Employee uncovers rejection letter from 1957 with $75 enclosed ($900 today), workers bemoan contemporary job rejections: 'Never forget what the boomers took from us'

Should they compensate us for job interviews?

Looking for a new job can be a real pain. It seems like there are so many people out there looking for jobs, and not enough jobs to go around. Plus, the interview process can be exhausting. You constantly have to pitch yourself and try to make yourself into something that the company wants. You tailor your resume for the position, you put hours into writing the perfect cover letter, you spend money and time getting career advice, networking, and trying to get ahead. This is all an investment in yourself, but it's also a real sunk cost. That's time you're not compensated for. And more often than not, you're met with radio silence. Nobody even acknowledges that you've sent in an application; they just leave you in the dust to fend for yourself. It can leave us to wonder, was it always like this?

It's easy to romanticize a past that didn't exist. It's important not to harbor too much nostalgia for something that you didn't even live through. We've made incredible strides in history and equity, and we don't want to shortchange those. But that doesn't mean we can't take cues from the past when appropriate. Maybe we did have some things more correct back then, especially when it came to the job market. Or at least this example made us think we did. One picture of a found artifact made a bunch of workers online reflect upon what might have gone wrong for us.