Oftentimes, when starting a new role, it doesn’t end up being quite what you’d imagined. Delusions of grand inspiration fade like a mirage in the desert in the face of the reality of menial tasks and repetitive labor. After all, as we’re consistently proclaiming, an interview is a two-way street, and the company is trying to sell themselves to the most desirable candidate they can get—often for as low of a price as possible—just as much as the candidates are trying to sell themselves to the company. Part of this sales process, on the company’s side, is pumping up the position they’re hiring for as much as possible, detailing an interesting series of responsibilities and tasks that make even the most boring jobs seem as exciting as possible.
But once you step through the door, you’ll soon find that what was described on paper is, in actuality, thinly representative of your actual job and new ideas you might have been excited to bring to the role and aspirations for what you might accomplish are impeded by process, budgets, and the unimaginative inflexible attitudes of managers above you.
This is probably one of the reasons why people are urged never to pursue careers in industries adjacent to their hobbies. For example, nothing will ruin your interest in video games like landing a job at a major development studio only to find yourself working long hours with the huge pressure of looming headlines and unrealistic expectations of productivity for little compensation.
This worker was interviewed for an engineering and machine maintenance role only to find themselves cleaning things with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of cleaner. They decided to roll with it and make the best of things… but didn’t get better from there, with the work being told by their boss that they were making the boss look bad for innovating better solutions to basic problems. Their boss’s behavior continued to get more outrageous, and things continued to spiral, leading the worker to hand in their resignation.
The worker ended their post by asking other workers to share their stories of quitting, leading to a series of solid responses.
