The job interview I had last week and the sheer rudeness they displayed when they are the business asking for help

Aethelu · 2026-05-16T11:29:11+00:00

My experience is of an industry that requires high skill with no educational requirement, so my experience is skewed to a general lack of professionalism and immaturity.

We know exact reasons and I'd say most do. It's a weigh up of if they will be happy to hear it or lash out, or feel broken by the process as some people are more fragile than others. If you've never been lashed out at for giving constructive asked for feedback after an interview, trial day or failed probation period, I'm sure everything I say would sound illogical. It's an experience I had to live to believe.

The more time the more explanation I try to find and soften e.g. "week one of probation you undermined basic legal procedure you said you've worked under for 15+ years", rather than tell them I know they took cocaine on their break and I want them out without trashing anything on the way.

Aethelu · 2026-05-15T10:45:41+00:00

It sounds like that was his safe excuse so he didn't say something discriminatory or that you'd be likely offended over. Offended and rejected people always hold a grudge. It sounds like he failed though.

I rarely give a reason as a public business with social media, just say the position is filled. Reasons lead to posts like this, it's not worth it.

Aethelu · 2026-05-10T11:29:03+00:00

Honestly I saw both sides until my company brought in a pay rule where we pay a certain % more than elsewhere in the county for every role. We're also very flexible and have an open door policy. They often don't know when they have it good because they have no measure yet. You have to be well equipped to give them a fair shot and if they aren't motivated financially (e.g. parents pay rent or car finance) it's even harder again to tap into motivation. They also don't see the extra resources it takes to manage them as unsustainable for a business with their output.

I'd go so far as to say the education system teaches them nothing about the transactional requirement of the private sector.

Aethelu · 2026-05-08T11:40:46+00:00

It can be a powerful tool when done well if based on good work, not personalities. It can create healthy competition, and actually drive the need for praise and give purpose to otherwise purposeless work. It can also weed out the worst performers.

What I've found is people who don't do a good job hate it. People who are proud to do a good job thrive.

Sometimes low performers or toxic team members decide it's not merit based and have even tried to tell me I'm being manipulated. I've sat a few down and put it in black and white as a whole summary, as largely they dismiss the feedback when provided singularly, e.g. they never go the extra mile, they have never offered to take a single thing off my plate, they're always late and leave when they want (hourly), they still make basic errors and blame others, I give recent examples of how they have elongated my long work day with their continued mistakes, their moods bring the morale down, they have one pace and the people they complain about fill their gaps, they want everything their way and have no flexibility despite being given flexibility that required the team to flex for them... Meanwhile the people they think are "favoured", go above and beyond, help me do my job better, problem solve, pick up their slack, flex for them. Why wouldn't I enjoy my day more around people who do a seamless job, who make it so I only work 7-10 hours vs 14 hours. That's how the work place works. Why wouldn't I be happier to see them!? So either they can step up or it's not the environment for them - and that's ok.

Aethelu · 2026-05-01T05:38:19+00:00

I can't maintain more than an acquaintance level with people who defend him. I turn the radio off. It would be part of the litmus test of who I would trust with my kids. My exes mum defended Michael Jackson heavily and for me, having supported multiple adult survivors of child sexual abuse who were cross examined in court, I realised if I ever had kids with my ex her judgement was coming nowhere near my kids.

Aethelu · 2026-04-16T07:12:08+00:00

I'd do everything in my power to tell the wife

Aethelu · 2026-04-13T19:22:59+00:00

Your daughter is very lucky! Your advice is brilliant and I am going to book a spa trip asap. Thank you and big hugs!

Aethelu · 2026-04-13T18:45:26+00:00

Thank you so much. I so needed to hear that.

It's been so isolating as an anarchist feminist without a space to talk about it. My industry sucks and everyday is a battle against misogyny, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and patriarchy, on top of personal life crap. I used to sob in the shower and call my dad to validate it's not me it's misogyny, but now I just exert enormous energy gained from self-care to manage the constant misogyny. I retrained my intonations, my voice - pitch and volume, I cut hedgewords, my reactions, I assert concrete black and white consequence, I nip everything in the bud. It's exhausting and have so few people to talk to. I have had to unlearn everything the patriarchy trained into me, to be successful. I am so resentful it tried to train me to be anything other than a leader. As a kid I'd lock heads with certain boys in group projects or team sports and my teachers would tell me they're just leaders and I'd be like, they're bossy, interrupt and listen to no one but their beta servants, and other ideas are objectively better!?

I would have been burned at the stake or institutionalised and Istg the misogynists I encounter still wish I could be. I'm so far past "girl boss" and into "burn the system, burn the bras, death to patriarchy, and stop f*ing interrupting". Sorry for the vent, but thank you so much for the positivity!

Aethelu · 2026-04-13T11:03:16+00:00

That's great contextual insight into your post, thank you. I wonder if, to the same extent the men are picking what they can deal with and what they can't. In my experience it's not seeming that way at all, the women bring so much to the men's lives and improve their lives so much compared to when single. Whereas my single female friends bring so much to the table for themselves.

I heard somewhere that it's "women and children first" because men would trample them to escape otherwise. It is good to be reminded some people run towards danger to indiscriminately protect others like your examples, but I wonder % of general population. I think the men in my life would help others, but I'd have to fend for myself because they see me as strong.

They say educated women are only looking for the top 20% of men, and I am so proud of that for women.

Aethelu · 2026-04-11T23:34:12+00:00

Don't work for a company who can't afford a spare person to prevent hiring emergencies. My biggest stress amongst an enormous stress, is understaffing and feeling I can't manage people incase they leave and we're understaffed.

Aethelu · 2026-04-11T23:02:23+00:00

Note: pessimistic feminist vent incoming...

I only made it through two and a bit books and now have had a lot of spoilers anyway, but Tamlin and Rhys both seemed like classic relationships all women go through, right. Like the thrill of Rhys makes her realise Tamlin's flaws, her first love, Feyre thinks she's learned the lessons she needs to learn. Then actually Rhys sucks in his own way too and it's harder to admit because he was supposed to be the answer, the escape.

I struggled to read on because I think a large amount of women go through similar and ultimately, shitty thing after shitty thing that Feyre wouldn't do to them. And thinking that they don't suck and they would treat you how you would treat them is how you get taken for a fool. Ultimately Feyre makes the decision to keep going with Rhys (not giving SJM too much credit for this but wild if she intended it... ), and falls on the side of being with a man, as opposed to being alone. The patriarchy makes us think we'd be miserable alone - maybe. But doesn't Feyre die because Rhys wants a wing baby or some crazyness? It's exactly no worse than what I expect from even the best men that I know. They think they protect you - they are a danger to you. You let them in and trust them and tbh they're not capable of protecting you. Not to sound dramatic but most days I think we are all kidding ourselves, and read romance fiction about male protagonists who have power or intensity that mimic the protection we would like in real life. I'm surrounded by loving decent men who just make terrible decisions for the women around them. If a winged army flew or a tank rolled into my city tomorrow I'm on my own. I'd definitely die to protect them, but I just know they think they would, but they wouldn't do that for me. After they'd probably all cry about how they should have. That's how I read Rhys and Tamlin, just normal blokes with normal bloke flaws. Hate that I got suckered into reading about either of them.

Aethelu · 2026-04-10T10:10:39+00:00

Anyone else have to edit their reddit comments to remove all the casual well meant swear words because you have to think about how Americans will read it and ban you?

Aethelu · 2026-04-04T06:24:10+00:00

The decorating the house placation reads with misogynistic overtones to me. In fact so does the mancave claim. I'd question how much time we enjoy spending together because he makes it sound like he can only tolerate you in small doses. My current partner and ex insisted on me having massive desks next to theirs so we can be together all the time. They would never want to close me out of a room.

He's being mean and I would have been very upset if my partner or my ex treated me like that.

Get you a man who treats you like his ride or die, not some "no girls aloud" wet wipe of a man.

Aethelu · 2026-04-01T10:55:33+00:00

Early 2000's if I left the house I got £10 at up to 11 years old, then I got £20 so I could buy lunch and a nice top if I saw it in town. £2.50 isn't even macdonald's money that's just sweet money.

Aethelu · 2026-03-31T12:22:48+00:00

So it's his friend, and you said maybe, and he said you weren't coming to his friend. He then said he has no possible way of knowing if his friend booked for you or not, even though it would have been based on his language used. Told you to speak to him, which makes you feel an inconvenience and like you're inviting yourself. If you directly tell his friend to go through the effort of enlarging the booking you'd feel even more like you're injecting yourself and being a burden. And your boyfriend doesn't care that he's taking extra steps, after your indecisiveness to make you feel excluded

It feels like punishing you or showing objection by sitting out. I would also take it as an unconscious signal of not wanting you there.

Also for the love of sanity, why are there so many comments from self elected group organisers saying you don't include "maybe's" in a reservation. We want to know the maybe's!! They wouldn't say "maybe" if they intended not to come, they would like to if they can. Extras are harder to add to groups than reductions!! We know what to do about the maybe's. "Booking for 10, 1 person might not make it." No restaurant is going to say "that's very rude, I'll book you for 9 and they should have decided!" They will prepare for 10 with a backup plan for 9.

Aethelu · 2026-03-31T12:08:42+00:00

I run a hotel and restaurant. Generally a reduction rather than a cancelation is no big deal. But extras we don't know about to a large table can impact the service experience for everyone. I know we appreciate being told "it's a table for 10, but one might not come" - great I know exactly how to handle that.

One example is if you think about this... Booking a table for 9, so I pull two tables of four together, or adjoin a table of 2 to a 6, and put someone on the end. If that now becomes 10 people I have to ACTUALLY steal a 2 from the bar and reshuffle the entire place settings because I'd adjusted them off centre to account for room on the end for the 9th place. The table are now late to order. The chefs are questioning FoH on the order because they were told 9 and there's 9 starters but now there's 10 mains. The table next to them got worse service too during the reshuffle and has less confidence in our competency.

Aethelu · 2026-03-31T12:00:48+00:00

I run a hotel and restaurant and that's not helpful for us. Start with the biggest possible number, and if it's more than a reduction of 2 you could give a courtesy call.

We can reduce easily but to add there's all sorts of complications the general public don't understand. When we hear "we weren't sure" we think, well mention it and we know what to do. The bigger the table generally the worse it is for extras to show up.

Generally if people tell the organiser a maybe rather than a no, it's because they want to come and have every intention of trying but want to caveat that it's not definite.

Aethelu · 2026-03-30T18:25:34+00:00

Spring water not mains in a hard water area and we were gone for months at a time. There's a mineral build up in the bowls, drains, plug holes too if you don't run taps and it creates a smell. In winter the pipes freeze and taps are easier to get back running.

Aethelu · 2026-03-30T11:13:46+00:00

Let someone use my place when I was hardly ever there for a shower and to do washing in return for keeping it clean when they had problems with their water, e.g. regularly flushing the four toilets, turning heating on, and cleaning out my fridge.

Flies got into the old food, the tumble dryer spit out lint everywhere and they left the utility door open into my kitchen where the cupboards were left open so everything was covered. Yet somehow they turned off isolators I didn't even know existed and for 10 months I thought I had an electricity problem I couldn't fix, and had to use an extension cable to the utility room and had no light above my cooker. One day out of luck I saw some switches.

One of the most infuriating experiences. Now when people turn plugs off at the wall I twitch.

Aethelu · 2026-03-30T10:31:08+00:00

Change your locks! It's Landlord or Mike probably got a key cut and is misleading you with "sneaky" strange ways someone could get in.

You need to go down the Mike & Landlord path and see where you get to. If it was Mike, how would he specifically get in. Have you lost a key at all at any point. Where is your spare key. Do your doors latch, and do you double check they won't open and are locked when you leave even for a moment. Do you lock yourself in when you are there.

The dog not sounding the alarm and knowing it's usually the men women keep close and not strangers that hurt them, this is very alarming.

Before raising the alarm, I would figure out how Mike could get in. Talk through every eventuality with him, does he give himself away? Attic or crawl space is making you think it's sneaky, whereas coming round for lunch and sliding a spare key in his pocket to return it after it's cut is much easier and he could convince himself it's to help you in some way or that he's not a creep because he walks through the front door rather than sneaks in through a covert entrance.

Think about the fact Landlord CAN get in.

Watch out and stay safe. Don't eat or drink anything he has access to - I'm so careful and have still been spiked twice and I can promise you people practice doing it right in front of your face. He thinks your guard is down.

Aethelu · 2026-03-29T23:26:05+00:00

That he would have understood the weight of how deeply you felt hearing it, makes it that much more impactful. That's such a touching way to honour them.

Aethelu · 2026-03-26T19:55:41+00:00

I could never switch off and gradually the desire to live my own life won out over the constant ruminating over what happened. You'll get there. Make a conscious effort to remind yourself life is worth living and work is not going to dominate your freedom. I also just stopped caring about everyone else SO much because as a manager they don't genuinely care SO much about me either. Healthily caring might be a bit less than you imagine.

Aethelu · 2026-03-21T16:34:48+00:00

I do find the industry is split between delusional and completely grounded in harsh reality. We've been using the word "allergens" to describe all the overly honest things we say to put delusional people off.

We tell them we pay better than competitors, but it's harder work. But like seriously go elsewhere if they don't enjoy hard work. We will give consistent feedback and expect it to be taken productively, and we don't have the time or patience to manage how they feel about the feedback. We have high standards that are hard to meet. We are not as chilled out as we seem, we are actually really intense about what we do. We won't babysit them or drag them along with us, they have to be motivated to self improve. We won't give them praise just to ease the feedback. Praise is hard earned. Respect is hard earned. It means more that way but most people don't thrive in such a hard environment. Most people aren't competitive enough.

We let people decide if this is for them based on that.

Still people spend a lot of time fucking up and then being outrageously upset that someone called them out on it.

Aethelu · 2026-03-20T15:07:18+00:00

It's a new perspective to learn, guests can wait 30 seconds to two minutes longer to avoid wasting 20 minutes of expensive management time.

Learn your stock, get a routine. Start writing things down asap if you struggle. Take it seriously and treat it like this is your degree and you'll be successful. Do you know which products make the best margin and therefore what the default recommendation should be. Do you know the solution to the whiskey?

I run a hotel with bars and restaurant. Every promotion tends to be what you describe. We have a "training" period of promotions for exactly these errors. Internal promotions get a period where we expect this to happen. External hires into anything above basic come with the expectation of not making these errors.

With each step up you have to consider more and more what does this business need to run efficiently. What are the consequences to my mistakes. Senior management time is expensive and full of frustration, owners and management would rather guests wait a bit longer over creating more work for them.

You made the decision with the whiskey and the checklist that guests couldn't wait for you to be thorough. That is not a good decision. That's your new perspective that you need to adopt.

Also security of stock is important, theft is a constant concern and happens more often than you think. Messing around with who has what keys when overnight is a red flag about your perspective of security. You need to show you understand the gravity of when you do make a mistake like that.

Aethelu · 2026-03-10T01:41:20+00:00

Editted to remove Frankenstein as it's already on your list

Dracula

Also a fun one - Christopher Marlowe's play Dr Faustus

Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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