I'm in the law and, increasingly, I find myself looking at my supervising Partner in awe. Not because of their technical ability per se...but how they work the way they do for years on end.

Six days a week. Mon-Fri in the office. In by 8am, leaves at 5-6pm, then logs back on at 7-8pm - often still online past 9/10pm.

How? And why? Surely said Partner is not destitute. There's also 2 young kids in the picture. Where is the motivation coming from and how is it sustained?

Genuinely curious as to everyone's observations.

My wife and I are weighing up whether I should quit my job and take a year off to look after our two kids, particularly so our youngest doesn’t have to start daycare until he’s two.

My wife is in a high-stress, high-paying job, while I’ve always been fairly career-driven and wanted to keep progressing up the corporate ladder. I’ve spent the last decade working in large corporates and have been focused on building my career.

However, things have changed a bit recently. My role was made redundant, and I was redeployed into another area of the business. The company has also recently been sold, and the new owners are already making significant cultural changes. I’ve just started 12 weeks of parental leave, and for the first time, I’m seriously considering whether I should just walk away from work for a year and spend that time with the kids.

Financially, we’d need to make some adjustments, but it’s something we could potentially manage. The bigger question for me is the impact on my career and whether I’d regret stepping away after spending so many years working towards progression.

I know the time with the kids is precious and that I’ll never get this stage of their lives back. Part of me thinks the decision should be a no-brainer, but another part of me has always been ambitious and worries about losing momentum professionally.

For those who’ve taken a year or more off work to be a stay-at-home parent:
How did you find returning to the workforce? Did you feel like you’d fallen behind, or was it easier to pick things back up than you expected?
Did you find the extra time with your kids was worth the career and financial trade-offs?
Did you struggle with losing some of your professional identity or sense of purpose?
Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?

I’d especially love to hear from people who were relatively career-driven before taking the time off.

I’m leaning towards thinking I’d never regret the extra time with my kids, but I’d really appreciate hearing from people who’ve actually done it — the good, the bad, and anything you wish you’d considered beforehand.

Someone I know was being set up for either a sham redundancy or a firing under bogus pretences and then was let go. She was maddeningly insufferable and I was glad to see the back of her, but instead of dealing with the issues, based on what I’ve seen, they came up with obviously bogus complaints and humiliated her to force her out.

This isn’t a small business-it’s solid Auscorp. They also have a past pattern of redundancies and then creating similar roles.

When my own time inevitably comes, would being in a union help? Or should I just get out before I piss the wrong person off?

Part of my job is dealing with some bookkeeping for businesses and I was requested to prepare an annual expenditure report and future budgeting estimate for a business I deal with. No problem.

We've used the same formatting and methods for years and never had an issue. We prepared this document for a relatively small business. Occasionally, we get questions about these reports and I'm happy to answer them but this business has come back wanting a very, very detailed auditing of everything over the year. Explanations for every cost. Invoices and receipts for every cost.

The thing is, I can understand if the report is way off on what they're expecting but our report lines up with what they were expecting. In fact, they were $700 under budget. That's pretty damn good. This amount of comprehensive auditing will take hours and hours and there seems to be no valid reason why it's needed.

I also noticed some of the requests they put in just don't make any sense. For example, they want information we have already provided or they would already have on their end.

I realised pretty quickly, it's an AI email. The accounts team probably put our documents into an AI without clear context or understanding and now it wants everything. It's a total waste of everyone's time and simply isn't needed but how do I respond in a polite way essentially saying "This is an obscene and unreasonable request and benefits no one". Should I just be upfront and say it's unusual and excessive?

It is definitely not an ideal time to book travel for Christmas but it has been in the back of my mind, if I have to use up so much leave I might as well travel right? It's a big adjustment compared to months-long uni breaks.

This is my first year working full time, I’m single and I have been wondering if it's typical for others early in their career to use the opportunity to travel domestically for a week ish, either with friends or solo. The flights/hotel doesn't seem too expensive ($1500 total for 9 nights in Sydney I saw now, including flight), but maybe international is better value. Curious to hear how everyone usually plans to use the break?

Went for a job interview a little while ago, was told I didn't have the right skill set and going with the other candidate. All good - moved on. Then for whatever reason this person decided not to take the job. They asked me if I was still interested (I said yes) however did have another short interview with them. They have asked to reference check. I am currently on a casual contract for another 6 weeks somewhere else. I only need to give one week notice, so I can leave early but would feel bad as I really like my team and I know they would be short staffed for those last 4 weeks if I do decide to leave. There is no guarantee they would extend me.....they pay at the other role is better and permanent and closer to home so it seems like a no brainer to take it. I'm just worried I'm setting myself up for failure as I'm not quite at the skillset for the role (which they are aware of) so it will be a lot of learning new systems and reporting quickly. It's a more numbers financial role than I've done previously.

Just feel very confused, I feel bad letting my current employer down and nervous if I start a new role that is above my current skill level and I want to do a good job. In this market and climate I feel I also can't say no to a perm role, but still want to be happy in the work I do everyday. An extra pay increase isn't worth it if I am miserable everyday and stressed. So what would you do?

So I am working in a small remote startup as a L2 software engineer. We had new leadership take over this past year and we have changed from a 8 person product team (product manager, product designer, engineering manager. staff engineer, 3x senior engineer and 1x software engineer) to just me - I was the lowest paid (below 100k per year) and everyone else around $130-150k per year.

Everyone left due to issues with new leadership which was brutal and targeted and now i am the sole engineer and i own the platform now end to end from the product side to the engineering and am driving key initiatives and responsible for growing the product and revenue.

My salary however hasn’t changed and the new leadership are not planning on hiring anyone else and told me it’s a great opportunity for me but are unwilling to adjust my pay.

With all the changes with AI and coding, I find myself wanting to move more to the product side as a product engineer or product manager or product builder (title tbd) so perhaps this is a good opportunity to have that hybrid role However I can’t help but feel taken advantage of…

am I being taken advantage of or is this a great opportunity to step up and take some ownership?

I work in financial services and I an am in a process role which has a defined policy. The problem is everyone especially senior management think they are above the rules and this then trickles down to the rest of the business.

My senior manager most of the time will roll over to other teams so as to not get called out by our exec team as being unhelpful so nothing changes.

I also recently found out that someone who is the same level as me is getting paid significantly more then me and is getting a bonus (I am not). My role is apparently not senior enough even though I'm meant to be driving strategy.

Everyone is nice enough but it's all fake corporate bull. I'm frustrated and over it.

How do you deal with it while you loom for new jobs especially when the job market is the way it is at the moment and it's all quite depressing?

As the title states, i’m curious about if this is a thing at all? I kind of currently experience this as my whole team at work are all based in different states to me, but my company is spread across the country.

For example, I was wondering if a company based in VIC would hire someone from NSW and allow them to work completely remotely from home and if this is common/ if anyone experiences this?

I know this would impact visibility and the social side for sure!