This is worse in some industries (academia. Academia is fucked), and I hear it is even worse in the US, but my god is this ever frustrating…

It really shows you how low people think of you, when you’ve worked with them for some time/think they know you moderately well, and then you ask them for a reference, and they either flat out ignore you, or claim not to even know you “well enough”… 😔

Teachers (well, lecturers, tutors, et al) are particularly bad for this - “Oh, I worked with you on and off for a year. Soz lol, still don’t know you from a bar of soap.”

Look, I get it - it takes a degree of effort, and no one wants to be held accountable for “vouching” for someone else anymore, but fuck, everything requires them - Grad School, jobs, internships, everything.

If no one is willing to (legitimately) provide something so basic, how the fuck is anyone expected to even take that next career step??

This seems much, much worse than when I was last in this position (asking for academic references), 8 years ago, too…

Didn’t think we had slid that much, as a society, in that time, but… Yeah. 😔

Stupidly hard to work around, FML.