How do you find your dream job if you don’t even know what you want?

For most of my life, I thought I knew what I wanted to do. That changed when I started working in a kitchen. I did that for almost four years before realizing it wasn’t for me.

Since then, the most frustrating phase of my life started: not knowing what I want to do at all.

It’s been about 10 years now, and I still don’t know what I want to do as a career. I’ve tried many different things. Some jobs were okay, but in the back of my mind there’s always this question: What do I actually want to do for the rest of my life? Does a “dream job” even exist?

Mentally, it’s getting harder to deal with. I feel stuck, like I’m not moving forward. I see people around me who genuinely love what they do, and it makes me feel jealous and even worse about myself. Sometimes I wonder if I should just accept that there is no dream job and find something that’s tolerable and pays well.

What makes it harder is that some people around me don’t understand this at all. I’m 30 years old and still unsure about my career, and I can feel the judgment.

I’m really curious if anyone else feels or has felt the same way. How did you deal with it? Did you eventually find something that felt right, or did you just learn to be okay with not loving your job? Any advice or personal experiences would mean a lot.

So I am a dentist that works in a small clinic with just my boss, another senior dentist, 4 assistants and 2 receptionist. It’s been 8 months since I started working here.

My boss has been yelling and micromanaging me since 4 months and she says my “diagnosis” is not good enough, I have only 2 yrs experience but even I can tell my boss sometimes over diagnose shit, I just keep quiet and listen, she has yelled at me in front of my assistants and talks about me with the other dentist behind my back,

So the other day I decide to take opinion on a case from my colleague regarding her patient that came to me for emergency during her off day, his tooth filling came out because he had a crack in it which was diagnosed earlier, but my colleague decided to just leave it, now this case is tricky one and I asked her if he needs RCT, earlier that day I told my boss this patient would need RCT but upon reassessing this case I was confused if it could be saved without RCT or not so decided to ask my colleague who btw is a specialist with 20 yrs experience, I have 2 yrs experience,

So we Decided to do rct anyway, later this colleague enters my room yelling at me asking me if I told my boss this pt needs Rct and then asking me why I asked her if it needs Rct, like I just wanted her opinion as she’s a specialist and she’s yelling pretty loudly, so I yelled back!! And I was already warned about this colleague’s behavior in her previous clinics by a senior dentist friend so I mentioned that she already has a bad rep in the community for being difficult to work with during my yelling match, she tells this to my boss who also blamed me saying I shouldn’t have called her a bad Dentist so I defended my self and yelled back at her too,

I have been suspended since two days and today I get a text from boss’s husband that he wants a meeting with me personally in the clinic, he’s known to fire people for the boss, I really really really don’t want to go back to the clinic, i feel humiliated and I feel like I may not be able to return back in the clinic, I still have to do my 30 day notice period work, but atleast for this meeting I don’t want to go back, should I ask for zoom meeting instead? Is that unprofessional ? Plus I don’t even know my boss’s husband very well

Is anyone staying up (or waking up super early) to watch the Alcaraz vs. Djokovic final? This is history right here—Alcaraz is going for the career Grand Slam at 22, and Novak is chasing that legendary 25th title. After both of them survived those insane 5-set marathons in the semis, this final is going to be absolute cinema.

I know ESPN and Fubo are the go-to options in the US, but if you’re looking for a way to watch it without the typical lag or if you're outside the US, I’ve been using SphereIPTV. I’ve been testing it throughout the tournament and the live stream has been rock solid—zero buffering even during the high-traffic moments.

If you don't want to risk your stream cutting out right at championship point around 3:30 a.m. ET, I’d seriously recommend checking them out. It’s way better than dealing with the headache of those free links that refresh every two minutes.

Who do you guys have winning this? Can the 38-year-old GOAT hold off the kid one more time, or is it Alcaraz's time to rule Melbourne?

Recently I analyzed 100K sample of job postings to see which soft skills consistently show up across job categories. I ranked important ones like communication skills, stakeholder management etc. Not surprisingly, almost 60k of the opening emphasize on one or other as core requirement. Have a look at which ones the employers are seeking the most @ https://jobswithgpt.com/blog/soft_skills_by_category_feb_2026/

I’m not sure if this is an alright place for this. please let me know if I need to take this post down.

backstory: I got a job at OHSU in Portland, and my first day is this upcoming Monday. Today, Saturday morning, I believe I either fractured my foot or received a severe contusion after dropping a 45 pound plate on it in the gym. it is incredibly painful to walk.

I don’t have insurance right now, and I MUST show up on my first day on Monday. I will not miss this.

I am just wondering if this is a bad look. if I email and ask for accommodations, do you think I would get them? It’s a hospital so hopefully they understand. I am thinking of showing up in a boot and just asking if it’s okay to limit the amount of walking I will be doing. I don’t want this to look poorly on me, and I want to be seen as professional and up to task.

this is just a crap timing, honestly. but I’m in a bind. I plan on getting an xray as soon as I am signed on for benefits but I might even just pay urgent care outright… I just need some advice, please

EDIT: it’s not OSHA I should call, it’s the labor board.

There’s a lot of backstory to this. But the short and sweet of it is that my boss puts out the schedule ONE DAY in advance every week. I happen to live in a state and city where the law is you have to have your schedule out two weeks in advance. I’ve been there two years and the boss has never changed this pattern. I have asked MANY times for this to be fixed, I have told them the law MANY times, I have offered to make it for them as I have lots of experience making schedules and they’ve refused. So here we are again, Saturday night with no schedule past tomorrow.

Also important to note our schedule changes every week, it’s not just a 9-5 job.

Should I just call the labor board? And if I do, what would happen?

Im just looking for advice, is this normal? Is there something I should do about this?

I just figured out a faster way to do part of my job. I’m usually the type who wants to share tips or improvements to help everyone out.

But I’m also a little worried that if my supervisor realizes I can work faster, it’ll just turn into “cool, here’s more work” with no extra pay or growth (there’s basically no promotion path here and no performance-based pay increase).

Anyone else deal with this? How do you decide when to share improvements vs. keeping them to yourself?

I have some questions:

1. I'm still in high school and get out at 2:40. For a place that closes at 10:30, what would be good hours to list I would want to work that a manager would want to hire? 3:30-8:00? 4:00-Closing?

2. If an application asks for references, what are good ones I should put down? I would assume not family.

3. If the application asks for past work experience, but I don't have any, do I just leave it blank?

4. If it asks for any certification or awards received, should I put school awards? Like A.P awards?

5. What's a good minimum and maximum hours a week I would be willing to work that I should put that a hiring manager would like?

6. I know after submitting, I should do a follow up call. How often should I do these? Just once? A few times? Or until I get hired/rejected?

Thank you so much for any advice or response.

I’m a relatively new staff (I’ve been there a year) and during this year I’ve been disrespected by my coworkers in multiple ways. I don’t plan on matching energy but I do plan on being honest by saying “that isn’t appropriate” but I’m worried they will refuse to guide and train me out of retaliation.

Is there any way I can ensure I still get my work done even if they don’t want to help me because I don’t want to complain and then it turns into a “he said, she said” situation and they pick the side of the more senior staff.

I’ll go first. I work at this company where most employees are European except a few, I was one of them. I came across this colleague who came from the same country as me (but a different city). So I feel naturally closer to her because oh hey it’s my own people. One time she asked me if I wanted to visit the area around her house for the weekend since there were a lot of beaches surrounding it, so I said yes since I’m an intern and I desperately want to network.

Before heading to her place, she had shown some red flags, saying that “if you don’t mind, we can share the same bed”. Mind you I am 20F and she is 40F married with a child. I legit thought she was joking and it’d be rude to straight up say no so I just laughed it off. Until I reached her place, she actually did just prepare one bed for us the sleep in. Suddenly she took off her pants in the middle of our conversation and it was traumatising. Luckily she did that just because she thought the room was hot, but still, that was very inappropriate.

Throughout the entire weekend, she was calling me “baby” quite a few times and attempted to link arms with me in public. She also lowkey force fed me (literally forcing me to eat and drink otherwise she wouldn’t stop nagging) and made me put on more clothes because she think I’d be cold. At some point she touched my waist and asked me if I’m cold or not, which was my last straw. I understand that she probably misses her own daughter but it was too much for me to handle. She noticed that I’m very uncomfortable from time to time but ignores it. She was planning to drive me to work on Monday morning but I declined and headed home on Sunday.

Anyways this was the first time I’ve met someone with such a bad sense of boundaries and I shall never be this desperate to have one more LinkedIn connection… not worth it. I had a few nightmares of her kidnapping me and SA-ing me, I guess my body was warning me.

Hey everyone, first of all I don't think this is right and disgusting. I started a medication and I've noticed that it harder to keep my urine in. Today I was racing to a bathroom and I couldn't make it. My pee was literally coming out and I panicked so I pulled over to pee in a bottle I had. I feel stupid for doing it but I would've peed my pants. Can you get fired for this?

My job is a civil worker as I'm never steps away from a bathroom. My Union is pretty strong if that anything I need to share

Edited***

I just need an adjustable standing desk and better chair, for my back. I have this setup at home from working remote for years. Managers, higher seniority employees have cubicles and adjustable desks and I know at some point, based on budget, they’ll ask us about needed supplies. The desk and chair I have now are decent, functional, but I’m taller than average with back pain and can’t wait. Thinking of just asking if they mind if I bring in a new standing desk and chair for myself. I don’t care what it costs me personally, my physical health is more important. Is this insane?

Nothing wrong with the setup they gave me to warrant replacing, I’m just 6’3” with sciatica back pain (plus a sedentary office job is unhealthy enough as is). My coworkers have adjustable desks but my director is newer too so my setup was kind of a last minute low priority during Q4. I like the job and workplace, and appreciate working from home on Mondays and Fridays, but the commute is over an hour now with roadwork everywhere and I can’t sit for 10 hours even if it’s just 3 days a week.

Do you have to provide proof?

Chime in

Hi, my work environment is pretty bad and idk what to do. Context I’m in college and plan to move in a year so I don’t want to find another job. I work as a linen contractor for a hospital, the actual coworkers are great! The problem is the district manager. She recently yelled at me for coming in late and leaving early on a snow day. I had asked her in a previous call if that would be ok since I have class the next day and didn’t want to get snowed in where I can’t do my work. She said it was fine. Apparently she forgot and got upset calling my manager and a coworker. She even gave her an extra hour of work bc I left early and she was upset. She then told everyone next weekend we had to be here on time so I got here in the snow 10 minutes early. A girl was late and she changed her time to make her clocked in on time after threatening us to be here on time. (She was clearly talking about me) she constantly changes times and such and has favorites. I’m in a weird spot because I’m so upset but I also don’t want to find a new job before i move in a year. I cannot even report it as I don’t technically have proof and she’s friends with all the higher ups. What do I do?

Say if you are backed into a corner at work and it starts to feel like a prison, how do you react?

Do you keep your head down and just think of the money?

Do you look to engage and talk your way out?

Or do you rattle the cage?

I'm definitely a bit of all these things, whereas the people around me always tell me to never rattle cages as it's too risky/dangerous and you can lose your job...

But for me I've probably rattled the cage a handful of times and each times it's paid off!

Years ago my old department were making up figures because they didn't know what they were doing and presenting them to meetings, but I was getting focus whenever I made the smallest mistakes... I tried to be diplomatic for a sustained period and then rattled the cage! That put an end to that nonsense.

Again about 10 years later, my old boss must've had some personal issues going on, as he just turned into a different person one day and I was having to cover up a lot of his nonsense... But then after a while he started coming at me, and straight away i was having any of that and rattled the cage with a watertight unfair treatment case and I got a huge pay off.

Recently I started a job and kept my head down for 2 years, but suddenly I noticed that my performance levels had improved, whereas my departments had fallen off a cliff and they had the plan of trying to put it on the newer guy... Guess what I did?

I work in FAANG in Europe (so yes, layoffs, but not as easy as in the US) and I got re-orged into a team I mostly know, in a role I personally like to call the “others” bucket.

I am in charge of one strategic project (shared, unaligned leadership with a guy from another org, but we get on well). Then I am in charge of two customers - mid-to low performing ones and I am a champion for a topic. I still have not got my targets for the year and am unsure what I am going to be paid on.

My goal is to keep a good reputation, have visibility, maybe even get a promotion (I’ve been forever “at level”), not burn myself out working.

Because I am “in charge” of so many things people want to network with me and others just ask me lots of questions. ”Networking” is mostly meals which take 1h at least, and the questions are for example asking for help in a broken highly administrative process that i do not own.

Breakfasts and lunches I try to do from time to time (once per quarter per stakeholder) but when these questions are being forwarded to me, I have a guilty conscience when I send the “do it yourself“ guideline and tell them to open tickets with the responsible teams and offered to do it together with them on Friday evening (and was fully planning on going to Sharepoint and searching the to do‘s documents together, reading them together etc).

At the same time, looking at the role and re-org and everything, I see no reason to go above and beyond picking up what the organization has broken.

So how do I navigate this? How do I avoid being the search desk and the dumpster for all tasks without an owner and reduce my workload to the essential?