Heh, good luck. Well, I hope it goes whatever way works well for you. Judging your earlier posts you got some remarkable working conditions right there.

Huzzah! Redundancy for all! Good luck with the boss man.

How about you give him the old 1-2 just to be sure, 1Dgaf?

Sigh, think of it as sweet, sweet freedom with some extra time for your flavor of MMO!

Wonder if your manager told them the same thing.

In my recent position as a manager and account manager for a consulting firm, I was placed in the Office Space situation and asked on a regular basis:

""What is it you do for this company and why do we pay you so much?""

One day I decided to respond with:

""You mean you guys don''t know? Don''t ask me, I think we need a consultant to straighten this whole mess out!""

One laughed his head off, the other didn''t think it was funny...Hmm..

Considering the fact at any given time, the most staff we had minus sales represenatives in the field was five (including the two bosses who asked the question), it got a bit asinine.

Yes please do delve into more details, I''m curious to what happened.

This is all become a bit strange.

My colleagues and I met with our boss individually yesterday. In my meeting, I was told that I hadn''t met his expectations for the role. Then, in no particular ordeR:

I told him I was stagnating, after having done the same job for two years. He knew that I had applied for a role elsewhere in the company (I asked him before hand if it was worth going for).

He told me I hadn''t been made redundant because my job spec hadn''t changed and my the location for my work wasn''t changing a significant enough distance. The way he said this sounded like ""If I could have made you redundant, I would have"".

I explained there was another job I wanted in our team. Boss essentially told me that I''d have to work so hard in this current job (a lower grade) that it wouldn''t be possible to get the higher grade role.

At some point I said there wasn''t a short term solution to giving me a change - he asked why not. I said because rest of team may be made redundant and we have to get through January. (He asked it in a way, though, that made me think ""He''s planning on firing me now."")

Boss said that he needed people who were going to be comitted to their jobs in the new year. Said I needed to think about what I wanted to do, if there were other jobs in the business I''d be interested in.

I had another meeting scheduled with him next week, at which an HR person would be present. Boss said I spend a week thinking about what I want to do and speak to friends for advice etc.

The whole meeting felt really odd, as if he wanted to get rid of me but new he couldn''t - and this was amplified when he realised I was burnt out on this role and probably couldn''t perfrom the role in a exeplary way.

Then, this morning (7.30) he lef tme an answering machine message saying he might have a solution to the problem and that he wants me to send him the CV I used to apply for the other internal job. He thinks there may be other people in the business who could use someone with my skills. Apparently we''ll discuss this idea of his next week, with a human resources person present.

A long-term friend (who later became a colleague) saidd I should relax - that my job is safe, even if the boss wants me out he can;t fire me, so I may as well take his offer of help.

I can''t help thinking that he''s going to try to fire me. I do want out of this job, but I''m really scared that I''ll never get as good a job again and my life will turn to sh*t, as it has done before.

That''s hard man, really. Best thing I can say is trust in your gut feelings.

luckily you''re overqualified, so they will be reluctant to get rid of you because they know it''ll be hard to find someone else with your level of experience...

Very odd behavior that you describe from your boss. Sounds like there is something particular or individual going on in your situation that is preventing a termination.

Good luck, sorry you have to go through your current dilemma, it sounds like it really sucks.

Update:

My boss offered me a job as a as ''web copywriter''. The job hadn''t existed in the company before I was offered it. I was surprised by this outcome. My role has been split between my three colleagues.

I took the job. I go back to work on Tuesday. I think I''ll still do my own job for a couple of months, slowly handing over work and starting the new one.

I am quite nervous about the new role. Being paid to write for someone - and having to write a style they want - is quite different to writing for oneself. I also need to learn about grammar.

These are the guides I always used for style and grammar, 1Dg4f. Might not translate across the pond though.

AP Manual

APA Manual

Writing for someone else is a pain in the ass, but it will probably help you develop discipline and technique. Worked for me anyway. Although I did burn out on writing for a while afterwards.

Sounds like your boss was laying the groundwork for the job offer. If he liked you, he''d have commiserated about the job; since he doesn''t, he tried to make you feel like you have to get out, chopped off the option of moving up, and tried to corral you into the new one. Which is what you wanted in the first place.

It would not surprise me if you were working for someone else soon.

Thanks.