#advice

To heal, you’ve got to get rid of the rot - expel the intection. And healing is a process, often a protracted one.

The healing is imminent. Let it begin.

Year end housekeeping is coming.

November and December are here. Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's — the year packs a lot into its last two months.

If this year was rough, the holidays are a reset, not a deadline. Take the days off. Eat too much. Call the people you keep meaning to call. The work will still be there in January — the time with your family won't.

And if you did get laid off this year, you're not walking into the holidays empty-handed. You're walking in with experience, and a fresh year starting in 60 days.

Happy holidays, everyone. Finish the year well.

I'm 58, divorced, two kids finishing college next year (both will have jobs come July). Been with Exxon for years, currently a Well Performance Technologist. Have about $1.5M between my 401k and savings, house is paid off and worth around $600k. No loans or other debt, healthy (as far as I know :-).

I'm getting tired of the grind and don't see myself doing this for another 5-7 years.

Always wanted to teach and thinking about finding something part time, not really for the money but because I think I'd actually enjoy it.

I don't spend much and don't need a fancy lifestyle.

Just wondering if I'm crazy to walk away at 58.

Any folks here who retired around this age? Did you regret it? What am I overlooking?

12+ years in backend engineering, mostly building large-scale distributed systems, with some AI/ML experience over the past couple of years. I'd consider myself an average senior engineer. At this point in my career, does it make more sense to stay on the IC track and specialize in AI/ML, or move into engineering management? curious what others with similar experience have done and whether they regret their decision.

I’ve never experienced a situation like this before, so I’m trying to understand my options. Last year, I contributed $22.5k to my 401(k), but today I received two checks in the mail totaling $20,000. After contacting Fidelity, I was informed that Centene failed the nondiscrimination testing requirements for its 401(k) plan, which resulted in the funds being returned.

What steps should I take to address this? Do I have any options to dispute or challenge the decision? Does this mean that my retirement contributions from last year were essentially wasted, or will I still receive some retirement benefit from them?

I also came across another post suggesting that Fidelity may allow me to keep the funds in the account if I pay a 10% penalty. Is that actually an option?

I would appreciate any guidance on the best way to handle this situation and minimize the financial and retirement impact.

If you are getting knocked over getting to your desk by people who are desperately eager to start doing their best to work, ask your manager can you put protective armour on expenses

Agreed and confirmed 100%

Wells Fargo's Team Member Code of Ethics says your personal finances are private — but because you represent the bank, you have to manage them "properly and in a prudent manner."

What that means in practice:

• One accidental bounced check isn't a firing offense.
• But "writing worthless personal checks" is listed right alongside check kiting and fraudulent transactions as prohibited conduct. A pattern, or knowingly writing checks you can't cover, is an ethics violation — and those can end careers.
• The bank reserves the right to review team member accounts for unusual activity.
• In financial trouble? The Code points you to Employee Assistance Consulting for confidential help.

So: an honest mistake, no. A habit of writing checks on empty accounts, yes — the Code treats it as an integrity issue, not a private one.

Source: Wells Fargo Team Member Code of Ethics and Business Conduct (SEC filing)

Came across this quote by PepsiCo legend Roger Enrico:

"Beware of the tyranny of making small changes to small things. Rather, make big changes to big things."

Feels particularly relevant in today's PepsiCo world, where the tyranny of small decisions have given way to the tyranny of small-minded leaders.

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/675560s.

please be patient for God 's sake 🙏
there's Literally life beyond Q

I'm a SWE who was laid off from Fidelity in 2024. Got back on my feet towards Q4 of 2024 with a contract job somewhere else. The contract job was great, until it ended back in June due to financial constraints. The option to work both at Fidelity and this new company I worked at are there in the future. I just don't want to wait for either one to be ready, because I still need a job.

Luckily I've been getting an ok amount of interviews, like 5 interviews in the past 5 months since my last job loss. Obviously that average can be better, but this is 2026, so I'd like to temper my expectations. You might think I'm silly to say this, but I was honestly expecting more experience on my résumé (although only barely 2 years more) with in demand technologies to help me out much more more. I do have more traction that my first time being laid off, but it's been very difficult to find a job. I just got rejected from 2 interview processes this week. One being an internal pick over me, another quite literally because I couldn't talk my way through how I would utilize AI to write code for me. I leaned towards the referral route, but only 2 of the 5 past interviews I had since my last job loss came from referrals.

I'm disappointed. Not only in myself, because I know I made some errors in my preparation for these interviews, but because the job market simply doesn't allow as many opportunities as it has before. So other than mock interviews, how would I work out my muscle with interviewing? I don't want to go too hard on myself, nor give up, because I got through being laid off before in similar circumstances.

However, because of the incoming midterms, I don't know if I should expect the market to slow. I was expecting it to come to a screeching halt come holiday time, anyway. I just want to know what I should expect from companies like Fidelity or outside of Fidelity to react to midterm elections. Whether the job market will hasten or slow down.

If anyone can help me with advice on what to expect as someone who is trying to find a job during midterm, I would appreciate it. Thank you!

I know this place is far from ideal, but make sure to first land a new job before quitting. Jobs in our field are not that plentiful right now, plus, you will be competing with a lot of other applicants for most jobs. Depending on your skill set and age, it could take you many months to get a job offer.

Sincere Post Here to Hopefully Help Others Make a Decision for Medicare*

• This is coming from someone with many years experience in the health insurance business and also is aware of how the super polished advertisements you see on TV by the main health insurance payers and eHealth dotcom, which push Medicare Advantage. Spoiler: This unpaid “Commercial” is for Traditional Medicare with Medigap Plan.

3 False Narratives:

Proponents for MA will:
1: Try to convince you that they have large provider networks to ensure your claims get approved.

REFUTE:
However, many provider groups have chosen to no longer contract with Medicare Advantage due to the slowness of payers to pay them and also the many hoops the providers have to jump through. Also, many Provider Directories are out of date and there is constant movement.

Short of it is, if you sign up again with Medicare Advantage, you might receive a “surprise” bill in the mail that your health services were provided by someone no longer in their network.

But with Traditional Medicare with a Medigap Plan you do not have to worry about any such “surprises.” Because in essence every licensed provider is considered in-network, so to speak.

Proponents for MA will:
2: Erroneously contrast themselves against Traditional Medicare with the dental, optical, aspect and also bait you in with “everything is rolled up into one neat package” speel and also offer you all kinds of extraneous stuff like free gym memberships, free grocery debit card, etc.

REFUTE:
First of all, purchasing dental and optical insurance separately is not terribly expensive nor difficult. And it is not difficult to sign you up for Traditional Medicare and to purchase you a Medigap plan, without needing to undergo underwriting if your MA plan was terminated at no fault of your own.

As to free gym memberships and free grocery debit cards, those are niceties but true purpose of health insurance is covering any expensive unexpected health claims covered. Think unexpected catastrophic things such as Cancer, Cardiovascular Issues, Organ Transplants, Rare Diseases, Knee Replacements, Diabetes, etc. Will for-profit health insurance have your health outcomes in mind or their profits? And I assume you don’t want any surprise bills that could bankrupt you.

eHealth dotcom, will:
3: Tell you that they are paid by the health insurance corporations to compare and offer their plans, which is true. However…

REFUTE:
EHealth completely omits mentioning Traditional Medicare and does not offer any comparison nor offer assistance to switch over to Traditional Medicare with a Medigap plan. They are financially biased towards MA plans.

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed agent for Medicare. These are my own personal opinions. Please make decisions for what plan works best for you.

Traditional Medicare with Medigap Plan
https://www.medicare.gov/providers-services/original-medicare

Got offered for a niche role at AES Clean Energy services. I like the benefits being offered but concerned about the acquisition and if there are any potential layoffs. Any suggestions would be great.

1. Communicate well. 57% of employers rank it the #1 skill they want in a hire — and 18% of employees say poor communication cost them a promotion. Listen fully, write concisely, ask questions.

2. Maximize your 401k. Get the full employer match first — an instant 50-100% return. Then aim for 15% of pay total. 2026 limit: $24,500 ($32,500 if 50+). Auto-escalate 1-2% a year, and send half of every raise to the 401k.

3. Eat home cooked food mostly. People who cook 6+ nights a week eat healthier and spend ~$9/day on food vs $11 for those who rarely cook — about $1,000 a year saved for a family.

Boring, but the numbers work.

What do you think the grand plan is?

Do they go even more lean once ODW is launched?

Does SalesChat replace sales? Seems to be happening with Services AI bot.

What does the future look like for sales? IT? Support? Product Groups? Engineers? RevOps?

Also, as hard as it is, DON’T let this impact you. We don’t get paid enough to worry about it. Close your laptop and go home to enjoy your family life. They don’t care about us so why should we care about them. If ODW fails then it fails. Not my problem

Quit chasing money in an industry that takes years off your life from stress or coping addictions. You will be much happier elsewhere.

Experienced U.S. IT professional (10+ years) looking for advice on breaking through the hiring pipeline at USAA. 18 application 0 pick

Got invited to link up with my boss who I’ll be in town..anyone got the skinny. Odd timing

My advice to those who're looking to leave EM is to look outside of the industry. If you don't, you'll just end up in a very similar situation with very bleak future prognoses.

Advice for early in career here? Seeing lots of chatter about layoffs and it’s really discouraging to feel like Cisco is not a place I could grow my job. How would I know if I’m on the chopping block?

Has anyone been asked by their VP to put a prompt into their Copilot to analyze their personal work context from the last 60-90 days?

You don't have to stay in a job that makes you miserable forever, even if leaving isn't possible right now. Keep learning and building skills so you're ready when a better opportunity comes along.

I just read somebody mention an active button in one of the threads, and I realized there's a way to sort posts by the ones with latest comment on the main page. Posting this just in case others might have missed the obvious "Active" button like I did for months.

Is it a bad idea to use copilot to creat your resume? Given that it has visibility to all your work and accomplishments it would be much better or impactful to use Copilot instead of starting something from scratch?

Any upside to not using Copilot? Appreciate any feedback.

Let's validate the education and background of ALL employees. Many of the employees at #chase may have fake degrees and make up experience on their resumes, irrespective of their nationality.

Why doesn't USCIS conduct in-person tech interviews at the consulates or before approving H-1B or other work visas? The companies openly abuse the interview process. They all know that the candidates are not qualified. Managers just want to use their budgets. H1B slaves are the easiest to hire because citizens know their rights and they would question them.

I watched the movie Gladiator II the other day. 2 things struck me: 1) as leaders, be careful whom you trust - they may not have your best interest (or that of the “empire”) in mind 2) it’s much easier to tear down than to build up.

The Virgil quote really resonated with me: “The gates of he-l are open night and day; smooth the descent, and easy is the way. But to return and view the cheerful skies, in this the task and mighty labor lies."

A few honest things about this team: we have access to clinical data at a scale that would take a startup year to build through partnerships, and the ability to deploy to millions of people from day one. We also sit inside an enterprise, which means some things take longer than they would at a seed-stage company. We've structured the team to minimize that friction — and we're direct about where it still shows up.

wtf

Is this a real issue or media making a mountain out of a non issue?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-23/large-methane-plumes-above-chevron-gorgon-project-investigation/107288658

:(

Just leave the company alone. They are already hurting on advisors leaving.

12 years of experience. Interviewing with UHC or Humana, will probably get both offers. The pay range is very similar just like everything else. thoughts, advice or suggestions? gracias...

Curious on how many took it. I declined. Wife like's the security of having the quarterly cheque.

I see one post from someone urging you to take it?

Hi all,

Newish employee here in a non technical role on a non technical team. Would appreciate any serious guidance on how layoffs tend to work at Cisco, and who is typically most at risk based on grade level, etc.

In the UK, we’ve been told we need to complete AI endorsement.

Who’s been brave enough to give it a go?

How did you find it? Any tips or advice before the rest of us take the plunge?

We at Omnissa have got a new CEO who was previously at PA. Been a week, too chirpy with his nature - would really love to hear some feedback from his term at PA and did he really transform the business and take it to new altitudes ?

I am from the EMEA team, and we only have been hearing about him speak of AI and AI transformation without any real deal/idea.

Compare this to people from NVIDIA, Anthoropic, OpenAI, and Grok discussing AI with these persons invited by OT at OT World 2026. I know one thing: they are unfamiliar with artificial intelligence.

They continue to use the old definition of AI. One suggestion they made was to regulate or audit/monitor these AI. If you look at what NVIDIA CEO mentioned yesterday.

"There's nothing to regulate if the industry doesn't thrive."
"You can't regulate if there's no technology."
"We should be regulating the applications right away."

Hi — I recently got VSP through Centene, but my NJ unemployment claim was rejected. Has anyone else had their unemployment benefits denied after getting Centene VSP? If so, how did you resolve it? Can anyone recommend a good unemployment/appeals attorney in New Jersey to help file an appeal? Appreciate any names, experiences, or tips. (Please don’t post sensitive info here — message me if you can share contact details.) Thanks!

Too many changes in fees. Not the same company I started at!

Has anyone lawyered up after they received their severance ultimatum? If so, was it worth it?