career

Careers in the industry; from corporate to middle management, food service, media, political figures, and beyond. All workplace careers.

Two Trainings Cancelled
Today, I should be going to train about four hours from home tomorrow and Friday. Instead, I went with my daughter last night to her nursing position. She puts in long hours and works 4.5 hours from home for three days each week. Her 12- year-old home schooled daughter was going with her also.
By Denise E Lindquist14 days ago in Journal
I Quit My Job. Then I Spent Ten Days Trying to Get It Back.
The Day the Access Card Stopped Working On the third day after I quit, the access card was still in my jeans pocket. When I washed the pants, I took it out. The plastic shell had a crack. I put it on the shoe cabinet, next to my work badge. Its lanyard curled into a ball.
By Jin15 days ago in Journal
I Was Stuck at Work for Two Years. I Did Five Unromantic Things Instead of Quitting.
The Two Years I Was Stuck, I Did a Few Unromantic Things In spring 2022, the business unit sent an email. Three lines. Annual promotions paused. Headcount frozen. The last line was "Thank you for your understanding."
By Jin15 days ago in Journal
I Won’t Work Without Pay for More Than Two Months
Two Months On the fifteenth of every month, the banking app sent a notification. Salary received. The number was not big, but it covered rent, groceries, phone credit. Then the fifteenth came and no notification. The sixteenth came and no notification. Finance posted in the group: within this week. Friday before end of day: next Monday. Next Monday became end of month. End of month became “wait a little longer.”
By Jin15 days ago in Journal
I Almost Quit My Job at 1 A.M. Then I Made a 90-Day Plan Instead
Should you quit a job you hate? At 1:07 a.m., you close your laptop. The screen goes black. In the glass, you see your own face: tired, flat, older than you remember. The last subway has gone. A taxi costs more than you want to spend. You stand on the sidewalk with your phone in your hand. One sentence runs through your head: I don’t want to do this anymore.
By Jin15 days ago in Journal
He Did Everything Right. The Promotion Went to Someone Else.
A pothos hung over Chen Mo’s keyboard cover. The cover was transparent, its four corners worn white. Every morning he wiped it once, then opened the weekly report template. The template was from last year. It listed “Completed this week, Plan for next week, Risks.” He filled it in neatly, like an expense form.
By Jin15 days ago in Journal
I Watched a New Hire Get Fired for Acting Like He Had Backup
The Line in the Employee Handbook I Only Understood Later On my third day, I found a line on page 12 of the employee handbook: “Forming cliques, creating factions, or ostracizing colleagues is prohibited.” It sat between the late policy and annual leave rules. I underlined it and moved on. What harm could come from eating lunch with coworkers?
By Jin15 days ago in Journal
After Retirement, I Still Want to Work. Here’s Why.
After Retirement, Will I Still Work for Money? Old Zhou guards the gate at my community. He is sixty-three. Before retirement, he watched machines in a textile factory. Every day at six thirty, he changes into his uniform. The collar is frayed. In his pocket he keeps a bottle of blood pressure pills and a ballpoint pen. Someone asks, “Not enough pension?” He shakes his head. It is enough for rice and oil. Then the person asks, “So why keep working?” He says the TV at home is on from morning to night. No one talks to him. Here, someone offers him a cigarette. Someone says good morning. His pay is two thousand eight hundred. After utilities, he can still buy his grandson fried chicken twice. As he says this, he straightens an electric bike.
By Jin15 days ago in Journal
I Chose the Raise Over the Promotion: Here’s Why the Money Mattered More
I Chose the Raise, Not the Promotion The boss’s office faces south. At three in the afternoon, sunlight lands on the pothos in the corner. One leaf is yellow, curling at the edge.
By Jin15 days ago in Journal
A Drummer’s Take
Guitars get the posters. Singers get the interviews. Drums get the room. That is the part of Gen X metal that still does not photograph well and still decides whether a record feels like a band or like a file. The era this series has been walking through was a golden stretch for players who treated the kit as a lead instrument without turning the song into a clinic. Dave Lombardo. Mike Portnoy. Danny Carey. Add the people standing next to them. Lars Ulrich on the records that taught radio to accept a metal snare. Vinnie Paul on the records that taught the backbeat to clench. Matt Cameron on the records that made weird time feel natural. Sean Kinney on the records that made the beat sound tired on purpose. The common thread is physical information. You can hear the stick. You can hear the decision.
By Overdrive Records15 days ago in Journal
What Gen X Inherited
Every generation likes to believe it invented volume. Gen X did not. We inherited a working set of tools from the 70s and then spent twenty years arguing about which tools were still legal. Black Sabbath gave us the riff as law. Judas Priest gave us the silhouette and the twin guitar engine. Zeppelin, Purple, Humble Pie, UFO, Thin Lizzy, and AC/DC gave us the rest of the vocabulary. Song length. Groove. Showmanship. The idea that a guitar could be both a rhythm instrument and a lead character. By the time we were old enough to buy our own records, the language was already there. We just changed the accent.
By Overdrive Records15 days ago in Journal
Mudvayne’s L.D. 50 Era
By the year 2000 heavy radio had a lane and most bands were happy to stay in it. Drop the tuning. Hurt in the verse. Open up in the chorus. Paint the video gray. Mudvayne pulled into that lane and then cut across the grass. L.D. 50 did not sound like Staind. It did not sound like early Slipknot cosplay either, even if the masks invited the comparison. It sounded like a metal band that had listened to Tool, Meshuggah rumors, death metal records, and hip hop cadence and decided the parts could live in one song if the players were good enough.
By Overdrive Records15 days ago in Journal