yeah i started applying for jobs 8 months before i was laid off last year and couldn't find anything that was comparable in pay/benefits. Pay is markedly worse across the board unless you're in some AI bullshit company it seems
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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Six months after being laid off, my employment checks were about to run out, and I got my first job offer after hundreds of applications. It was in an industry I hate and it was nearly a 50% pay cut, but I felt forced to take it because it was either that or blow all my savings while hoping I could find something better. I've been casually applying for jobs since then, but no bites. I make less now than I did six years ago with the same title. It's truly the most dogshit job market I've ever suffered through
wow, that's almost the exact same thing as me. My unemployment was running out after about 7 months when someone I worked with at the prior company demanded that the new place he was working at hire me. And they tried to undercut me to pay me less than I was making almost 6 years ago but I pushed back and actually got an extra $5k over what I was previously making, even though I started the salary negotiation at $50k above what I had been making. I only got the job because my co-worker is the top engineer and he said they absolutely must hire me. It was shocking because I had no idea he even liked me nor had any clue what I did at the previous company.
If he hadn't done that I fear I'd have ended up in some dead-end job making what I made back in 2019 when I just moved here and had no idea what people should get paid to do the things I do which is substantially less money.
But also I now work in an industry I absolutely despise, though at least it is not related to the military or killing people so I keep telling myself that, and that makes the bitterness more bearable. I also can't just up and leave because I can't burn the guy who stuck his neck out for me. So I'm doing the best I can in a job I have no business doing and am just trying to figure it out day by day.
Every few weeks I get another email response from one of the probably 500 companies I applied to telling me they're going to move on with another candidate. Most of them don't even sound familiar to me at all.
Private chef sounds like a gkg that would be easier to negotiate up in pay, especially if you can show you competency. I don't imagine they are getting a lot of applicants.
Idfk though could be a huge waste of time dealing with an idiot who won't budge.
If it makes you feel any better, they don't check the contacts you make every week. They don't have the resources to do it even if they wanted to.
I've been applying to jobs now for more than three years, and I've gotten three interviews and have submitted hundreds of applications. It's no longer efficient to apply to ones that want fan fiction about what it would be like to work for the company in the form of cover letters, so I just don't apply to those ones.
They added this stupid fucking tracking shit though so i don't want to lie about it and then they want phone records showing i called people and i didn't or whatever
Wait, really? How do they even verify that?
Since my last UI application they added a step before weekly certification where it asks if you did your good boy work search bullshit and you have to log it to proceed
I assume they have very little manpower to audit stuff but it's supposed to be MY responsibility to keep a fucking log for FIVE YEARS.
I was just not doing that and lying because my job gave me an email saying "this guy has a job he's coming back to please exempt him from the bullshit" and my plan if i got audited was to be like "oh sorry my job gave me this and said i didn't need to do that stuff" and hope i don't get penalized. But now if they audit me they'll have a log of specific contacts to reference and the google lying machine said they can demand phone records to prove calls, etc.
Those are almost entirely scare tactics that aren't backed up by actual action they take with any regularity.
The entire time i was an apprentice the common line during particularly difficult jobs was "this is what we get for being funny in highschool"
Now it's really starting to seem like the correct path was to completely fuck up at school.
I'm really sorry the world is the way it is. Currency exchange rates notwithstanding 24 an hour shouldn't be the wage you fantasize about in your head it's barely anything in 2026
Currency exchange rates notwithstanding 24 an hour shouldn't be the wage you fantasize about in your head it's barely anything in 2026
Yeah i know, it's really cool how over the last 4 years i doubled my wage but it's still barely more than minimum wage used to be like 50 years ago in terms of purchasing power
Yeah i know, it's really cool how over the last 4 years i doubled my wage but it's still barely more than minimum wage
Yeah. I do ok considering the mouths i feed but the job i have would have been able to support a very lavish lifestyle back then.
Pretty cool
Private chef, homie that's $75/hr minimum and they buy all the groceries.
I don't live in california or new York tho
In the cities in NY or CA that should be $150/hr!!
I think i'm a really good cook but i don't know if I'm THAT much of a really good cook 😔 but god if i could get paid that much my life would be so different
I was fired a few months ago, hired, then fired again, and now have another job which is leaving me pretty exhausted, but the job itself is the easiest gig I've had in awhile, with better pay but no benefits. I'm still kind of longing for unemployment though. Like, comfortable unemployment lol. Where you just don't have to worry about anything. I know that when I am inevitably unemployed again, this will sound totally ridiculous because unemployment is annoying and stressful for countless reasons to say the least (and in our society we seem worthless if we aren't making money for epsteinists), but being able to sleep enough every day, being able to exercise every day, being able to think creatively every day, being able to practice guitar and cook new food and write and think up new ideas and generally pursue hobbies every day, this is a big deal.
I was at my last job for two years and it was driving me nuts, and I knew it was driving me nuts, but I didn't know how much it was driving me nuts. When they fired me, it obviously sucked, but it also led to a kind of opening and relaxation in my mind, I guess. I didn't need to spend most of my waking life worrying about that fucking job anymore.
Unemployment is stressful, I wish it didn't have to be. Also, it would be nice to have a job that actually makes the world a better place while allowing me to exist, but alas.