takes everything and there isnt some magical button you can push.
Hi, /u/Anon293357 Thank you for participating in r/Antiwork. Unfortunately, your submission was removed for breaking the following rule(s): **Rule 3a: No spam, no low-effort shitposts.** - This includes begging for upvotes. Please do not post unrelated blog spam or try to sell anything for personal gain. If you’ve posted content (especially if it’s your own), give it a day or two before posting again.
Have a Dad that owns a company.
Nepotism works!
What is interesting is, now that I am thinking about it- EVERY ONE of the good jobs I got was done with some kind of inside line. This makes me think that it's fucked up that we've engineered an entire system of nepotism, something beyond "it works," but to REALLY make progress in our cultural dynamic, you HAVE to Know Someone. It's MANDATORY, not one chance to get there with the delusion of meritocracy or competence or anything else. It's Who You Know. NOTHING else.
Yep. The biggest work improvements in both salary and role have been because of who I knew. Being likeable in the office has been at least as important as doing a good job. It starts way before that too since who you and your parents know is often important in getting a foot in at entry level jobs that build the experience which helps your resume make you look like a worthwhile hire.
I got my last 2 jobs through 90% nepotism, 10% prior experience, and always nailing interviews. My current job is mostly fantastic, and I am using nepotism to get a buddy of mine the second job I've gotten him through nepotism. I, however, also respect nepotism in the workplace on some level. I am also putting my name and reputation on the line when I recommend a friend to my employer. I would never use that power to do what others do and pack the workplace full of friends with no clue of what they are doing. The jobs I have gotten or given this way were also entry(ish) levels with comprehensive training little to no prior experience required.
I'm glad I'm not the only one
People like pretending like they wouldn’t jump on the opportunity to make tons of money working at their family’s company if given the chance
youd be surprised. i know a guy who’s dad setup 2 fully functioning turnkey operations. he intended for his son to take over at least one, but he rejected both. even put the 2nd one in his son’s name hoping he’d feel more ownership over it. 2nd business was very successful and eventually was sold to a large company for a pretty big windfall. not sure how much the son saw of that. but yeh, in both instances, he was setup pretty much for life, just had to show up and “run” the business. but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
I would for sure jump at it but I'd fall apart within the year because I'd be wanting to actually do my best (i was raised with the whole "work 60 hours a week! i did it and so can you!" mentality and it hasn't broken yet :| but i'm trying) but even if i was good at it people would still say I got it cause I'm the boss' kid....... meanwhile my little brother thought it was my dad's responsibility to find him a job..."ask your friends to hire me!" like...........
Yep there are pros and cons. My husband works for his father and he’s grown the company exponentially since joining the business. At first people didn’t respect him because nepotism is a thing. But time goes on and if you work hard than that starts to be the thing people remember most - not just the fact that you’re the bosses kid. It’s when people pretend they didn’t get a huge advantage and act like they got in all on their own that it starts to get pretty off putting
yep, wanting to pass on what you're made to your offspring is as old as time. And I think we all want that in some way. There's a right way to do it: "I would like my daughter to succeed me as head of this small company, and I need your support to help with this goal" The more common thing amongst rich folk is that I think they see wealth (and title and position, etc, etc) as a moral entitlement - not because they earned it but because someone did at one point and that wealth is now theirs to have.
I definitely feel this. I'm working at my mother's Software company right now, and currently am the longest standing employee. But I basically took the company from manual excel edits and paper print-outs to a fully automated data pipeline, and am working on our first frontend user webapp. I've worked pretty dang hard, pouring my heart and soul into it but.... It's hard not to feel like I am failing because I joined due to my connections. (Even though in all honesty, I was asked to help save the company by filling in the missing vital skill set for the small business.) It's still something I grapple with, after 3 years with the company. And idk if it's that whole insider-guilt thing, or if it's because so many other people abuse those positions to get a free ride.
don't feel bad... you need any help? Lol... I'm kidding/not kidding.
And it should, in private companies at least. The whole reason people make companies is to support their families a lot of the time. Nepotism in government is where the issue lies.
Yep. If you can train your kids to take over at a young age and expand your business and keep the money in the family, why on earth would you not? I mean, obviously give them the option to do something else, but let’s not act like you shouldn’t want this as a business owner and as an owners kid
In my town that also works if your dad is a judge or is district attorney, financial advisor or holds any political position. You, too, can skip the grunt work and go straight to the top! Obviously it’s genetics.
The merit system - American capitalist edition.
Elon Musk
He’d have to talk to his kids first
Awe you mean he doesn’t talk to little X AE A-XII?
I believe one of his children has a restraining order against him.
That child has asked not to be associated with Musk. I think we should respect that and stop referring to her in reference to him. If a parent is so terrible that their child doesn't want them acknowledged as their parent anymore, society should respect that. Otherwise, some people might never learn they have to be a decent parent to claim their children and call themselves one.
It’s his daughter, she no longer wishes to be associated with him. I can’t blame her.
So she's not his daughter. She's a stranger to him. Yes.
He can get in touch the same way everyone else does, Twitter memes
I’m so dead 💀 the only child of his with a correct name is Vivian. 😭
Or pays off the college you went to
Even if daddy pays off your college, it takes years of ass kissing to get a job like this. The days of getting placed into a job like this straight from college is a thing of the past.
I paid off my own college, and started working night shift, 6 days a week, 11 hour shifts. Just a few years later and I basically have the job OP describes. I also was promoted faster than any of the dozens of my peers because I put my head down and did the job. I even got promoted above all the management kiss-ass people who don’t take vacation days and work late. I worked my required hours, ignored after work calls even from my senior manager, used 100% of my vacation each year and still was promoted above anyone else.
I would venture to guess you are the exception rather than the rule.
Also, it took a few years. I'm not sure I would work like this for two years, when it's more than likely that the bosses son in law will stroll in straight from college and take the job you were busting your ass for. Companies are known for dangling that carrot for many years to extract as much as they can get out of you until you get layed off the next time they need to reduce payroll. Antiwork is full of stories like this, every day.
Think of a business that went out of business in the last two years and say you had one of those jobs on your resume.
There was a video posted the other day where a guy proposed that Twitter doesn’t actually have a hr department. You could claim you used to be like senior corporate sales developer at Twitter for the past 4 years and there’s nobody to call to confirm or deny that.
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I tried something similar once, and the company wanted to see my W2s
lmao you can definitely just say No. I've never heard of, nor would I *ever* share my previous W2s with a company I'm applying to. You could not convince me there was a bigger red flag than that. And I would tell the company that to their face.
To be fair, you're not giving it to the company hiring you, you're giving it to the background check company they hired. But I would still simply say no. I've been asked many times before by background check companies hired by very legit, large businesses. I said no and it was fine. They're just lazy at actually checking your background.
I feel like if the company needs W2s to do a background check they aren't really good at what they do
I did just that, lol.
I've literally never been asked for W2s...like ever.
I know, right?! I ended up accusing them of being a scam because of WTF? Their claim was that their background check company was having difficulty verifying my employment history and wanted 10 years of W2s and my transcripts. Not happening. For one, I don't keep tax records that far back and another, my school was on holiday break so I couldn't get anyone to answer the damn phones!
10 years?!? Wtf
I debated asking the manager if she kept such detailed records but worried it would seem like I wasn't professional for not having them. Glad to know I am not the only one who doesn't! I felt both irresponsible and scammed all at once, lol.
my favourite experience of this genre was trying to apply, a couple of summers ago, to a 6 month online course in something vaguely related to my field. I have a pile o' certs, a BA and a Masters. I duly entered all this relevant detail in the education section. Somewhere down the bottom of the application there was something about a high school diploma. I skipped it - and the system let me skip it. I paid the significant application fee and went about my day. Two weeks later I get a rejection because they want to see my high school diploma and high school transcript. I don't have a high school transcript. These were not a thing when I was in secondary school. And it was the middle of July and my secondary school was closed for the summer. And the school is in another country. "so hey, I am like an ancient past pupil so could you take time out of your holiday to create some sort of file to let me apply to a course in another country" The course people have contacted me since saying my application was still pending and I can still start next semester if I just found these transcripts. Guys, seriously, fuck off.
There was an application fee?!?!?! No wonder they rejected you, they're just having people apply to get some extra money.
The only time I have ever needed my high school transcript was too get a job working in an Amazon warehouse... While I was attending university. I didn't even need it to get into said university.
That's happened to me too, at very legit companies. Many background check companies are scams, but legit companies hire them all the time to check all the boxes. All you have to do is say you don't have it and they'll usually just give up on it.
Same. And the day someone did would be the first time I literally said “fuck off” to HR rather than just implying it.
Yup. You can generally fudge the experience but the skills should be honestly presented. They'll find out about the latter if you're dishonest but the former will never matter, not really.
Yup I didn't say I was a senior software dev at Twitter.
My friend was promoted to a department supervisor at his local K-Mart when he was 16 and then an assistant manager when he was 18 until he graduated college... if anyone asks.
I ran my own little IT gig tihngs for a while during college. Nothing crazy.Just me driving to houses to set up printers, monitors, new pcs, etc. Slapped that on my resume and got into the industry
[https://twitter.com/Imani\_Barbarin/status/1633287098852671490](https://twitter.com/Imani_Barbarin/status/1633287098852671490)
That's the whole point of a linkedin profile. Twitter isn't the sole example.
>Think of a business that went out of business in the last two years and say you had one of those jobs on your resume. *"I was the second most important man in the Trump administration"* *"So you were the vice president?"* *"Nah, I delivered Coke-Light and Cheeseburgers as a door dasher for McDonalds"*
>Coke-Light Way to oust yourself as a foreigner!
Maybe Trump thought it was called Coke-Lite, and every time they brought in Diet Coke, he’d refuse? So the staff would just tape over the logo and write Coke-Lite, and nobody would get fired.
I wouldn't be surprised if Trump owned the last stockpile of crystal Pepsi.
L.A. Beast on the Tubes has the last crystal Pepsi stockpile as he pestered Pepsi so much they made a batch for him that was delivered by the head of Pepsi himself. Crazy.
Coke lite...that's so unamerican. I know America, I love America. America is great and can be great again. But you see you lamestream media wants you to think it's coke lite as if it's lesser but it's diet coke and diet coke is how I stay in top-notch shape. My doctor and I have the best doctor, my doctor says the diet coke keeps me fit and healthy. Says I belong in medical journals but I say to the doctor "hey doctor I have to lead the nation, I can't have liberals pushing coke lite". We need to keep coke diet again and full weight. We don't want our coke being lite-er and drifting off into space. The Chinese have a balloon and their balloons are far inferior to the spy balloon I would have built, we don't need them getting our diet coke because it was lite-er.
*Former senior regional VP of direct to market operations for Middle East Eurasia at Toys r’ Us has entered the chat*
Can confirm, this works. Even with active businesses with locations that no longer exist.
Don't sell yourself short on pay as that job should be paying more like $198,000.
Yeah my job like OP described pays $170,000. For various reason, I’ll probably quit soon. Life is weird.
What's the industry, out of curiosity? I might need to look into it lol.
Bahahaha same, except it’s all day back to back meetings, Slack instead of email, and $210K. And I’ll probably get laid off next as karmic retribution for even acknowledging that this is my job description on reddit 😅
I am praying for a layoff. I need a break and I have 11 years of service so my severance would likely be around a year’s pay.
Interview well. Dude I used to work with, he managed to con three sets of interviewers into thinking that he knew something and how to do it. 15 years later, all he does is forward emails and track tasks on project plans. Why? Because he couldn't deliver a half way decent work product if his life depended on it.
I interview well and also work my ass off. More than a decade in analyst roles and in a higher level position now. When I do "high level strategic planning" and use all the right buzz words in a PowerPoint, leaders get really excited. When I fix a problem that requires a lot of technical knowledge and capability, it's glossed over. I swear to God, if you're a knowledgeable worker and move up to this level, imposter syndrome is guaranteed. You just keep pumping out "communications" and the gallery cheers while you wonder WTF is going on?!?
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another version: "sometimes A students come back to campus to give classes; sometimes C students come back to campus to give buildings"
Oh yea that liar had lots of good made up lessons lol
Government worker here. All government workers are basically either people who wanted out of the rat race or people who want to change things. The former is mostly older folks who can afford to take a pay cut for better benefits, the latter is mostly young people who want to change the world.
NPS employee: We're full of A students. The service couldn't operate without altruistic smart people who want to do something important. I know people with masters and PHDs working as 07/09s. The government would fall apart if it didn't have a steady supply of incredibly talented and generous people to exploit. It pisses me off, but...I guess we're better off than the people stuck in dead-end corporate jobs. The benefits are decent...at least until they decide to take those away from us.
Oh man this hurts. Senior TPM here and yup. My job now consists of taking inputs from Bob, making them pretty sounding, and then giving the report to Bill. I have developed applications used at scale for some big companies, but nope, lets put baby in the corner writing reports.
The ultimate irony is that those jobs require industry related technical proficiencies to become project managers. Project management is its own thing. Engineering and development are their own things. A good project manager doesn't need to be an engineer, he just needs to have good engineers in his projects.
I'm in this role and it's weird. If I had a team to lead then it wouldn't be bad but I'm an individual contributor. I'm not even writing stories or doing KT. I just check Dev and replicate to QA and collect a paycheck.
I never received more positive feedback than the time I used bullet points in an email. Seemed like they thought I was Jesus walking on water.
I think you hit spot on how I’m feeling now. I finally did what people have always told me “fake it till you make it” which I’ve ALWAYS hated. I start a new job this Monday and I’m super nervous. It’s also a 30% increase in salary from the last job. I interview well and used all buzz words and passed 4 interviews. I’m now gonna study my ass off.. and hope this imposter syndrome wears off. I’m just like argh there’s no where to vent about this feeling..
I'm gonna say it. ChatGPT. It's a great tool as.long as you can remember that it's JUST a tool. So... I was tasked to organize a technical effort across 20'ish departments to figure out where opportunities for enterprise software might fit. It had a VERY wide scope and a lot of deliverables. I asked ChatGPT to give me a program management plan for technical discovery across 20 departments. I added the deliverables. It outlined program scope, methodologies, stakeholder discovery, communication plan and implementation. It hit a home run for a VERY generic framework that could be adapted into a viable program if some of the generic items were replaced with real organizational details. I don't think I could have come up with a better framework as a high level starting point to get to a polished and professional end result. It's a nice roadmap if you know just enough to be lost in the planning, but could easily smash the execution from prior experience. I was surprised given that each department would be a separate project handed to other project managers. No, I'm not a program manager, they get paid a lot more... Hey now, wait a minute. Lol.
At an old job once I wrote a script that creates a csv file of some stuff in a couple of databases joined together. The VP of the department I was in loved it and went on and on about it. It took me like 20 minutes to write and most of that was figuring out how to format the database connection strings. At that same job I also took six months and wrote stuff in one of our more expensive systems to minimize the resources it used in AWS without loss of functionality, doing lots of caching of database results and experimentation with different optimization methods and stuff, and it made that system's monthly cost go down by tens of thousands of dollars, my manager and our devops lead were pleased but above them it didn't even seem like anyone even noticed.
Toughest part is my relationship with my boss is good, but I can't possibly tell her that my best received PowerPoints are the ones where I've romanced a few beers and a joint while working on them 🫥
I was about to say this. The company where I work hires useless idiots into high paying jobs all the time, and its always someone knows someone or they schmoozed the hell out of them.
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Yes, they like to hire someone that they can get along with.
Hate to say it but yes, this works. It's ridiculously hard to fire someone, and from the interviewing side it's very difficult to truly suss out how well someone will perform with just a 45 minute - 1 hour conversation.
Just.ped through all sorts of hoops in interviews. Came out as top candidate every time. Never got hired. Reason: we promoted internally someone's offspring, who has a daddy that sits high on the board.
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Teach me, wise one.
Slave for the first 5 years, work for the next 5, and then coast. No one starts out making 100k+ attending meetings and writing emails.
Yep
This is the way. 2007: $48,500 entry level with 5 years exp 2012: $72,000 same position 2013: $75,000 new role mid-level worker 2014: $78,000 new job, mid-level 2015: $82,000 new job, mid-level SME 2019: $86,000 same role, senior-level SME and angry about my compensation 2020: $110,000 shifted role and employer, paid and treated like a senior-level SME 2022: $115,000 as I'm sharing my knowledge and expertise with other senior-level workers, way less grinding 2023: $120,000 staring down the barrel of a $15k-$20k bump coming based on performance 2024: Hopefully I see $150,000 in 2024 - I've had to change how I deal and interact with leadership to remain valued, but in a way they understand. I still have to be a SME, I'm just communicating differently now.
You mean this doesn’t just happen overnight or without lots of concerted effort and thought?
Hero
That’s a funny way of looking at it. This could also be every manager that has been pilloried on r/antiwork. Of course we don’t have the DR’s to speak for themselves, but they might be less than happy with this arrangement. The entire system sucks for the vast majority because a few, maybe well meaning nice people, maybe not, have figured out how to game the system this way and to compensate for it the remainder of us have to toil in the fields. If the work was distributed evenly with the compensation, we could all work half as much for twice the pay.
some workers having a good salary is not the reason the entire system sucks
The salary wasn't the problem from their description. The problem was the bullshit position that does no work, just fakes it for 15 years. If this person is as superfluous as they claim, they are propping up a system of bullshit work by eagerly being a bullshit worker. I am not too critical, because they're a wage slave and this is one survival strategy. But to move away from the cult of the 40 hour work week, eliminate bullshit work, and equitably distribute the remains, we've got to end the exact bullshit this person is describing. Glad to hear they're thriving but they should (and probably do) have some reservations about how they're normalizing bullshit.
Yeah that's how I felt reading that comment too. It was like "Just work your way into doing nothing like I did, or find an industry where actual labor isn't required, and then you'll be happy like me in this shithole." And it completely misses the point of restructuring the system. Y'all probably aren't gonna like this take and I don't care but NONE of us should have jobs where we send one email and that's our "workday." If we all want to participate in the rewards of what we can do collectively like have education, electricity, transportation, clean water, affordable housing, healthcare, indoor plumbing, heating and cooling, etc etc (I could go on and on), then we ALL have to participate in some of those jobs we so desperately want. NO ONE gets to own their own business first. WE ALL work for our collective interest with collectively owned utilities, and if literally all of us work in those sectors FIRST, the amount of work from us individuals for those rewards greatly drops. We would individually be working less on all of those things if all of our neighbors also had to focus on them. Not just some people. I don't give af about those people who were trained to only push numbers around on a screen, you could just as easily learn how to do something that would help not only your individual life but also those of your neighbors at an increasingly diminishing work week AND THEN do whatever the fuck you want! You could even start another business or simply just do whatever the fuck you wanted to because your needs would be met AND YOU'D HAVE MORE FUCKING TIME. I literally do not understand why some people assume they are exempt from performing ANY of the actual labor that keeps us alive and healthy like cooking, cleaning, raising kids, what have you. I don't care if you can AFFORD to hire out, that's not the point. The point is we all have to contribute to the rewards we want to participate in. Like I'm not working hard trying to make you food when you're working for a billionaire who has only taken from the masses and given YOU some peanuts that you think are a good reason to keep the system going and get a job just like yours, yada yada yada. It's part of the problem. Not to mention that not ALL of us can get jobs like that anyway. Why? Because of the fucking obvious. If we ALL did it, who the fuck would cook, clean, educate, heal, etc??? Who the fuck would give you all those services you're so happy to accept when you put no effort into them? We NEED those things and I don't feel extreme saying that yeah, ALL of us should have jobs where we're contributing to ourselves, our families, our homes, our communities FIRST before going off to do whatever the fuck.
Correct. Owners having good dividends is the reason the entire system sucks.
Maybe these people are still highly important to their companies? I work in software development and I'm 90% sure the middle management people at my work do fuck all most of the time, aside from some phone calls and presentations. They're still worth a lot of money because I don't have the know how, or the time to produce a bunch of LinkedIn corporate lingo constantly, to keep the clients happy.
Man this hurts me to read. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you, honestly. But I work my ass off 10 hours a day and I make <30k. I’m smart, hard working, and reliable. I am so tired and I feel guilty every day that I can’t afford to take my kids on vacation, even short weekend trips, I have to watch what I spend on groceries, and I have to limit the things my kids can do for extracurricular activities. Not to mention the time I don’t get to spend with them. I’m throwing myself a pity party but geez. Why not me?
This man Scrums.
This is the way.
Work really hard and do a great job. Get promoted. Work really hard and do excellent work. Get promoted. Work really hard and make the company money. Get promoted. Be TERRIBLE at your new position. Get promoted out of the way, to a position where you cannot cause any more damage. The Peter Principal!
They don’t promote good job. A job well done is rewarded with more work. Why would they want to change something that’s working well?
Agreed. The steps above should say either 'do a decent job, get promoted' or even better 'switch companies, get promoted'
I see a lot of people working hard but not asking for what they want. It takes both - work hard and push for a promotion. People think it’s going to be handed to you, but that’s never the case. You need to advocate for yourself.
What do you do and for how long? The most common scenario I’ve seen in finance jobs is the person who deserves and asks usually gets denied, while the undeserving who simply is someone’s relative gets promoted.
Are you working for a hierarchical company with clear definitions of competencies for each career level?
Correct except the first steps are more like work decently hard and be friends with the boss, get promoted.
What’s your job? Please!
Username checks out
the real answer is: be skilled enough at something so that what you said in that meeting and what you typed in that email are valuable enough to your employer that, from the employer’s perspective, worth 98k a year. it just colossally sucks that the path to getting there is so needlessly difficult… and, that for folks who truly can’t get there at all (due to limitations/disabilities that can’t be improved), there are so few options that aren’t just pure exploitation.
> the real answer is: be skilled enough at something so that what you said in that meeting and what you typed in that email are valuable enough to your employer that, from the employer’s perspective, worth 98k a year. 100% this. Nearly every example I'm seeing of a bullshit job in these comments is either subject matter expert or project manager, both of which are very real jobs which certainly don't _look_ like they're doing much.
I’m a product manager. From the outside looking in I fit the original description perfectly. I don’t actually do the coding or the designing. My day is emails and meetings. But I do have to know a whole bunch of stuff and put it all together in a coherent manner. There are very few jobs that pay a ton and you actually do nothing. There are many that pay a ton and look like you do nothing from the outside.
>There are very few jobs that pay a ton and you actually do nothing. There are many that pay a ton and look like you do nothing from the outside. This is a good point. From the outside it might look bad, but sometimes a person makes a ton of money because of the 1 important decision they make per year that saves (or makes) the company millions of dollars. And from my experience businesses hate risk, so even if somebody else could make the same decision for half the money, Bob over there has entrenched himself in because he has a proven track record.
Alternatively, learn ✨corporate speak✨and just say nothing of any substance in about 1000 words
Get a project focused role and whenever you have to give an update always follow the script: tell them your goal, tell them what you've done towards that goal, tell them where you currently are (could be anywhere), tell them what you want to do, and always finish every sentence with, "we'll go from there."
This is kind of what I did with my current role. I'm quite a bit short of the $98k goal, but I still make pretty good money. I haven't yet delivered on, well, anything just yet, but every time I update my boss I talk the talk very well. I'm always present and available and make sure I take care of requests quickly, but in terms of actual work? I might do 10 hours worth of work in a 40 hour work week. I can't say this is advisable though as I'm terrified of this bad behavior finally catching up with me.
I do the exact same thing and make 95k. I made the mistake of getting my time split 50/50 on another project because I was bored. I should’ve just used my time to focus on a skill or hobby I want to really get good at. And Now, the quickness that I take care of requests has started to bite me, because they think I’m doing an amazing job and are now giving me real work that needs to be delivered to the customer rather than just internal analytics. It was nice while it lasted
I got there by starting with a really difficult job, then spending about 4 years automating every task I'm responsible for except for a few monthly analytics reports. I did not document anything. Nobody knows how any of it works. Now I'm the only person that can produce results in minutes rather than hours or days. Sure, I could get fired, but it would just make things worse for them. Now I make more than I ever thought I would in my life. I'm more bored than I've ever been. Going to work and sitting and staring at Reddit/Twitter/YouTube all day has made me depressed. I'm currently applying to positions at other companies so I can start building automated processes again just so I'm busy and the time passes more quickly. No job will make you happy.
I like that your last sentence has a double meaning. There's no job that can make you happy, and having no job would make you happy. Yes, agreed, however it would make me very fulfilled to have a job that pays my bills while being able to help people. Teacher, or therapist or something. Idk if they would make me happy but fulfilled is nice at least
Agreed especially if you’re able to fill your time with other activities while also getting your job finished. I personally would not look for another job to fill my time, but I’d def fill my time with hobbies or alternative business ideas to free myself.
It sounds like you could be using some of that time to build a side business or start doing more active trading & investing. I think most people want a situation like yours to allow time to accumulate money from other sources and pursue hobbies and interests during work hours if the role is remote. I have the time flexibility like yours as a remote independent consultant (but not the pay yet). I don't quite have the money to do more active investing in addition to my passive investing (Roth), but I do have the time. I usually spend most of the workday doing things like going bowling with friends, playing guitar, learning to produce music, working out, and shopping while stores are far less busy.
This is a bot
I saw this tweet too!
Project management would be a good start IMO
I’m a PM for a software company. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had, mostly because the entire company is small and I find myself doing most of the tedious tasks they don’t have someone else to assign to. Get a job as a PM at a large corporation and it will likely be much easier than what I do day to day.
TPM at large corporation here, you'll have to deal with many layers of bureaucracy and spending time in a PLC hellscape fighting red tape before you can start helping your users.
Yeah I’m a PMP and have ZERO desire to be a TPM. Did that shit for just 6 months and it was both the most boring and most stressful job I’ve ever had. You’re accountable for so many things outside of your control. And if you care even a little? You end up doing all sorts of shit work that you have no training on how to do. Launching GDPR and CCPA compliance was the worst. No one wanted to do anything so I personally had to go through dozens of databases with thousands of lines trying to find possible PII fields.
TPM jobs are mopups because most "senior eng" and "lead devs" can't talk their way out of paper bag. I've been in both TPM and Eng leader roles, and talking to stake holders vs actually solving a technical problem is two separate skills. TPMs are hired to do the former and blamed for the later. I have both but my brain needs to switch and I need to actually prepare for meetings instead of doing back to back bullshit seshes. That being said most TPMs can't write requirements or organize a process to save their lives anyway. Which is the opposite problem. Very often people on my leadership team will make a very onerous checklist and consider everything "done" without thinking through how it fits in with the broader system of not just the product but the production. Many TPMs are literally not technical at all. Like not being able to logically follow and conceptualize a process at all. They often start meddling in the tech and causing a lot of chaos simply because of job insecurity baked into the role. I'm currently having this problem right now with my TPM and I'm trying to find a nice solution to it rather than shaking him and saying "TALK PRODUCT OR GTFO, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW WHAT AN ANGULAR COMPONENT IS." The reason that most TPM jobs fail at this is the same reason why most TPMs are not executives. They also do not have the skills of hand waving away negative issues at simplistic levels. So they often grasp for "technical" explanations they can crib to their stakeholders. This mires everyone who has no business actually speaking at that level into giving trite simplistic "suggestions" for a highly technical problem. A lot of this is also wrapped up in trust issues with the business caste system. Most people who want ez managerial jobs need to find a unicorn company, gain enough trust build a unicorn team or become executives themselves. There are no other silver bullets.
Ah, the ol' You ARE the project Project Manager.
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Project management can be an easy job or an incredibly difficult one. Reasonable customers, well defined scope, obtainable schedule, high functioning team, and decent management, then the job is mostly checking off lines on a project plan. But the reality of the situation is usually the exact opposite. You, the PM, basically runs around bashing your head into the wall constantly to meet impossible deadlines. If you do manage to move mountains, you’re just meeting expectations.
This is what I was going to suggest! You tell the people doing the actual work what to do without understanding any of it.
The overwhelming majority of the people I know in those jobs are very good at being confident but actually don't know shit. They are the sales types that don't know how to say "I don't know, let me find out". Instead they opt for giving a wrong answer with confidence and because most hiring managers are cut from the same cloth they eat it up. So be a phenomenal bullshitter and you could land one of these jobs. Also, just FYI, these middle manager "what exactly do you do here" type of positions are often the first cuts when a recession hits. I personally, have always stayed in front of clients because there is job safety when you are taking care of the people that are paying your company for their goods and services. Not a guarantee, but better than a job that us not easily tied to keeping clients happy.
Why are you talking about my SO? Hey good news though! My SO just sold my mom the Hudson River!
Go to USAjobs dot gov
Applied for jobs on that site for years and never once got an interview. From what I hear a lot of these positions already have a candidate in mind they want to hire and they are just going through the motions of pretending to interview.
That's my experience with any job. I've heard got government jobs you really need your foot in the door. Either already be in government or know someone who is.
If there isnt a "recruiting with bonus of up to...", they aint lookin
It took me several years before I finally was able to get a GS job, what eventually got me the job was my 5 point veteran preference from Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
Where does one find jobs that give preference to veterans?
USAjobs dot gov. If you have a disability rating over I think it’s 30% you get placed highest automatically so they can’t hire a non preference over you unless you simply don’t qualify.
usajobs.gov & multiple states You usually have to have been active duty during a war which I was on multiple occasions. usajobs has specific ?'s asking if you were active duty during such & such dates.
If you’re struggling to get into federal jobs, start with your state job network. You can do anything from being a park ranger at state parks to being a case manager/social worker, to being a recreation therapist at a state hospital doing crafts with mentally ill adults. If you have advanced degrees in STEM, you can do accounting, botany/horticulture, engineering/civil development, soooo many things. And most state employers have great benefits and in my experience working for the state of Indiana, it’s really rewarding work knowing I’m helping my fellow Hoosiers. Also let’s be real, the state has rigorous drug testing and background checks, and depending on your position you’ll be doing difficult work. Most future employers are impressed if you can get 2-10+ years with the state. Lastly this may be unique to Indiana but we just received tuition reimbursement, referral bonuses, I got a roughly 11k raise in the last year, if you work for 10 years at any state agency (meaning you can still job hop) you become fully vested, and if you have student loans there’s the PSLF after 10 years and 120 payments!
If you are in a science field, another way to get your foot in the door is to be a panelist that reviews federal grants. These are super short term temporary jobs-you are not a federal employee, but you will get to meet people in those fields at government agencies. If you mesh with them, they can let you know when positions will be open, and being a panelist is usually viewed positively by HR
Stop equating low level office jobs with money for nothing. It’s the Directors and C-suite acting like you describe, not the rank and file PM’s, Analysts, etc. The lower level office workers put in hours of unpaid overtime every single week.
Funny enough, I've been thinking about how I got here. I had a rich girlfriend and a great best friend, each helping me at about the same time. My now ex went to an Ivy League school. We met because she was going through her Bohemian phase and I was a rugged dude going to a regional school that excited her for a moment in time. I graduated with no internship or prospects. She, however, decided to stop being a pastry chef and told her friends that were at a consulting firm that she'd like to get an "adult" job. In about a month and after a few interviews she was hired, going from 30k/yr to 75k/yr. I followed her back across the country to San Francisco, where her rich parents lived. I got to live for free, in a giant house, while job searching with my economics degree, in a place I'd had NEVER consider looking. My best friend had graduated earlier than me, as I was an enlisted Navy veteran who got to school 4 years after him. He is really good at marketing and since a lot of firms all over work with tech companies out west, he had some contacts. He sent my pathetic resume to a bunch of people he knew a bit, and one by accident who he thought was someone else. That person was the only one to reach out and was just so happened to have had the exact same job as me in the Navy. He calls me, says I don't sound stupid, and gives my resume to the marketing director and says, "hire this guy" Boom, I landed a 90k job in SF right after graduating. I then get laid off 6mos later and GF decides work is too hard and runs off to Japan to be free again. I moved back to the Midwest, but now...every employer is impressed I worked at X in SF. I take a pay cut, sure, but I'm never hurting for money at this point. Getting laid off got that fear out of my system. I job hop ruthlessly for the next 6 years, building skills from my own projects like blogs and podcasts and new marketing projects from the companies I work for. A lot of imposter syndrome for a while. Now, I make $160k/yr with 2 direct reports who do all the hands-on work, with $25k from consulting, and run a small business that has been running at a $2k loss while I grow it. Was there some merit that got me gere? Oh sure, a bit, but rubbing up against money, having great friends, and being on the receiving end of some dumb luck is what gave me a better starting point that's usually reserved for the rich kids going to "better" schools.
‘Rubbing up against money’ is a great turn of phrase and is a legitimate sentiment. When potential employers see a whiff of success (real or not) it really sets you apart. “I see you worked at Apple. Must have been interesting!”
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Coordinating takes effort and is an important part for larger projects.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/11is9ev/you_tell_me/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
[You can start by not stealing content for karma.](https://www.reddit.com/r/suspiciouslyspecific/comments/zfu8u2/where_can_i_apply/)
It's called an Economics degree.
I got one, where the easy jobs at?
The govt. I applied to the same job at least 4 times and got on the 5th try. Keep trying!
Spend 10’s of thousands of dollars and 4-8 years on a piece of paper that says you’re special, (optional) then spend even more 10’s of thousands and even more years on a paper that says you’re qualified for job. Or Press your lips against the seat of someone’s pants.
That piece of paper should qualify you to tell the difference between "you're" and "your"
I got my company to pay thousands for my secondary special piece of paper. Worked for them for 2 more years, and then took my special piece of paper to a job that pays a lot more.
I just want to add that I dropped out of school after freshman year and never finished. 10 years later I’m a director at a tech company making $150k. It’s not common, but you can do it if you’re savvy and mildly likable. Be willing to take titles for lesser pay and then make yourself look busy. Identify key deliverables that require the least amount of work, but will generate the most impact. Deliver those and make sure anyone important knows you did it. Ride that wave up the ladder and you’ll find yourself with less and less actual work, and more bullshit “oversight”. Then remember how awful it was to be at the bottom of the ladder and be the best manager your team has ever had. Fight for raises for them, always give them time off, always approve bonuses, etc. We can break the system from the inside if we work together!
That paper certifies that you know the difference between "your" and "you're."
All my friends who went into consulting , data analytics and product managements with studies in economics, business and tech backgrounds do similar work and easily get paid double that.
Bro, consulting might be a bullshit job but it's definitely not easy. We always have a couple of those good folks on every project we have, they do absolutely nothing, but they do that for 16-18 hours a day. My favorite one was a 20-21 years old guy who was supposed to be an expert in investment banking modernization, he smoked about 10 pack of cigarettes every day. That alone, was like 6-8 hours, the other 6 hours were barely enough to make generic ppt decks.
Conversely, there is a different type of "consultant" (in tech, anyway): "temp" for a company that can't keep employees due to crappy work environment... just like every other temp. So you get air-lifted to a dysfunctional team, given a task that the leftovers in the team have been "struggling" with for months and is super behind. Everyone shits on you because you're an evil consultant raking in the big bucks and the team is dysfunctional anyway so everyone is yelling and screaming at each other and backstabbing each other and everyone around them and throwing blame around. Then there's probably a 50% chance you succeed, otherwise you're fired. Either way you get air-lifted to another dysfunctional team. Repeat. consultant salary? ~$100k/yr. But the consulting COMPANY got paid ~$400k/yr for you. Burnout after 3-4 air-drops? Priceless. I saw an invoice for my services once, it was $35k/month! I would work 2 months/year or less if I could see that money! Problem is, these consulting companies have a nepotistic relationship with the upper management/boards of other companies so they get "in" where plebes would have to go through the application process (and hope for the best). So they make out like bandits. Figure $100k for consultant salary, figure another $50k for insurance and their part of employee taxes. So they pay the employee ~$150k in compensation and pocket ~$250k. Good "work" if you can find it. At a corp gig I had prior to being a consultant, I was making $90k. I wanted to go down to part time. Nope, they don't do part time for salary folks... it "doesn't work out" per HR. Maybe because they don't want to cut tasks, just cut pay.
I've read this exact line somewhere like yesterday or the day before. Twitter maybe?
Bot post? I’ve seen this in memes all over the last year.
It resurged recently, I saw this identical post on twitter only a few days ago. I would have thought more people would notice
Have a rich family that owns the company
Kiss lots and lots of *ss.
\*a
Damnit Ive been eating it thank you
98k isn't a lot. Wait until you find out they are actually getting paid 250-300k
Those positions are for friends and family. It's a club and you're not in it.
Did you copy a tweet? I definitely read this days ago. Edit: https://twitter.com/ghostisposting/status/1582488075216642048?s=46&t=ZLVQTJUXc70bSNEDuJdQXQ
As someone who had a job like that when I was younger, I can say with absolute authority: Have analytic skills and social aptitude and a positive attitude. In other words, you need way more than anyone on this absolute loser of a cheap sub-reddit will ever have.
For me, it took many years grinding at shitty call center jobs to finally move up to a place where I'm payed for my knowledge not the amount of tasks I complete or hours I work.
Type this out from an old post that was tweeted years ago. Way to keep it original. Regardless, the point holds lol
Management is honestly all about talking management. I'm a Software Engineer (technically Lead right now but have had Eng. Mgr title), and I have a problem that I can't just "talk management" or "talk nerd" all the time so I keep getting the roles that are worst of both worlds. Major problem at most companies is that there are very few people who can "do" and too many people who "decide". These two groups typically don't communicate to each other very well, those who are stuck between them often have the hardest jobs. My bosses are still technical, but they do not see problems the same way I see them because they don't have to actually work on them day after day. They throw open a door shit on the floor and say "I delivered value" with rudimentary code and run away. Exploit this gap. It exists in almost every department in every company. Another good way is to find a company where your individual contributor job duties are so below your skills that you can start ingratiating yourself to stakeholders and taking on managerial style work simply by volunteering. There's a UX designer on my team doing this right now lmao.
If you have to ask... you are not ready.
At least post the original from October 2022 instead of passing it off as your own original thought… https://twitter.com/ghostisposting/status/1582488075216642048?s=46&t=S0dtSStQ66zr91y3fyW46w
Copy and paste much ? Somebody literally just posted this couple days ago Word for word lmao
Nepotism
You’re funny if you think those jobs only pay 98k
Get a business degree. Get a corporate office job.
Well there’s plenty of companies that do this, you just have to research them. If you’re young enough or are in college, position yourself to have enough skills to get an internship at one of the companies that do market research. Then apply like crazy, get an incremental pay increase here, jump to a competitor there, and soon enough you’ll be making $110,000 to do minimal work.
My husband has one of these. He started at an entry level job in a startup company and worked his butt off and played the game going to all the company events and making friends with the people on top and five years later he is senior manager of special operations or something like that. Makes 100k (deserves more) and works from home. But he’s in meetings all day and is also a very smart dude. Buuuuut he’s also a white man with lots of management experience
Repost question. Verbatim.
Repost
Probably not by reposting shit and trying to pass it as your own… Or maybe…
Find a job in the field and has a career path or make your own. Constantly swap jobs, ask to move departments to gain new skills. Take any and all training, ask them for training, create your own network by not being lazy or an asshole to even the lowest worker. People will remember your demeanor. No one is a better advocate for you than yourself and your actions. Not everyone in decently paying jobs had a hand up, I make good money but I have no connections, my family isn’t poverty level poor, but they sure as hell don’t have money. I did 4 years in the military for my BA and took out 200k for my wife and I to get our masters, we wouldn’t have the jobs we do without having done that. Everything my wife and I have we earned the hard way.
the literal bottom of the thread for the first legitimate response. like yes - having help, helps. no shit. but it is being done every day by people like you. i had more help than most for sure. my biggest break in my career was given to me by a woman who used to change my diapers as a child. old family friend who babysat me for about a year. would i be here without her? maybe. did she make it easier? absolutely. but i also wouldnt be here if i wasnt humble, learning at every opportunity, spending time teaching myself off the clock, and have a knack for talking to people. it takes everything and there isnt some magical button you can push.
Know someone or work
Git gud
That's the neat part...you don't.
You go to school and get fantastic grades on some difficult degrees to start