Advice: I got scolded for being honest about my long-term career goals. Should I just quit?
3 min read
Advice: I got scolded for being honest about my long-term career goals. Should I just quit?

A month ago I accepted a new role with a small-ish recruiting firm in my home state. Their pay package was competitive and I was sick of the bureaucracy at the huge company I was working for prior to this one, so I made the switch. A week into the job, I was in my training session with my new manager, along with two of my coworkers, and she was talking about some of the bigger placements they'd just made, and explaining the commission on each deal. After she described one of the deals, I said, "Easy money," not thinking much of it. That same afternoon, she asked me to hop on a video call and told me that what I'd said was inappropriateFast forward to last week, and me and three of my new teammates had lunch together (over video call) in order to get to know each other. We were talking about long-term career goals, and I casually mentioned that eventually I wanted to start my own recruiting business. Again, these are conversations I've had casually dozens of times and it has never been a problem..That same day, my manager (who wasn't at lunch) asks me to get on a call and explains that it's not appropriate to talk about starting a "competing company" (her words) and that I need to be more careful about my use of language. Once again, I was blown away and it took every ounce of my energy not to quit on the spot. I just feel like I'm being targeted rather than welcomed. What should I do?

More Ways to Read:
🧃 Juice It The key takeaways that can be read in under a minute
Sign up to unlock