c/career-advice

Question about a manager in Phoenix who told me to never ask for a raise

At a team lunch last month, my boss said asking for more money makes you look greedy and hurts your chances... but I got a 10% raise by showing my sales numbers and asking directly. Has anyone else been told to just wait and see what happens?

Just realized the best career advice I ever got was from a stranger at a Denver airport bar

He said 'Your network isn't who you know, it's who knows what you're good at.' I've focused on showing my skills at work ever since, not just collecting contacts. Anyone else have a random piece of advice that stuck?

Warning: my best week at work started with a client screaming at me

It was a Tuesday in April, the client called our whole team useless over a missed deadline. I spent that night just fixing the one thing they hated, a broken report filter. By Friday, the same person emailed my boss calling my solution 'brilliant' and gave us a bigger project. Anyone else have a terrible start turn into a real win like that?

PSA: I almost lost a $500 cleaning job because of how I used to handle first meetings.

For years, I'd just show up, give a quick quote, and leave, but a client in Denver last month told me they almost hired someone else because I didn't ask about their specific needs, like pet stains. Now I always spend 15 minutes asking questions before I give a price. What's one thing you changed in your client meetings that made a big difference?

I keep seeing people at my company in Seattle ask for a raise without any numbers to back it up. They just say 'I work hard.'

Looking back, I regret the $2,000 I spent on a 'career accelerator' bootcamp that promised a guaranteed job.

The program was all hype and outdated material, and I ended up landing my current role through a simple connection I made at a local meetup six months later.

I was asking for a raise all wrong for months

I kept just telling my boss I worked hard and deserved more money. Then a friend in sales told me to track my numbers. So I wrote down every job I finished, every customer I kept happy, and how much money my work brought in. When I showed him that list last week, he agreed to a 5% bump right away. Has anyone else found that showing proof works better than just asking?

My whole plan to switch to a tech sales job just fell apart

I spent the last 6 months doing an online course and networking like crazy, even had a final interview lined up. The company ghosted me after that interview, no email, no call, nothing. I followed up three times over two weeks and got zero response. Now I'm back at square one with my current job feeling like a dead end. Has anyone else had a company just vanish on them after getting so far in the process? How do you even bounce back from that?

Changed my mind about asking for a raise after a chat with my old boss

Honestly, I used to think asking for more money was just about walking in and saying you deserved it. For years, I'd just point out I'd been there a while and worked hard, and it never really worked. Then, about six months ago, I had coffee with my old foreman from when I was starting out. He flat out asked me, 'What's your number, and what did you do last year to earn it?' That hit me. I went home and made a list of everything I'd done: the three big commercial jobs I ran solo, the $8,000 in parts I saved the company by fixing old units instead of replacing them, and the two new guys I trained. I put that all in a simple email to my manager. Ngl, I got the raise, and it was double what I'd ever asked for before. Has anyone else found that just listing your wins makes all the difference?

PSA: The coffee shop near my gym is full of people doing job interviews now

I was at The Daily Grind on Maple Avenue last week and I swear, three out of five tables had someone in a button-down shirt doing a video call. It made me think, are we all just expected to find a quiet public spot for this now? I had to wait ten minutes for a table because a guy was finishing up his second round with a tech startup. Has anyone else had to scramble to find a decent spot for a virtual interview lately?

I completely blanked during a big client pitch meeting

I was in a conference room with three people from a potential new company, and about five minutes into my talk, my mind just went totally empty. I forgot the next part of my plan. I took a deep breath, said 'Let me just check my notes for a second,' and looked at my pad to find my place. It felt like forever but was maybe 30 seconds. Has anyone else had a moment like that and found a good way to get back on track without seeming totally lost?

Shoutout to anyone negotiating a remote work clause

I thought adding 'fully remote' to my offer letter was straightforward, but clarifying the exact terms with HR took three weeks of back-and-forth emails. The sticking point was the definition of 'occasional in-office requirements' and whether that included cross-country travel. Has anyone else had to get really specific with their remote work agreement?

Showerthought: Choosing between a stable job and a startup offer 15 years ago

I took the startup role for $15k less, and it taught me more about risk and resilience than any corporate training ever could. Anyone else face a similar fork in the road early on?

TIL the average job search takes 5 months now, which feels crazy long

I was reading a report from a group called the National Bureau of Economic Research and that number really hit me. I remember my dad saying he'd just walk into a place with a resume and often get an interview the same week. Has anyone else had a search stretch out that long, and what did you do to keep from getting totally down about it?

Why does nobody talk about how bad the 'just apply to everything' advice is?

I got laid off from my marketing job in April and spent a month blasting out over 200 applications for any role with 'marketing' in the title. I finally got an offer, but it was for a sales job that wanted me to cold call all day. The recruiter literally said, 'Your resume showed you're good at talking to people.' I learned that mass applying with a generic resume just gets you mismatched offers. Now I'm only targeting 5-10 jobs a week and rewriting my resume for each one. Has anyone else gotten a totally wrong job offer from applying too broadly?

A mentor in Denver told me to never take a promotion without a raise, and I think that's bad advice.

He said it over coffee after a project meeting, insisting it devalues your work. But I took a lead role without extra pay for six months, and it directly led to a 20% salary bump later. Has anyone else moved up first and gotten paid later?

TIL a quick chat at a tech meetup in Austin saved my next interview

I was at a small meetup last month and mentioned I was prepping for a senior dev role. A guy who works at the company told me they always ask a specific system design question about scaling a payment processor. I spent two nights studying that exact problem. Got the job offer yesterday. Anyone else get a tip that changed their interview prep?

I hit 50 rejections on job applications and it was weirdly freeing

After I got that 50th 'no thanks' email last month, I just sat there for a minute... I'd been keeping a spreadsheet since January. I thought hitting that number would feel awful, but it just made me realize the process is a numbers game and not a personal thing. Has anyone else found a weird peace after tracking their job search like that?

My captain told me my radio reports were too long and confusing... so I started using a three sentence rule.

My boss mentioned a $12,000 mistake in a quarterly report was caught because someone printed it out to review.

Has anyone else found that physically reviewing a document helps you spot errors you'd miss on a screen?

I started telling my crew 'we're done at 3' and it actually works

I mean, I manage a painting crew and for months we were always running late, finishing jobs at like 5:30 or 6. It was killing morale and making the next day's start rough. I read something online, maybe it was a joke, about setting a fake early deadline. So last Tuesday on a big interior job in Portland, I told the guys at the morning huddle, 'Alright, the goal is to wrap this whole first floor by 3 PM today.' Not the real deadline, which was more like 4:30. Idk, maybe it was the clear, specific time, but everyone just moved differently. We took a shorter lunch, nobody dragged their feet after breaks, and we actually finished the section at 2:50. We spent the last 40 minutes doing a killer clean-up and prepping for tomorrow. Has anyone else tried a trick like this with a team, or is it just a fluke that worked for my group?

I used to think you had to say yes to every extra task at work

About six months ago, I was in a team meeting in our main conference room, and my manager asked if I could take the lead on a new client report. I already had three other projects due that week. I said yes right away, like I always did. Two days later, I was still at the office at 9 PM, my work on the original projects was slipping, and I missed a key detail in the new report. My manager pulled me aside the next morning and said, 'You're burning out, and the quality is dropping. We need to talk about your workload.' That was the moment I realized always saying yes was hurting my career, not helping it. I started being honest about my capacity in our weekly check-ins. Has anyone else had to learn to push back on extra work to actually do their main job well?

Spent $400 on a 'career accelerator' course that was just recycled blog posts

The whole thing was just a guy reading slides for six hours, and the 'exclusive network' was a dead Facebook group. Anyone have a REAL resource for moving from property management into operations?

PSA: A meeting at my old job in Phoenix taught me to always ask about the budget first.

I spent a whole week planning a project, only to be told in the review there was zero money for it. The manager just said, 'We assumed you'd check the numbers.' Has anyone else learned this the hard way?

Am I the only one who got ghosted after discussing salary in an interview?

Honestly, I think bringing up pay too early can backfire. Tbh, it happened to me last week and now I'm unsure how to handle it. The recruiter was all smiles until I mentioned my range, then radio silence.