People Share Red Flags About Employers That Most Folks Wouldn't Recognize As A Warning Sign
Nearly four years ago, I went in for a job interview I was a little skeptical about. It seemed like a good job that would utilize the skills I learned in my previous position, but the pay was much lower than what I had been getting. Still, I went in, hoping the other benefits would outweigh the low salary.
The first thing my interviewer asked me was how much I was making at my previous job.
Be warned that employers are NOT allowed to ask this question. However, I did know that and answered.
The next five minutes consisted of my boss very convincingly and enthusiastically telling me that my previous salary was very high, especially considering what kind of job the previous position was and the fact that it was my first job right out of school.
I took the job and worked at the company for two hateful years. By the time I left and started a different position, I realized something I wish I had known during my interview: my boss's little speech about my high salary was her way of getting me to settle for the low salary her company was offering, instead of negotiating for a better one.
Unfortunately, between some employers being really good at talking their "perks" up and potential employees being new to the workforce, a lot of things that are red flags don't register as red flags at the time.
That can lead to hated jobs with no benefits and little to no new skills learned.
Redditors know this all too well and are eager to share what should be taken as red flags to save the rest of us from this fate.
It all started when Redditor Redt_Wolf16 asked:
"What is a popular belief that is scientifically proven wrong?"
No Company Is Perfect
"You check out glassdoor and there are a bunch of overwhelmingly positive reviews from "anonymous current employees" that under cons list "no cons that I can think of!""
"Even the best place to work in the world has SOME cons."
– seanofkelley
"My last company did this. They fired half of the team over three months, they deliberately chose to fire whoever was cheaper to fire or who had kids etc because of course they missed work more than who doesn’t have kids (usually). They chose to fire a guy a couple of hours after he announced he was going to be a dad. They fired my boss because she was trying to get pregnant and they even asked her to quit instead so she would not get any compensation. The CEO told her he doesn’t think employees deserve it."
"After firing 30 people for economic reasons, they said they were done and asked everyone to relax. We all got extra responsibilities but no raise, of course. Two months later they fired 20 more (including me)."
"They asked the ones left to leave a nice review there since they were staying so I reported them to Glassdoor. Absolute trash."
"Edit to add: after they fired so many people most of the good employees left. They actually contacted me a month ago offering me my job back and it felt amazing to reject them."
– diabolikal__
Gossip Girls
"When management talks poorly about the other employees, it might make you feel included/special at first but guaranteed they’re going to be talking about you next"
– PhilMeYup
Work-Life Balance
"Another aspect is, it'll teach you what they really value. If they promote work-life balance but their favorite employees are those who "put in the extra work to get things done", it means they will not in fact respect your work-life balance lol. Learned this the hard way."
– Scarlett1993
"I interviewed at a company in San Diego and everything went really well. Because I have an annual fishing trip in july, and I was being hired first of June, I brought it up. I said I know I'm new and I am willing to skip the trip, I just need to know so that my friends can plan on me being there or not."
"Dude looks at me and says, "No problem. That should work fine. But in my experience, people who work here, will schedule a vacation, and then realize that the project needs them and cancel their time off.""
"I worked up until that trip. The week before I worked an extra 15 hours to make sure that my projects were all tracking to be okay with out me for a week. Two days before I am supposed to take a Time off, my boss calls me in and asks if I think I should go on this vacation. I said yes. He said what if I asked if you were willing to accept your last check? I said I would accept it. So he paid me out my time and I walked out the door."
"I worked my a** off to make sure that things would carry on without me, even though the company didn't have anything in place that helped that process. And the fact they think that people should cancel their vacation out of loyalty is such garbage. The company itself was pretty normal from the outside. But pretty bullsh*t from the inside"
– 444unsure
"What a piece of sh*t."
""So, just to be clear, you need me here so badly that you can't be without me for a week, but not so badly that you can't be without indefinitely? I call bullsh*t.""
– ohheyisayokay
Regulations Are Written In Blood
"Management who are willing to risk it and cut corners."
"Had an interview with a company. The guy interviewing me told me that he would be my boss if I got thr job. He likes his teams to be a strong and cohesive group and that we would all have an input as he values his team."
"Maybe three questions later he asks me: "if you had an unstable and unstable load that I told you has to be loaded this minute. You would do it." Me, "No, if it is unsafe and could potentially kill someone, I would not allow it out. Not until the problem is sorted (had a boss pull this one years before), i would tell him of the issue and try to get it sorted" him "and I tell you it must be loaded as is", me "Then it wont get loaded and i would bring it to Health and safety". He immediately told me how I was not the right type of person for that company."
"A large international company, willing to promote that individual. I consider myself lucky to have not been even offered the job. Saved me turning it down."
– Xib3
"I've seen some interesting things in interviews before, but never before have I heard a company so brazen as to flat out admit they don't adhere to major safety policies. If that's the case how many minor ones are overlooked enough where they're comfortable overlooking a major one? YIKES. Talk about dodging a f*cking bullet."
– Wizard4877
I Finished My Learning
"Offering to pay you a lot less than market rate because you will "Learn so much" or "Will be working with a great team". My bank does not take IQ points as a mortgage payment"
– _three_piece_suit
"I work in games. A lot of job postings end with 'Must have a passion for video games.'"
"Translation: Your pay is gonna be garbage, there's going to be a lot of overtime, and we don't care if you like it because there are hundreds of applicants"
– laehrin20
Lunch Is A Must
"“We don’t really eat lunch” f*ck you ive been working my a** off all day I’m gonna sit down for 30 minutes to and hour and eat my damn sandwich"
– ReporterWitty3616
"It also shows ignorance to some facts like ... Breaks are relevant and folks need calories to burn."
– deterministic_lynx
"At my current job, before she was demoted and relocated, I had a manager that I asked if I could take my (legally mandated 30 min lunch break) and she literally tried to manipulate me into not taking one. She goes, “well, x coworker and y coworker do 8 hour shifts without taking lunches”. As if that’s a reason I shouldn’t have taken mine. And I was sitting there thinking, “that’s not something to be proud of? As a manager that’s part of your job is to make sure your employees take their lunch. Also, that’s f*cking illegal? Why would you admit that?” Ignoring entirely the fact that both coworkers she named ALWAYS take a lunch on their long shifts, so she straight up lied for no reason other than to guilt me."
– RosariaRain
Work Family
"Paraphrasing from a similar comment."
"When you hear "We're like a family here", run and don't look back. The only "family" trait that'll come from that job is the dysfunction, gaslighting, and lack of accountability."
– Fake-And-Gay-Bot
"Get that where I am now. The gossip is ridiculous, I happened today to know who had brought in the cakes and how old she had turned - shock horror, I speak to my coworkers as people. Next thing you know, people are "teasing" I only do it to get in her knickers. .. Nope, one, if you talk to her, she has a boyfriend and two, not my type."
"Also, my favourite one was the big boss of the company gave a speech about how, he could replace us all with foreign workers for less pay and more productivity. So he can buy another expensive car. The talks with some managers shows they literally bathe in the company cool-aid."
"Family. Only in his inner circle, where he literally employees them."
– Xib3
Do You NEED The Job Yet?
"If they ask if you've turned in your two weeks to your current employer during the interview process. Had two short jobs fresh out of college that did this and realized too late that they were waiting for me to be desperate before hiring me, because the pay was actually much lower than advertised and the hours were much longer."
– the-just-us-league
There's Always A Limit
"“Unlimited PTO”"
– Shhh_Dont_Tel
"The first time I worked for a company with unlimited PTO, I ended up taking less time off than I did at my previous job because I wasn't sure how much I was "allowed" to take in practice."
– aggressivecalm
"I like my PTO like I like my pay - on the books."
– DogsAreOurFriends
"I had a job with unlimited sick time!"
"Two things to note:"
"There's a hidden equation that will trigger HR to investigate and ask for doctors notes."
"It didn't cover what traditional sick time at other jobs would. No planned doctors appointments or if a family member is sick. You use vacation for that."
– zerostar83
It's Your Job Now
"When an employee quits or gets fired from the job and the company doesn't hire anyone new to replace them."
"It can be hard to tell as a red flag at first, but the temporary workload they added to your own over that was left over after the person left, slowly becomes your new permanent workload, without any changes to your pay or benefits to compensate for the additional tasks. The further out it goes without the position being filled, the larger and more obvious the red flag becomes."
– Goatmanthealien
Yeah, I have personal experience with that last one!
Husband Says He'll Leave Wife If She Doesn't Lose Weight, Now She's Too Skinny And Desirable
The funny (in a tragic kind of way) thing about manipulative and abusive relationships is that sometimes you don't realize you're in one until something so ridiculous happens that you can't deny it any longer. One Reddit user is facing that realization after her husbands ultimatum, an assault by his friend, and the victim blaming that followed.
Yup, it's as bad we it seems. Here is her original post:
I met my husband 6 years ago when we both had just graduated college. He was a lovely guy, handsome and very well put together. He loved muscle cars and weight lifting and I loved everything about him. I fell in love with him instantly and was over the moon when he asked me to marry him.
A year into our marriage, I became pregnant with our son and gained about 30 lbs. I was 5'3" 125 lbs before the baby and 155 lbs after the baby. I still fit into the same clothing sizes so I didn't think I had gained too much weight and that it would come off with breastfeeding and some more exercise.
After the baby, my husband started pressuring me to lose the weight. He said that his friends were making comments about how fat I had gotten and that he was not as attracted to me as he was before I had the baby. He gave me an ultimatum that I either would have to lose the 30 lbs in six months or he would leave me. I was very upset about the demand, but I didn't want to lose him so I tried my hardest to lose the weight.
Every day for months I would wake up and go to hot yoga for 90 minutes. After I got home from work, I would run or do some body weight exercises. I tried to keep my calorie count below 1200 so that I would lose 2 or more lbs per week. The weight slowly but surely started to come off and I was back down to 130 lbs by the end of the six months. My husband was happy and things looked like they would be okay.
After I lost the weight, I noticed a shift in the attitude of my husband's friends. Most of them are perfectly nice guys, but a few of them are absolute pieces of shit (the same ones who called me fat). Once I returned to my old weight, these friends started to make comments about me and how sexy I was. I told my husband to make them stop and he said that he would speak with them, but the rude comments never stopped. I channeled all of my frustrations into working out and I lost an additional 15 lbs of body fat and got more toned.
This past weekend, my husband's friends were over at the house and one of them grabbed me and tried to grope me. I told my husband and even though he was angry at his friend, he was still angry at me. My husband said that I was leading his friends on by losing so much weight and that I was trying to make myself skinny so that I could cheat on him. I was disgusted by this accusation and packed my bags and left for my mom's house.
Last night, my husband called me and begged for me to come back home. He says that he knows that he was unfair and that he won't let his friend come over anymore, but I am so tired of dealing with this that I'm not sure I want him back. He's the one that told me to lose weight, but now he's blaming me for being too skinny and I'm afraid he's going to make me develop an eating disorder. But I also still love my husband and it hurts me to be apart from him.
I'm so confused and I'm not sure what to do.
Reddit swooped in with responses SO DANG FAST. Some of them had to be censored or edited because people had some CHOICE words about this.
H/T: Reddit
You ever read a story that made you look at your screen kind of through the outer corner of your eye? Like you're so taken aback by the dumpster fire you're reading that you almost don't want to look at it directly? But you can't look away either?
This is about to be that story.
The story revolves around four main players, so let's start there.
"Jenny" - The girlfriend
"Jessi" - The girlfriend's twin sister
"Johnny" - The boyfriend
"Mom" - The boyfriend's mom
Got that? Ok, here we go. Jenny and Johnny have been together for a year and things are going great. Jenny hangs out with Johnny's family, including mom, and has talked about her sister, Jessi, from time to time - always referring to her as "my sister". That's important. Pin that. It'll matter in a second.
One night, mom goes out to the movies with her friends and on the way out she runs into Jessi and her boyfriend. Mom flips out thinking that it's Jenny and goes on to scream at, accuse, slap, and attempt to drag Jessi out of the theater! Yep that's verbal and physical assault for those of you keeping score at home. In the process of trying to defend herself and being assaulted, Jessi called the woman a "crazy b!tch" - cause if it walks like a duck and slaps like a duck, ya know?
Mom them calls Johnny to rat out his "cheating" girlfriend only to find Jenny was WITH JOHNNY and obviously couldn't be the girl she had just assaulted in the theater. Mom tried to blame Jenny for never specifying that her sister was her TWIN sister, and not only refused to apologize to Jessi, but is now demanding that Jessi apologize to her for calling her a crazy b!tch.
"Jenny" turned to Reddit for help. Here is her full post:
I have an identical twin sister Jessi and we look very much alike. There are small differences but only those who know both of us can recognize them.
BF and I have been together for a year. Things are good between us.
Last night this happened: my boyfriend's mom went out with her friends to watch a movie and Jessi was there as well with her boyfriend. After the movie one of her friends saw Jessi with her boyfriend. She asked her if that girl is her son's boyfriend (I met this friend at a party a few weeks ago). So she looked at Jessi and thought yes, she is.
She went to her and asked what the f*** is going on. Jessi was confused since she hadn't met her before, and she kept asking her what the f*** is this. At that point she was holding Jessi's arm and she told her to let her go and called her a crazy bitch. Eventually she told Jessi that she's cheating on her son and called her by my name, and Jessi told her that that's her twin sister. She slapped her across the face and told her to stop lying. Her friends then collected her and took her away.
She then called my boyfriend and told him that she's found her girlfriend with another man. I was with my boyfriend at that time. He quickly got it that she must have seen Jessi so he told her and she hung up. She then left. I talked to Jessi, she didn't even apologize to her. After she found out what she's done, she just left.
So my boyfriend talked to her again and an apology is not coming.
She feels like she did nothing wrong and she was justified in whatever she did since I hadn't told her that I had a twin sister, so she's justified in harassing her like that and slapping her across the face. She said that she expects an apology for being called a crazy bitch.
I'm really pissed at her for what she did and the least she can do is apologize to Jessi. We were planning to visit my boyfriend's parents this weekend but now I'm not sure that I want to go. I can't just sit there and tell her how cute it was that she mistook me with my twin. I sure as hell don't think Jessi should go and apologize to her.
Should I let this go? Am I overreacting to consider this a deal breaker?
People did not hold back with their responses, and it was glorious. Here are some of my favorites, edited for content or clarity when needed.
H/T: Reddit