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I hire people where I work. Nothing fancy, just pest control, but I don’t give a fuck. If you’re licensed and seem decent as a human I’ll give it a go. Worst case scenario is you suck, in which case you’re fired pretty quickly on your own merit and I hire someone else. There are so many smaller companies out there in nearly every industry and they’re ran by normal people with normal fucked up lives like most of us.
I’ve been fortunate to end up where I am and what I do but all my employees have fierce loyalty to me simply for being normal and treating them like maybe they’re normal too and I hate seeing things like this because even these big corporate jobs are still being ran by people going home and having normal human problems. I don’t understand why so many jobs have entry barriers that exclude shit like, “shit happens, sorry for being poor?”
Hope that makes sense. I’m rambling but I also had a shitty day with work and came home and drank. So fuck judgement.
Hope your day/night gets better mate. Cheers
Cheers. Appreciate that. It’ll be fine. Just the ebb and flow of life and whatnot.
Cheers, man. This, too, shall pass.
Like Ive never said, when life gets you down, be optimistic. Not sure what kind of jokes you call funny or dark, but when I’m down I just figure I’ll hang out near an elementary school. Odds it’ll be over goes way up for me.
~sorry for the dark joke, just hope it made you laugh
Oh man… I live in America so that joke is awful and makes me feel bad that I didn’t think of it sooner.
I actually laughed at that. I shouldn’t, but fortunately I graduated long before I wasn’t physically able to.
Thanks
I’m around 50 miles south of Nashville, lol. Spent 29? Years in Florida where I was born. If you want dark, wet, muddy or why can’t I breath, it’s what I know lol. But seriously do take care. If you want to vent, type me a dm and I’ll promise you to read it and respond or never respond if you say, but sometimes a blather about B’s is good. Rather you send it to me than if you actually get drunk and send it to your sibling, lol. I’ll respond, or just end or start with don’t respond, and I’ll read . *Promise
I’ll take you up on that. Much appreciated. I’m about to fall asleep but it won’t be my last shit day I’m sure! I grew up in Dallas and Oklahoma, so I know kinda how you feel lol. These days I’m in California, and despite the difficulty level of basic survival, I love it here. Lots of natural beauty and all that, but honestly anywhere you go it’s still the same bullshit mostly. I appreciate the empathy, I really do. Honestly, I’ll probably send you random messages occasionally just to get it out. Feel free to do the same, please. Seriously, thanks.
Thanks, please do. If I have to I’ll ramble about some shit about blowing up a bottle of homemade wine or something and making the kitchen ceiling peppered lol. I didn’t even do that in my really dark days of drinking, I just was making a few bottles for fun and the sugar apparently got around the rim snd “sealed it”. Which normally you let it breathe while covering it for no bacteria going in. Exploded worse than the videos of mentos in diet coke. Coated the ceiling walls everything I was wearing for about 8 feet in EVERY direction. I still haven’t figured out how to clean the ceiling other than painting it. Lol.
Seriously, just blather when you need. No judgement and I’ll either tell you something I’ve done or input if you want
I have had to do a decent amount of hiring over the years for my own corner the corporate meat grinder. I personally don’t care about a gap unless the gap is too big. A big gap allows for a lot of rust to build, so it becomes a bit of a calculation of how much rust needs to get knocked off and if it’s fine for this position if it takes longer to get productive. If they’re still pretty sharp then the gap is no issue, and if they’re really rusty then that can be a problem depending.
I interviewed a guy not long ago with a 3-year gap. No fault of his own, the economy sucks, so I didn’t hold it against him. But despite knowing there was a technical interview coming up and knowing what skills we were looking for, the dude didn’t put any effort into studying before my interview and he bombed pretty darn hard. Which is a shame because on paper he would’ve been an amazing candidate otherwise.
Anyways all of that is to say that sometimes a gap brings other stuff too, so a gap to me is a sign to look for that other stuff.
How do you like pest control? I’m not looking for a career change right now (just got a new job recently that I actually don’t completely hate yet), but it’s something I’ve considered in the past. Seems interesting.
I love it. Lots of freedom in this job. On your own all day. Wake up, get in truck, do jobs, go home. Plus people seem to really appreciate it and that’s nice. Nowadays though I’m a manager so now I mostly sit at home or at the office doing stuff on a computer but being a tech was always a great job to me.
Sounds quite nice honestly. Thanks for sharing, I’ll look into it some more.
My answers to “Would you explain this gap in your resume?”:
- Relevancy: “I only included relevant experience on the copy of my resume that you received.” Hiking experience isn’t relevant. Couch experience isn’t relevant. Time spent as the forgotten pawn in the machinations of capitalism isn’t relevant.
- Privacy: “I am not required to disclose medical information, and will not be discussing this matter any further.”
- Fuck 'em: “No.”
No2 will make any interviewer exclude you as they don’t want to hire a “lemon”
An interview works both ways. If that’s how they consider humans, then you dodged a bullet.
Another good one is to mention there being health issues in the family that necessitated you take time to help them with.
Only a very nosy employer will question that further. If they give you grief for helping your loved ones in such a situation, they probably aren’t worth working for
How have these answers been working out so far?
Pretty good so far. I haven’t had a job that makes me wish for a workplace accident in years.
I am not required to disclose medical information, and will not be discussing this matter any further.
Why the combative/legalese tone though? Why not just say “It was for medical reasons, I don’t want to go into it” like a normal person? The interviewer would go “Oh ok fair enough” instead of thinking “What’s wrong with this guy, did he get out bed with his left foot today?”
I just tell them “personal commitments”, and they don’t pry any further, but maybe that only works for crappy minimum wage jobs.
“I’m sorry, I can’t talk about that. I signed an NDA.”
You can even create your own NDA to sign so it won’t be a lie, if you care about that sort of thing.
Signing an NDA with oneself sounds like fay trickery 🤣
First rule of signing your own NDA is you don’t talk about signing your own NDA.
This is the best answer by far.
Second best is “independent researcher.” Make up the metrics. You produced numerous 20,000 word reports for a small group of peers? Great, I have also barfed up a wall of text at reddit.
The NDA trick no longer works, employers caught onto this, and now they have a secret “We employed these people under NDA” list to verify it, and the worst ones don’t upload it there to punish those who dare to leave
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They signed an NDA so they can’t elaborate
I googled it. If you’re under NDA for the company name how are they going to ask the company?
It’s more like people have suggested it to me to avoid the NDA trick in the future.
I signed a non disclosure agreement about that period of time and am not at liberty to discuss it.
Well ZILtoid1991 said you have to tell us with who and we can ask them to use the secret non disclosure disclosure mechanism, who was the NDA with.
The counter party is covered under the terms of the NDA, I can’t disclose who they were either.
Checkmate
No, this could work in a way that all companies just submit names to the same list, and if someone says NDA they check the list.
Problem with this is that small companies or companies from other countries won’t give a shit or won’t be allowed to even submit anything. Of course, you could say small companies don’t use NDA, but that is not true and defeats the purpose really
It’s not that they keep a list of who was employed under NDA, it’s that [the fact that you worked here] isn’t what’s actually under NDA, it’s the actual project you were a part of.
NDAs just aren’t the blanket defense people think they are.
The NDA can include the whole employment, otherwise, if you were employed for a specific time when a project happened to be run, you can be connected to the project
“I had to provide end of life care to a close relative” doesn’t get followed up by a lot of questions.
Something you can only say if you get to the point where you get an interview.
Employers like you to be desperate, so demonstrating that you can afford (whether through finances, friends, or foraging) to not work for a long stretch of time indicates that you won’t be negotiating with them from a position of dependency.
It also suggests you might be willing to walk away from an incompatible work situation, whether due to workplace toxicity or your own outside priorities, which can be scary to the person you’ll be reporting to.
I fully hear that, but I’d argue it depends on the position you’re interviewing for, as this can show competence. If the gig is management or involves handling the cash flow, taking a year to do you on savings should be an attribute. Whereas someone working check to check and dealing with stacks of cash would likely increase the risk a bigger business would associate with you vs someone who’s dialed in financially.
Yeah, that’s absolutely fair. Even though it’s still the correct terminology, I don’t really think of (upper) management as having an employer-employee relationship with their company, so it didn’t occur to me to draw that distinction. I also didn’t think of people handling the books, but that also makes sense.
On the other hand, I worked for a company at which I started in the call center and moved to adjusting litigated claims. They gave me a credit card with a $5k limit and no use alert while I was still technically earning $15/hour and within two months of that, I was authorized to sign off on checks for up to $100k. I didn’t want them to think I was sketchy, so I didn’t push back too much, but I was always astounded that they trusted me (and several new hires at the company) so much so quickly.
Of course, $5k was peanuts and $100k was still not a big deal for the company, I’m sure they had a much different selection process for people who were handling the seven and eight figure payments.
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If you do call it a “sabbatical”
Some recruiters are not so great at judging people. Instead they come up with rules and red flags to justify their choice, or worse, get inspiration from other recruiters on LinkedIn.
What’s more, job interviews are poor predictors of job performance, so even those who are experienced with judging people in higher context settings are not so great at judging people.
I’ve been working in transportation and logistics first as a forklift operator, and now work as a local truck driver for nearly 15 years.
As much as I can find the job a little overwhelming at times, I appreciate that every interview I’ve had I just show up not looking like I fell out of a dumpster and let my actual skill determine whether I’m hired or not. The time spent on a forklift showing them my skills, or a drive test behind the wheel is my interview.
In 15 years, I’ve never been fired, left every job for something better, and never been turned down a position once in this current career path.
This wouldn’t work for some jobs, but where it does a skill test does sound like a perfect interview. Glad you’re doing well
Every interview should come with a skill test.
You’re being hired to do a job. Why are so many ignorant and inept interviewers hiring someone who may or may not know how to do the job, or do it well?
If I’m hiring a bartender, I’m asking them to make me a couple drinks. If I’m hiring a custodian, show me how well you mop. I’m hiring a programmer, write me something. Every job is doing something. More interviews should involve the actual ‘doing’ part, not asking benign questions all the time.
Some jobs require things that are hard to do on the spot, like product manager who should be in the loop and take care of where development moves, or project manager who should make said development actually happen.
The skills can be sort of checked by presenting a problem and asking how they would solve it, but the more abstract the skill required is, the more can the difference between reality and interview be, in my opinion
I’ve interviewed enough to know that once the testable basic capabilities are covered, its just a speed date
I have a small consultancy with several staff.
Couldn’t care less about a gap on someone’s resume.
I wouldn’t ask but if someone told me they’d taken a year off to get stoned every day and watch judge judy that’s not a deal breaker.
If anything, having enough cash saved up to live an entire year with no work, and buy that much weed, demonstrates strong financial management skills
I’ve done almost exactly that. Twas wonderful
Specifically only Judge Judy? Or other shows mixed about?
So much stupid tv. Many night walks getting stoned with audio books. Nursing beers at the pub occasionally. Had a nice garden that summer.
I learned I’d make an excellent trust fund baby! So if anyone wants to bequeath me a modest fortune, that’d be nice. Ty
Dear Abby,
I would like to be a House Cat.
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Oh fuck, that’s an enjoyable response. Unless theres something they can check about that. I dont know enough about employment.
NDAs are almost never all-encompassing. It may not even be legal. Usually an NDA is something like “I worked for [defense contractor] for three years as a mechanical engineer. I can’t tell you about the projects I worked on, but I can elaborate on my responsibilities.”
I have a “mental health break” line in my resume for a 4 month hiatus. I don’t know if it’s a flex or not, but it’s honest about what it is. At some point, a potential employer asked about it with some stern reservation, which allowed me to avoid a toxic workplace culture. Win win.
I’ve successfully labeled a period of “being laid off and playing a lot of video games until my bank account got to the area I didn’t like it to be” as a sabbatical.
ymmv though
Sounds like a sabbatical to me.
so far, most haven’t cared. there was one recruiter really caught up on it, but that call had at least 3 major red flags, so I wasn’t too worried. I think next time I’ll ask them why they haven’t taken one themselves?
If you have enough financial security to be able to not work for a year, then the company may not want to hire you. Ideally it needs you to depend on it for everything, because this ensures you’ll be a well-behaved slave for an extended period of time.
Yep. They want desperate people.
… but not too desperate; clients might be scared off if the parking lot is full of rusted out 90s econboxes…
“some of your other, lesser applicants needed to ‘work’ to ‘pay bills’. me, I’m a leader, I don’t work for anyone. I inspire, I drive those beneath me to further productivity, raise profit margins, and fire those I don’t like just shy of the one-year probation deadline. I don’t need this company, this company needs me.”
dramatic pause
“$250k, 6 months paid vacation, and a company car. Actually, you seem like a good guy, I’ll take just 5 months and 3 weeks instead, just for you.”
Real straight shooter. Upper management written all over ya.
Michael Bolton?
You see a lot of people who hire want individuals who live to work: workaholics. Those are the kinds of people you can get the most value from.
They don’t care that these people exploit themselves and hurt their families in the process. These are the ones they want; therefore, those are the kinds of people we have to masquerade as.
