Job Red Flags To Look Out For At A New Workplace

Author image for Eric Lund
Eric Lund
Jan 17, 2022 2:00 PM EST

Getting a new job is a huge step. You're basically making a decision about the people you'll be beholden to for the next 8ish hours of every day for the foreseeable future. If your options aren't great, it can feel like that decision is being made for you. But it's important to remember that you still have some agency over choosing to not work for completely miserable group of jerkholes. For some of the sweetest jo quitting satisfaction, here's the employee who quit after work messed with their vacation and had their boss panicking while losing money hand over fist.

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  • 01
    Font - OrganicMasonJars · 21 hr. ago "Unlimited time off" means that you will never be taking time off, ever. Management will judge the hell out of you for attempting to take a mental health day or a vacation. The people who take the least time off will wear it like a badge of honor. The last place I worked like this, the owner would lecture us every year about how he's never taken Thanksgiving or Christmas off, and look how well the company is doing! Then he'd give you the stink eye when you wa
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  • 02
    Font - Thirty_Helens_Agree · 22 hr. ago , 6 4 & 12 Mor A couple old senior partners, lots of young employees and nothing in between. That means there's no opportunity to move up, they can't get people to stay, and can't get lateral transfers. They work young folks for as long as they can, and the young folks leave once they figure out the company sucks.
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  • 03
    Font - O Flyinpotatoman - 22 hr. ago 2 S 2 Everybody is very young in a very old company. 29.1k 5 Reply Share Report Save Follow wanderslut0626 21 hr. ago · edited 21 hr. ago This. I'm working in a company that's decade old but everyone has been in the company for about 4-5 months max. Only the HR has been there for 7-8 years. And honestly, with the sh.t they are pulling off, I can see why people don't stay even to complete their probation period.
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  • 04
    Font - LordMarshall - 21 hr. ago 3 S 2 Had an interview somewhere they offered 20-23 starting. Being new in this field, when they asked how much I was expecting to be paid I said "well you guys are offering 20- 23 starting and being new in the field I think 20 would be good." Their response was "oh....well that's kind of a red flag for us...usually when someone starts with us they'll say 'I'll take 17 dollars until I can prove to you that I'm worth the $20' so you'll see why we're hesitant." My
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  • 05
    Smile - Joeyjackhammer · 21 hr. ago e When you don't get a review until you ask for a raise. Then, all of a sudden, you work is being questioned and you're being berated.
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  • 06
    Font - howwouldiknow-- · 22 hr. ago They claim that overtime isn't mandatory and workers stay longer by choice.
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  • 07
    Font - Marquetan · 22 hr. ago The job title says they're looking to hire "rock stars." 19.0k 5 Reply Share Report Save Follow san_serifs · 22 hr. ago Or "Ninjas" or "Gurus" or any other dumb buzzwords. 10.0k Reply Share Report Save Follow bachennoir · 21 hr. ago I've seen "Superheroes" a ton recently. Vigilantes don't get paid, they do it for the way it makes them feel!
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  • 08
    Smile - Unknownl_13 · 22 hr. ago 2 3 When they refuse to tell you what your starting salary would be or when they just avoid the question all together. Like I didn't apply to the job to be apart of some "family" work culture, I came here to get a job and be paid.
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  • 09
    Font - votefawnmoscato · 22 hr. ago Asking if I planned to have children in the interview (I was 19)
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  • 10
    Font - rockkicker27 - 21 hr. ago S Asking if you are somebody who's "willing to put in the time to make sure deadlines are met/work is done" or if you're "the type of person who leaves when the 'workday' is finished?". This is generally corporate speak for "we will be forcing you to work unpaid overtime".
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  • 11
    Font - PeachLeech - 21 hr. ago There's a misery wall when walking into work. When you pass a certain point in the building the feeling changes significantly. If you know, you know. 14.8k Reply Share Report Save Follow gimmealldat - 20 hr. ago Yes! I was interviewing at Wayfair, in the corporate office. I was in their normal waiting room, everything was fine and dandy. Then I was sent to sit outside an office near the back of the place where my interviews were going to be held. I sat there three
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  • 12
    Font - aattanasio2014 - 21 hr. ago Trying to rush a decision out of you once the offer is made. I once interviewed with a company where I would have been relocating across the country to work for them. There were 3 rounds of interviews and they left me completely in the dark for weeks on end between each round before inviting me to the next round within just a few days of when the interview would take place. After the final interview it was over a month of silence from them until they made an of
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  • 13
    Font - satisfiedfools - 22 hr. ago Any job ad that doesn't mention the name of the company should raise suspicions, doubly so if it's anything to do with sales. Got done by that trick once. Turned up to the interview and the 'job' was going door to door selling vacuums for Kirby vacuums.
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  • 14
    Font - JetSetJAK - 20 hr. ago If the job description has a nondescriptively massive salary range ($25,000-$100,000) 13.0k Reply Share Report Save Follow Cool_Guy_McFly · 16 hr. ago So many insurance sales jobs like this. THIS IS A COMMISSION ONLY ROLE. NO BASE SALARY BUT TOP PERFORMERS CAN EXPECT TO MAKE $150K+. Salary range: $30,000 - $250,000
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  • 15
    Font - I_am_dean · 21 hr. ago @3 The "sink or swim" technique. It was my first day as a cashier, I got a couple of hours of training, then I was by myself and we were dead. All of a sudden this rush came in and I was asking for help. The manager goes "sink or swim, we're busy back here, figure it out." Lol I did but let me tell you customers were not happy because I still didn't know how to properly enter in orders, especially modifications.
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  • 16
    Font - coolguytrav · 20 hr. ago · edited 14 hr. ago e2 S Anything that the manager says in the interview that doesn't line up with the job description.. "yea we posted it's a manager level position, but this is actually a coordinator role". "yea the description says travel is 25% but it might be closer to 50 it just depends". "We did post it as a remote job, but we prefer people to be in the office X days a week" "Yea we phrase it that way in the job description because corporate says we have to
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  • 17
    Font - O Sauerkraut_n_Pepsi - 22 hr. ago - edited 21 hr. ago I went on an interview. They had me wait in the lobby. In the 5 minutes I was sitting there, three employees walked past me. The first just looked at me and laughed. The second said "Leave. Leave while you can." The third made the sign of the cross at me. Later, during the interview, the hiring manager showed me the "zen room", which was a quiet room you got to go to for 10 minutes when you got too stressed out. I was offered the job.
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  • 18
    Font - mfgfvd - 21 hr. ago O 9 6 , 6 8 36 I always ask the question "why is this role open? Is it a new role, or am I replacing someone? Why did that person leave?" This really helps you seeing their reaction and if they look nervous it's because the person who left did it because they were not happy. I also like asking how "senior" my team members are, if there's noone there more than 2 years I would also be concerned. Final question, as I work in sales, I always ask "what's the KPIS and how ma
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  • 19
    Smile - topothesia773 - 22 hr. ago "Competitive pay" but they wont tell you what the pay actually is in the posting or even the interview
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  • 20
    Font - theWildBore · 22 hr. ago I interviewed once at a very huge organization that had a site in the town I was living in, and these guys were so proud of the new top of the line facilities. When they took me on a tour they pointed out the lovely zen garden area that was made for employees to go "unwind and clear their heads". The problem with it was this area was positioned directly across from all the higher ups offices. Yeah... no.
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  • 21
    Font - WhinerNiner456 - 23 hr. ago 2 3 2 they're always hiring
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  • 22
    Human body - T-money79 · 21 hr. ago Open interviews. It tells me that people leave faster than you can bring them in, and with good reason.
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  • 23
    Rectangle - JustDucking_Around - 21 hr. ago "We're a family here" No. We're co-workers. I don't love you. I wouldn't do anything for you. We have boundaries.
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  • 24
    Font - zbysior · 20 hr. ago To me it was a " we will start you low and will give you a ton of money later" they never do. Never happens
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  • 25
    Font - Tk-20 · 22 hr. ago I've always found the hiring process to be a pretty accurate reflection of how your time with the company will be. So, if they make you jump through a million hoops just to be hired you can expect any kind of raise or promotion to be the same. If they are asking you your thoughts on conflict then you can expect that you'll be working with at least one difficult person who is a known problem employee. If they say fast paced/tight deadlines then expect to work overtime. I
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  • 26
    Font - CaptainFrivolous · 22 hr. ago If you get a tour and everything is old but they say "they're in the process of updating" yeah no they don't update s' t. Your going to be working with broken out dates equipment. 9/10 your going to get in trouble when it breaks on you.
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  • 27
    Font - The_Quicktrigger · 21 hr. ago e2 When an employee quits or gets fired from the job and the company doesn't hire anyone new to replace them. It can be hard to tell as a red flag at first, but the temporary workload they added to your own over that was left over after the person left, slowly becomes your new permanent workload, without any changes to your pay or benefits to compensate for the additional tasks. The further out it goes without the position being filled, the larger and more ob
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  • 28
    Human body - msor504 · 22 hr. ago "Work hard, play hard" - you will work so hard, you and your colleagues will need to get totally f ked up at happy hours to cope with the stress.
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  • 29
    Font - arnie_apesacrappin - 21 hr. ago 2 If many provisions in company policy say "except for employees in Colorado and California." Colorado and California have multiple statutes that are more employee-friendly than the other 48 states, so the company policy is basically saying "we'll do X for employees where the state makes us, but f. k the rest of you." 3.3k Reply Share Report Save Follow dalisair · 17 hr. ago The Colorado one applies a lot to postings now because CO requires salary ranges in
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  • 30
    Font - primo808 · 20 hr. ago "It's hard to find good workers these days" I don't pay enough
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  • 31
    Smile - Siveri16 · 21 hr. ago S The quality of the Toilet paper in the bathroom. There are minimal if any cost savings to 1 ply and it just shows they couldn't care about you at all.
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  • 32
    Human body - taylortaylortaylorrr OP · 23 hr. ago I once had a job that required a "working interview" as the final step in the interview process. I basically worked an entire day for free.
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  • 33
    Human body - 24204me · 21 hr. ago At my job interview I got asked "how do you deal with drama in the workplace?" Looking back, I was so stupid to accept that job.
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  • 34
    Font - abolish_gender · 19 hr. ago I know people (rightfully) like to hate on HR, but if a company brags about "not having an HR department to deal with," expect them to be very disorganized at a minimum.
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  • 35
    Font - 2wisconsinA · 21 hr. ago Look in the parking lot. What is the general age and condition of the employees cars compared to the owners and managers? You can tell a lot about a medium to largish company if they have a employee parking lot full.
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