i took leave bc of personal reasons. i am not taking on a new job, but moving to be closer to family as i am deeply unhappy and cannot live away anymore. what is the best way to go about this? i geniunely loved my coworkers and my time at my job. i do not want to burn any bridges in case i ever need such a job again

Hello!

As someone who is typically worried before the ink is dry, I wanted to have insight about a job I was contingently offered by a city entity for a creative, part-time role.

During me completing the background check information, I noticed the credit check, and while my credit is OK, I did realize (today) that I had something in collections (I didn't receive any letters or emails about it, but I called and went through what I needed to). I did call and made arrangements for this ASAP, and they are sending me documentation so that I have it for my records. This was from an overpayment of food stamps from the state from a year ago when I was on state support, I haven't been for a year, now.

My concern is: will they see this and immediately ding me for this and rescind? I will not be handling any money, budgets etc. in that regard what-so-ever, and it is a part-time role with a city entity. I have no other issues on my record or credit that would cause alarm, otherwise.

Any insight is appreciated - and again, I am getting documentation for the arrangement and confirmation about the payment(s) so I have it for my records.

Going through this right now, Offer letter signed.
1 week now after I verify everything. I put wrong dates/postion 1 of my employment(1 year gap) on Checkr. They asked for clarification a week ago and I provide everything w2s froms and references. now Head of HR said they still evaluating.. and will get back to me next Monday kinda bum of me forgetting dates.. my start date was oct 12 lol but they paused. Any inputs I still get the job? Its an r&n technician role. Everything else checks out except the 1 employer discrepancy.

Hello HR people

I just took a pre-employment drug test. I have something of a shy bladder, and had to drink a bunch of water in order to be able to pee. I'm concerned it might come back dilute-negative, and It's making me nervous. To try and reduce my anxiety, I was wondering if you could tell me what your company does with dilute-negative pre-employment drug tests?

Is that something that the MRO deals with only? Does it ever even get to you?

If it helps, I'm in the US and the company is a large multi-national corporation

I accepted an offer at a new company, and had to complete a background check as part of the hiring process. no problem - I don't have anything to hide. however, a few years ago, I did some freelancing for a company which I have on my resume and included in my employment history in the background check. the third party conducting the background check was unable to verify that employment, and it's because (I had honestly forgotten) that it was a freelance gig so I wasn't an actual employee of the company. I put the dates of that job as September 2023 through august 2024, and that's what my memory was of working there. (it was a hectic and stressful time in my life, and I was also working at a restaurant during that time to make ends meet.) I was contacted by the new company asking for copies of tax docs since the background check company couldn't verify. I found tax docs for 2023, but couldn't find anything for 2024. If my memory is right, I remember the work slowing down and I didn't do as much for them in '24, but I could've sworn I did something.

SO my question is, if I'm unable to find any 2024 tax docs or proof of employment for that freelance job, will this prevent me from actually getting the new job? I have 10+ years of other employment on my resume and included in the background check that was verified, so I'm hoping an eight month discrepancy isn't a deal breaker.

appreciate any insights anyone in recruiting, HR, etc., might have. thank you!!!

After two years of searching, I finally got a job offer. However, I have some worries about the background check that might cause the offer to be rescinded.

1. 3 years ago at a party during undergrad, a drunk student picked a fight with me and afterwards claimed that my friends and I jumped him. I was hit with battery charges and even put on the local news, but CCTV footage proved my accuser was lying and the charges were dismissed. Will the background check explicitly state that the charges were dismissed? The news station said they will delete the article and scrub it from SEO, but i’m not sure how long that will take.

2. A year ago I got a DUI. I thought I had waited long enough for the alcohol to leave my system, but that wasn’t the case. I will never make that mistake again and have learned from the experience, but I am worried that a single DUI would raise character concerns on a background check.

Any insight or advice is greatly appreciated 🙏

I had a baby November 2025 and took 18 weeks of leave after delivery - 6 weeks STD, 6 weeks of NJ paid bonding time, and 6 weeks paid by my employer. From what I understand, this means I used my 12 weeks of FMLA job protection.

I am now surprisingly (but luckily) expecting another baby ~18 months later in May 2027.

It seems that NJ's FMLA window restarts on a rolling basis 24 months from your delivery but the federal FMLA runs on a 12 month basis.

I remember the HR contact telling me that first time around that having babies less than 24 months apart can affect your leave, but I didn't really listen because I expected it to take years before I was lucky enough to fall pregnant again.

Can someone explain to me how my leave is affected by having a second child in less than 24 months? Should I expect less leave?

Bear with me. This whole thing is a mess and my partner and I are having anxiety attacks about all of this. We have a young child and we're supposed to close on our first home in 3 weeks. We're in a situation that could ruin our lives if it all goes south. So forgive me for this long ramble.

My partner and I both work for a local parks department. We work in different divisions and I have a higher position than him so I'm very aware of how management should behave towards employees.

I need to preface that he is a hard worker and has a great work ethic. For this reason, he is still in touch and friends with former bosses.

He has worked in his position for 3.5 yrs. His boss is currently 1.5 yrs at the agency and had never been a manager before. I need to preface that his time is split between 2 locations at his job. At one location, he is well loved by the manager and coworkers. At the other location, he has been experiencing harassment from the other manager. Despite harassment from the bad manager, his last review was excellent just a few months ago.

She loses her temper and screams, she writes him up with false and petty claims. The thing is, write ups at this employer are usually only reserved for serious incidents because 3 write ups can lead to termination. They rarely happen. I e warned him that this manager seems crazy and has a vendetta but he's a nice guy and was honestly too scared of her to ever stick up for himself.

One recent example is that she just wrote him up for "lying". The incident was that he was mowing turf around the park as requested where there were several vendor booths and lights set up for a month -long event. While mowing around one booth the string of a table banner that was hidden in the grass got sucked up in his mower. He instantly stopped and pulled the banner out and cleaned any fabric out of the mower blades. The bottom edge of the banner was damaged, but for the most part, it was intact. He immediately told his boss and she acted like it was no big deal. 2 days later she wrote him up saying he had lied to her about the damage to the banner. He has photo proof of the damage to show it was not as bad as she claims.

This is the third write up like this. The first ones he was so flustered he instantly signed. This time, he'' not signing and wants to rebuke. He knows this is a calculated attempt to get him fired.

She does weird things like texts him "nice work on X project!" But then pulls him aside 2 days later while alone and tells him that she he's doing a bad job.

This is coming after a recent workplace injury (torn ankle tendon from many miles on foot in uneven surfaces). He had to go to a doctor because the pain was so bad. Was given an orthopedic boot and told to take it easy for 6 weeks and if it didn't heal it could mean surgery and 1-2 yrs of recovery. She freaked out at him for reporting the injury to our nurse's hotline to get it on record. At first, he didn't have an official doctor's note, so despite having an orthopedic boot, telling her the situation, she told him "if you have to be in light duty then I have no work for you".

This is not policy! In our agency, if someone is injured, management finds light duty work and takes care of employees. Instead, she gives him this low key threat. Which made him scared to file workman's comp. After some egging from me (we're talking possible surgery and yrs of recovery!) He filed a claim. She got even more angry about it. Complained to him about all of the paperwork she would have to do.

She continued to task him with heavy work and his injury got worse. After another visit with the orthopedic doc, he finally got an official letter for work restrictions. (The orthopedic doc was appalled that his boss was still making him do heavy work for hours a day on the injured foot) However, the doc office sent it straight to the county administration office and didn't send him back with a copy they said they had to mail it to him.

She continued to harass him for 3 days, claiming she needed the paper right away. He called the doc to try to get it faxed and it wasn't working. He asked if they could wait until the mailed copy arrived but that wasn't good enough for her. She went so far as to make him call the orthopedic surgeons' office on speaker phone. (As if you could just get an orthopedic surgeon on the phone that way).

After 3 days the workplace restriction letter arrived and she finally agreed to put him in light duty.

On the flip side, the nice manager at the other place instantly acknowledged his injury and made sure not to task him with heavy work as soon as she saw him with the boot!

He has also been told by coworkers to watch his back because the bad manager and her director are trying to get him fired so they can hire the director's dad. This sounds crazy but the director's dad has been visiting there several times a week and this recent series of turmoil started shortly after he started visiting. The director is also new, young, and inexperienced.

We need to know if he should make a formal complaint to HR. especially about the conduct surrounding his injury. Is it legal to make your employee out their doctor's office in speaker phone?

Should his rebuttal to the write up also be in the formal complaint?

Unfortunately, he has no witnesses to the other things because this boss has also been slowly excluding him frim.the rest of the team this past year.

We may have some tests to corroborate his side of the story. The coworkers who warned him have asked him not to tell anyone that he heard it from them

We're both a mess. Don't know what to do. His other manager wants to help but she's not sure HR is the way to go and has no authority over the bad manager or director.

In the meantime, he's applying to other positions in the agency.

I discussed pay with one of my coworkers. My boss labeled this as unprofessional and a red flag on my part. She just found out that I asked another employee about specific benefits. She now wants to have a private discussion about me emailing other employees about what benefits they get because policies were not clear to me. They’re also not implemented evenly across everyone, but I did not include that in my email. I also want to clarify that I have reached out to leadership multiple times and still did not get clarity, that’s why I resorted to asking coworkers. I get anxious really easily and she obviously disapproves of my actions. I’ve never had trouble with previous companies I’ve worked for before. Just need some opinions on how to approach our conversation and what to do instead if I did anything wrong.

Hello everyone.

So my wife is getting laid off and is interviewing with another company. Current company is set on her last day and the new company won’t budge on their start date. She is expected to receive a severance from her current company which she would lose if she left early. The current job doesn’t keep her very busy. This is in pharma, do you think she would get caught working two jobs for two weeks? Do they check those kinds of things? We are worried that either her current employer runs an employment check before paying out the severance or the new company seeing that she was employed at the other firm for two weeks, jeopardizing her new employment.

Thank you in advance.

This is partly for me to vent, and partly for me to ask advice.

I am 67 years old working in upstate NY. I have been employed at my company for 12 years. Never been written up, reviews have all been above average.

My supervisor has his favorites and I am not in his 'inner circle'.

Over the past year my responsibilities have been slowly assigned to others. I was planning to work for another year, at a minimum, January 2027 to pick up some stock options and corporate bonus.

A month ago, my manager asked me "How long do I plan on keep working?"

I told him another year or two.

He then asked me "Think about what kind of package would it take for you to leave. Write up what you want and I promise to talk to HR and to fight for you"

So I wrote up a list (12 months severance, paid 12 months Cobra, stock options vesting.). I used both what I heard others received, as well as AI.

My boss asked me to send it via non-corporate channels. So I sent the proposal to him via SMS (in hindsight, that was probably a red flag). I sent him my proposal, he wrote (again, on a non-corporate channel), that my request was 'reasonable'

Suddenly, my boss gave notice and resigned. He told me that he spoke to my new supervisor and Human Resources.

I had a meeting with my new manager yesterday, and he stated "So I was told you approached your old boss about a package."

Needless to say, my jaw hit the floor! I corrected him, and stated that no, *HE* initiated the conversation.

[EDIT] - _My new boss suggested that I set up a meeting with Human Resources, which I did._

I now have a meeting on Monday with Human Resources, but I fully expect that they were also told incorrect or misleading information as well.

My question is, how much did that reduce my bargaining?

Should I contact a lawyer?

Again, nothing was on corporate channels. I don't want to deal with a 'he said' situation. I could would just work there until January, pick up some stock options and corporate bonus, and then leave, but I was under the impression that my 'package' would be greater than that.

Questions:

Is there anything specific I should tell HR in my meeting on Monday?

Should I seek legal representation?

Any other advice?

Hello, we have a company policy where nobody is allowed to wear cologne or perfume, but one of my coworkers wears overbearing amounts of perfume to the point where I can’t even be in the same room when she checks my paperwork.

She is an older woman who has been highly overemotional and hostile towards me in the past, in the hopes that I will snap back so that she can file false complaints against me. In the past I have reminded her that I have more time allotted to complete paperwork than she was giving me and she screamed at me at the top of her lungs and said “why do you treat me this way!”, when she was dead wrong and I confirmed it with her boss. I am worried if I mention it she will explode and start screaming at me again. It is likely she uses it to cover up weed smells in the morning so she can smoke before work.

Any advice on how to broach this subject delicately so that I can avoid confrontation?

Location: Iowa

I am a state employee that has been in my position for four years. I have been on FMLA for three of them due to chronic medical conditions, the most severe of which being chronic migraines.

For the most part, my employer has been very good about sticking to my guidelines. I have had plenty of time off for flare ups so far.

Over the last few weeks, my condition had been weighing heavily on me and I was starting to get suicidal. (I am safe, the people in my life know and are taking good care of me) my PCP gave me two weeks off which helped at the time, but the first day I went back I had a huge breakdown at lunch, pulled myself together long enough to finish the day, and had an even more severe breakdown when I got off.

I need more time off. I have a treatment plan in place that is supposed to help, but could take 9-12 mo to be fully effective. I’m 2.5 mo in.

The issue is that I only have 6 days of fmla left. I work a 60% position, and have 30 days of work before the end of the year. I know that sounds like a lot of time off but I’ve been having at least 25/30 migraine days a month.

My work says that I MIGHT be eligible for more leave under the ADA. But they can’t even assess it until I’m out of fmla time. That doesn’t seem right to me? I need to know if it’s going to be approved before I make a decision over what to do next. If it’s going to be approved I have no problem using the remainder of my fmla, but if it’s going to be denied I need to carefully ration it.

I’m just at a loss for what to do next. They’re not giving me much real info, every time I ask a question they either deflect or completely ignore it, some of the emails honestly seem like AI. Does anyone know what the likelihood of something like this getting approved is? I can’t work. I’m spending all my time in bed with the shades down and all I can focus on is breathing through the pain. I can’t sit upright, I can’t look at a computer screen, I can’t talk on the phone (literally my entire job) I can’t do anything. My PCP is completely on board to do what she can but I don’t know if it’s enough.

I may not even be eligible for fmla next year either. My job is very high stress and that’s definitely a migraine trigger, but leaving isn’t really an option because I’m relying on that insurance to pay for my treatment.

Any advice is appreciated, let me know if I can clarify anything

This is for my job search in MI, but workday in general is considered fairly awful around the USA. It's the one of the few application platform that never correctly parses information no matter the job and doesn't save application details if the site accidentally reloads. What still entices companies to use the platform versus better ones like ADP?

Myself and about 4-6 coworkers have a team member that is frankly just manipulative and not trustworthy. We have put up with this person for almost 1 year and have tried to be as accommodating as possible - always giving him the benefit of the doubt.

The guy is really awful to work with. One person left because of him and another coworker is planning to leave as well. That coworker volunteered to submit a hostile work environment claim to HR before they announce they're quitting.

We have a few examples of how his behavior is intimidating, manipulative, or disruptive, but since most of his behavior is just not quite over-the-line, it's hard to say what will happen when she submits this claim.

One of the examples is how the subject employee publicly reprimanded a team member for missing a deadline even though it was because the employee had a medical issue and missed 2 days unexpectedly. Another example is when he was on a call with 2 other employees and called for a non-present employee to be terminated because she is "awkward" and "on the spectrum". Finally, he also privately told one employee that a different team member would be fired if they didn't complete more tasks - which on it's face isn't necessarily actionable, but the subject employee is an individual contributor level and does not have firing power - so we are categorizing it as an intentional misrepresentation of authority (and it was perceived as an actual threat, because we believe the subject employee expects he will be promoted and then fire this person). We also have examples of him excluding an over-40 employee from projects and not assigning work to that person because we believe he wants to show that the over-40 employee "isn't doing much work". The problem with this example (and the above examples) is that there's really no "hard evidence" like recordings/texts/etc. It's all stuff he's said in meetings.

I really wonder if anything will be actionable, but our current strategy is to file this report with the above plus 2 or 3 less actionable examples (like denying a coworker's request to leave her desk), hope that HR takes it seriously and interviews people named in the report, and terminates him because it's going to be really awkward if they do nothing and then we all still have to work with this person.

He is going to figure out who reported him based on who was involved in the conversations that will be reported - unless HR doesn't ask him "did you call this person autistic" - because as soon as they say "did you call this person was autistic" he will know who filed the claim.

We've all voiced to management that this employee is manipulative and causing us to not be able to complete work effectively - but we have been told to just deal with it.

What should we do here? Is there a chance that HR will take 4-6 individual contributors seriously when we call another individual contributor out for being unprofessional, manipulative, and "hostile"? I think we have enough examples to establish a "pattern" of disruptive behavior, but I'm not sure it will be enough because I'm not sure I'd consider any single instance a fire-able offense. If the HR person who investigates the claims and determines we all just consider this person unprofessional/don't like him, could he still be terminated because we have enough people complaining?

Also, the current strategy is to just let the single employee file the claim, but we all got together and are willing to "file together" if that would be helpful. But out of fear of retaliation, we're leaning toward just this one person filing and the rest will back up her claims during the investigation.

I’m getting mixed advice on this, so I would like some feedback from people actually in HR.

October 2025, I asked a manager in a different department (let’s call him T) what the priorities are for the work I had, since some of the work was going to be late (my manager was aware that things were going to be late). T then immediately started screaming at me about how I am worthless and incompetent, and that I don’t respect authority, and a bunch of other stuff. I then said “okay, it seems like this isn’t the right time to address my priorities, I will follow back up with you when things are less stressful.” I left and walked back to my desk. Not even a minute later, T shows up at my cubicle, corners me in my cubicle, and starts yelling at me again. This time it was in front of my manager.

My manager did absolutely nothing, so I went to his boss, who said “boys will be boys, but you need to be less emotional.”

6 months later, I had a conversation with the GM, and this incident came up, and he apparently had no idea it happened.

Now I’m wondering if I should bring it up to HR to at least document what happened in case it happens again. I don’t think anyone brought it up to HR before. Some people in my life tell me that I should bring it up to HR, other people are telling me not to. I also want to mention that I understand that it’s probably too late for any disciplinary action, and I don’t care about that now, but I just want it on the record so if it happens again, it’s clear it’s not a first offense.

What do you all think?

Hi all,

I'm often applying through SEEK. I tailor my resume for every role, and thus upload a different resume to SEEK every time, but unfortunately, SEEK let us store only 10 resumes on personal profiles.

What happens to the resumes I've deleted to make room for new applications? Have they been sent to the recruiter as attachments and/or will remain accessible as links even though I deleted them from my profile? Will recruiters face a broken link when reviewing my application? 😱

Couldn't find any definitive answer so far, thanks a lot for any insight from recruiters using SEEK, SEEK admins, etc.!

[VA] I spoke up about being harassed about a month ago and opened a case with HR. Since then, I chose to reduce my hours to avoid working with the employee that I had the encounter with. In the past month, there have been some targeted changes and comments made towards me. They ended up hiring another male employee in the meantime (I was the only cis female on my shift). The verdict of the harassment case has come back last week but no one has told me the outcome to “protect the other individuals privacy”. Prior to the incident, I was approved for vacation time this week and decided to take it to reset and start fresh next week.

Today I was told that upon my return from vacation- my two shifts a week while be cut down to one due to “funds”.

Something smells like retaliation, and Im pissed. I don’t know where to start and I don’t really trust going to HR directly. Any advice?

I'm currently in the hiring process for a contract position with a company and I got an email from their workforce management administrator telling me to provide an updated resume and confirm that all employers and employment dates from the past five years are accurate.
After reviewing the resume that was forwarded to them by the company, I noticed two employment periods were listed incorrectly.
I want to correct the resume and send an accurate version before the background check proceeds. I'm concerned about whether the discrepancy could jeopardize the opportunity, even though I'm correcting it now.
I just wanted to ask how would it be viewed if I sent a corrected resume and how should I communicate these corrections to the staffing provider ?

UPDATE: After several of you encouraged me to seek counsel, I was able to have consultations, and three different attorneys are willing to take on my case.
I was advised to apply for unemployment, contact the EEOC, and take a few other steps moving forward.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to offer advice and share your input.
For anyone in a similar situation always document, keep emails/texts, phone call logs, everything!

I was terminated while on maternity leave, for a reason that is entirely false. My employer stated i didn’t show up to work for four days while i was on said leave.

I had an abundance of hours of pto, never missed a day of work nor showed up late so this really hurt. All around reliable and respectful worker.

The biggest thing I’m worried about is being deemed a “not eligible for rehire” when my future employers reach out to this company. What can i do????