Your boss is not your therapist 🙅‍♀️

Hey there! Some questions are off-limits, such as “When are you having kids?” or “Why are you still single?” But one question we can always get behind? “Are you satisfied with how much you’re earning?”

Unlike those first two, this question gets to the bottom of the right topics (and promotes pay transparency and equality). Now that’s something we’re all for. 🫰

 1   Reminder: Your boss is not your therapist.

What do you think about bringing your “whole” self to work—anxiety and all? That might not be the best approach to solving what nine out of 10 U.S. adults believe to be a mental health crisis in our country, according to Bloomberg.

The problem: When managers are expected to handle issues like worker anxiety and depression, everyone gets stiffed.

• Because 71% of professionals are not comfortable discussing their mental health with their higher-ups.

• And those higher-ups (especially the ones who expect us to bare our souls in the weekly all-hands) aren’t licensed mental health professionals.

But certain employers are trying to improve, like KPMG, which debuted a new employee-assistance program that’ll connect its employees to mental health resources.

 2   Coding jobs don’t always equal job security.

For years, tech positions were seen as so secure that “learn to code” was the go-to advice to avoid getting laid off.

But that advice doesn’t hold the same weight any more. According to Vox, software engineers made up the biggest portion of tech layoffs in 2023 at a whopping 19.3% (the next biggest portion was recruiters at 4.6% of tech layoffs).

The reason? Less demand for their labor as tech companies have yet to come up with the “next big thing,” a wobbly economy, and the rise of AI. But don’t let this deter you from signing up for a coding bootcamp—tech workers are still in high demand and getting snapped up by other industries, Vox reports.

 3   These AI interns are here to stay (but do they even have a choice?!)

Last January, tech marketing agency Codeword hired two AI “interns,” Aiko and Aiden, as part of its winter 2023 internship class. The verdict? One founding partner of Codeword jokingly said he’ll “keep them on as long as they want to stay,” per Marketing Brew.

If you’re on the hunt for a summer internship and just started sweating, you can chill a bit. Codeword stressed it used AI to advance the careers of its human employees, not replace them (phew).

FYI: Even CEOs aren’t immune to those bouts of “AI is coming for my job.” Last August, a Hong Kong-based online gaming firm appointed an AI CEO. Since then, the company has outperformed Hong Kong’s stock market by 18.2%, per The Hustle. 🤯 

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Teacher Appreciation Week is around the corner (May 8–12!). 🍎 The average base pay for teachers is $26,193 a year, or $16.43 an hour, but this varies significantly based on where you’re teaching. For example, some of the highest-paying school systems are in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area.

We interviewed teachers in that part of the country—including a preschool teacher earning $33,000 and a teacher with 17 years of experience earning $105,000 per year. If you’d like to support these incredible teachers shaping young minds, you can sign the pledge to do more for our teachers right here!

• Glassdoor just released its list of the 10 highest-paying internships, with some companies such as Stripe paying their interns $9,000 (yes, $9,000) a month.

• We are cracking up at this poor woman who tried to quietly join her Zoom meeting late—but the mushroom Zoom filter had other plans. 😂

• The second hardest part after taking the SATs? Deciphering college financial aid. This article will teach you how to deal.

• Today in “Is this Black Mirror or IRL?”: This person on Reddit has been using ChatGPT to apply to jobs with an “extremely high” interview invitation rate.

• How this 30-year-old went from a “soul-sucking” job to earning $92K a year as an associate business analyst. 📈

Thank you so much for reading! Here at STS, we’re definitely #teamWFH (and #teamJacob, for our Twilight stans). But we’d love to know—are you a WFH-er, office person, or a mix of both? Hit reply and share your stance! See you next Tuesday!