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nelsoch (OP), please don't be offended by what I am about to say, I don't intent to offend you. I am just sharing a valuable advice I received for everyone in this boat.

When I was at my first job, I too went way beyond my scope of job descriptions and did many things. Everyone appriciated me and I felt I was a vital part of the company. That is when my new manager gave this advice. Though that the time, I was annoyed by him and felt he was a pain in the ass. I was too young and stupid to understand what he was telling, so he just forced me to comply. Which, in the end, helped me a lot.

I had to fill an excel sheet of all the things I did and forward to my supervisor. I only filled what was my job and didn't put in the extra things. The manager asked why I was not informing the company of what I was actually doing in the company. The manager said that I was not giving enough focus on the work I was hired to do and doing other things. Though, my supervisor was very happy with my job.

Then I started begrudgingly (curing my manager) filling everything I did in the company. Again I was called by the manager for not fully reporting what I was doing. When I showed, that filled everything. It turned out my supervisor was deleting the extra stuff I was putting in. That is when I realized that my supervisor was just praising me. But didn't report this to the manager.

So, I just stopped doing other things and just did my work and avoided anything that was beyond my description. Then I started getting official email asking me to do extra things and started getting "certificate of appreciation". That lead me to getting extra pay and bonus. My increments were also higher, and I got promoted too.

Then, when I moved to other companies, I just stuck to my job description and didn't do anything more. I set the tone from my interview. Whenever I was asked to do anything extra, I always bargained for what I was going to get for the extra work. I made sure that extra expenses (like petrol,road toll & parking charges for travel) were compensated, and I got extra time off.

Basically, I understood that only when the company was paying for my extra services, did they appreciate it.

Management always value you based on how much they are paying you for your services. They are not going to asking around and see how much you contribute.

Well said. This is the way, unless you work for yourself or with something you're passionate about. Sometimes, just meeting the bare minimum is all that's required or should be done. Anyone can be let go at anytime; we’re expendable.

> I even tried playing the 'I have another offer elsewhere' lie card, with nothing to show for it.

You probably should've actually gotten an offer elsewhere, maybe even had it in hand and quoted the number for them to meet/exceed. Not actually having one can backfire. It's really an ultimatum, and one you should probably follow through on if called. Maybe it's not a factor in your case, but this can result in souring a relationship with your employer.

There was never an actual offer- and when presented with the notion, I was told that I may get something out of sticking around.

> Retailers wont take me because of my accomplished work history.

Can't you just remove it from your CV then? I thought that CV is like personal marketing material: you only list things there that help you to get a specific job – and skip everything else that doesn't.

EDIT: It's possible to list your previous employers without listing your work accomplishments.

Wouldn't they just have a big gap in employment then?

The question then becomes how to fill the gap that's left.

Having to explain the gap in employment from 2018-2023 would be hard. A requirement for many retail jobs(I don't remember it being this way 10+ years ago) is to list 5-10 years of work history and explain gaps.

I don’t think it’s that tough. Lie about 2018-2020, then blame the pandemic, lie again about a short stint someplace 2021-2022, and then say you got laid off late last year.

If the options are lying or not getting a job, it shouldn’t be a hard decision. Get friends to be fake old bosses. Try to remember a local restaurant that shut down. Do whatever it takes.

> Went above and beyond the call of duty and even relocated my wife and kids to be closer so that I could be on-call(not in job description). I took leadership and management positions without compensation just to keep workflow going.

Why?

>I tried for years beforehand- to get moving up, but told it wasn't possible(yet). I even tried playing the 'I have another offer elsewhere' lie card, with nothing to show for it.

This is why you don't lie about it. Get the other offer first, and if they don't offer any remedy, you actually leave.

what's your skill set? did you lower your salary requirement and look in other industries?

i'm a software dev. i got layoff many times before. what i do is lower my salary requirement to get a job then start looking for a job with better pay within 6 months to a year so it doesn't look like i'm job hopping.

I have an intimate familiarity with a wide breadth of both hardware and software. Working on pre-production products and supporting post-production to customers has required us to be flexible to new requests, per contract.

My current salary is really low for the industry- I've been willing to take paycuts so that I can provide, so I've applied to such positions. But I still get turned down.

> I have an intimate familiarity with a wide breadth of both hardware and software.

Broadness of this statement force fear into my soul.

The ability to be a human swiss army knife has allowed me to survive all the waves of layoffs(publicly-noticed and otherwise) up till now. When I was a stand-in manager interviewing people a year ago- I was told afterwards that my questions were too intense for what they were _then_ looking for. At that point, it got me wondering why they were setting the bar so low when I was previously being grilled and nearly passed.

Have you tried the consultant/contractor angle? Many companies that were forced to downsize will be looking into contracting out some of the workload they still want to be done.

I've reached out to contracting companies and vise-versa, but nothing's ever come out of such connections.

Intel?

Professionally, I cannot confirm or deny.

Really shows the power corporations have over people. You are too scared to tell people who laid you off...