How's work been?

Duoae wrote:

Today we were informed we are laid-off in 9 months time.

The worst part was having to deal with everyone crying. I'm fine but I hate seeing people hurt and in pain. Especially those who've just taken out home loans and with children...

Harsh. I'm sorry to hear that, fella. Are you going to stay in the Med or look back over here? (Probably too soon to tell, I guess!)

Had a rough day Tuesday when a bunch of my guys failed a test in spetacular fashion, and then one of my dudes did something real dumb. To make it worse, the news about his dumb thing skipped over me and came back down when my boss used it as an example during a meeting of some dumb stuff our company is doing. His number one gave me the, "it was your guy wink" during the story. Not fun.

Luckily the week's been getting better since then.

Haakon7 wrote:

Harsh. I'm sorry to hear that, fella. Are you going to stay in the Med or look back over here? (Probably too soon to tell, I guess!)

I'll be looking everywhere. The last I looked (around a month ago) in the UK there's nothing for me. Maybe India next... which I would not look forward to.

I just hate having no base or support in my life. Feel so completely alone and helpless.

Honestly, I'm in a weird space with my unemployment.

On one hand, a month in and no real bites (I had one phone interview but that didn't go anywhere), I'm freaking bored out of my mind sitting at my desk all day.

On the other... this is the first extended period of time where I can work on my own projects without someone staring over my shoulder. And I like that a lot.

I think this is telling me something... but I still have to figure out a way to support myself. I can't be on unemployment forever.

For the last month or so my office the company's flagship office in the region with a reputation of being on of the best in the entire international organisation has been so short staffed there have been two of us doing the work of 5, servicing over 1000 clients. The other person is so new she only got through her probation period on Wednesday.

I've been putting in massive amounts of unpaid overtime to maintain the reputation of the site. On the up side it looks like my area manager is planning on putting me in charge of 2 offices.

The one I will operate out of 4 days a week is 2 minutes drive from home instead of the 35+ minute drive I'm doing now and the other one I'll be at 1 day a week is an outreach site which is one of the lowest performing sites in the organisation that the entire hierarchy is watching closely. The upshot being if I can turn around performance it'll only mean good things for me.

With my last company I was promoted twice within 12 months to the position of manager of a much larger office than these two before I was made redundant and took a front line role with my current organisation. If I get put in charge of these two offices before April 30th, my 1 year anniversary with this company, I'll be right on track

TL:DR

Works been hard and crappy but there is a silver lining.

Work hasn't sucked, but i'm in that position where I know I have to start looking for new employment. Problem is, I work in news/media in the largest market in the nation, and i'm competing for every position with god knows how many people with my exact same skills.

I mean, my current job isn't awful, but it's been made clear to me that there's no upward movement for me here. And while the company is trying to grow... I do want to move on. The question is whether or not I can find something that will afford me the same amount of time for personal growth on the side.

...Well, that and i'm tired of living barely above paycheck-to-paycheck.

Work's been lousy. I have excellent job security but the job itself is so blah. I have no motivation. I want to be tackling interesting challenges and instead I spend a lot of my time dealing with paperwork or hunting down ten year-old bugs that were only just found by a customer. My boss tries to manage but is wholly unsuited to his job personality-wise. Over the past 3 weeks I've done practically nothing, due to a convergence of sleep problems, med changes, and other issues.

So i was given an interesting ultimatum by my boss today... (FYI been on the job 6 months) Learn the rest of my job (accounting) and his job (real estate management) by August to his satisfaction or he's closing the company at the end of the year... if i do, i take over... i'm... conflicted.

Apparently I got a compliment from a guy from the corporate headquarters who came in today for an inspection. Not quite sure exactly what the compliment was, as I was super busy making sandwiches... but hey, a compliment during an inspection is ALWAYS a good thing.

I think part of it had to do with the new sauces we've gotten for some new wraps we're doing soon.. He was inspecting all our sauces bottles and trying to figure out which was what, and out of the corner of my eye I identified each while I was working on orders, two of which I've yet to even work with.

I love my job. I haven't been able to say that for 10 years. I have no office, I IM with my co-workers and I've written stories and uploaded them while sitting on the john. I've never been happier.

My boss helps me to improve and being with an online-only publication means no more newspaper headaches.

dhelor wrote:

Apparently I got a compliment from a guy from the corporate headquarters who came in today for an inspection. Not quite sure exactly what the compliment was, as I was super busy making sandwiches... but hey, a compliment during an inspection is ALWAYS a good thing.

I think part of it had to do with the new sauces we've gotten for some new wraps we're doing soon.. He was inspecting all our sauces bottles and trying to figure out which was what, and out of the corner of my eye I identified each while I was working on orders, two of which I've yet to even work with.

So my GM mentioned today that she's never heard him give so many compliments to one person as he did yesterday. Apparently she's also going to start doing some major cross training with me in preparation for a possible management position.

I love my job, but I think it's killing me. I've been in it for 8 years now, and I handle most of the customer relations (as my official position): sales, applications, complaints, technical questions, etc. On top of that, due to my technical background, I have been seen by most others as the go-to-guy for internal questions also. Fortunately, after years of growth in our production (4x over the 8 years) and after hiring several engineers to help with the technical side of things, we've finally hired another another sales person. Unfortunately, everyone still feels like they have to ask me for approval on everything. I cannot usually go 30 minutes without 5-10 interruptions on top of my "official" work. It's like each day is a game of ping-pong in my head -- technical question, complaint, question from production, sales call, make a decision, complaint, sales call, how do we do this, solve this problem. Usually after everyone goes home around 4:00, I can spend 2-3 more hours just answering emails and getting to all the things I wasn't able to complete (but must finish) before the day ends.

I've been putting in close to 10-12 hours a day since June of last year plus 4-6 hours on the weekends (it wasn't much less per week for several years before that). I've not had a holiday in 7 years where I did not have to spend at least 2 hours (usually 4+) working. Unfortunately, my next "vacation" is next week, and the new guy has only been around for 2 weeks. Our lead engineer will also be gone, but he's gone in a way that has him away from most types of communication, so I will spend 2-5 hours a day doing my job and answering questions that would normally be directed at him, but in a much less convenient way (telecommuting is never easy).

The stress of constantly working to make sure we have enough work coming in to keep everyone employed is beating me down. After many years of good, solid growth (even during the crash years), this year has gone the other way. Not in a close the doors way, but in a way that increases my stress level significantly (I am a serious worrier by nature). I feel responsible for everyone in the company. We've not had to let anyone go for reasons of a downturn, and I don't want to start now. The tough part is that I really do love my job. The folks I work with are great, it is challenging... I just think it's killing me.

Get yourself checked and then submit the results to management. This would normally not be that big of a deal, but if you're that important to the company and you're conking out, then a sensible manager/CEO/owner will lock you in recharge-vacation mode until you green-light.

If I were your boss, I'd have you train up your junior to take your roles ASAP, then check you into somewhere tropical for a month.

Work is work, I guess. I'm a staff CT Scan Technologist at a local hospital, and my feelings on it haven't changed much over the past 5 years I've been here: I like it well enough, and consider myself lucky to have a job like this I can retire from, but man, I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. I've been doing the same job, on the same night shift all these years, and I feel like I'm going nowhere fast. I'm ambitious; I want to make something of myself - more than I am now - and that's part of what's leading to this growing discontent with my job. I think the other part is that I was never passionate about this work, or the medical field in general. And you know what? Part of me feels like a selfish jackass for even saying that, what with all the employment woes my fellow goojers are having.

I thought about going for my master's degree, maybe moving up the ladder and trying my hand at management or administration. But over the past few years, I've found myself coming back to the goal I gave up years ago: becoming a police officer. Sometimes I think that maybe it's not a practical decision. After all, I have a family now, and a potential pay cut after spending 14 weeks away from home with a wife and newborn doesn't sound appealing. But the longer I sit here in this cave of a department, at 2am with little more than my thoughts and laptop, the more I think I want to do it. It's a dream that just won't go away.

Couldn't you just get going and do it? My uncle's "really" a real estate agent in California, but he does law enforcement as his "day job." Fifteen years ago, I dreamed of doing triathlons. Now I do them, but it took a rather shocking experience to shock me into the groove.

What I mean is, why do anything else (in your spare time) when you have a dream anything that you want to do? I no longer have spare time. I have a bucket list, because I'm going to die one of these days and I meant to check off as much as I can before I leave. I have a job in a largely "feet-up hospital," too; but I keep a kettlebell under the desk and occupy myself with exercises I read about beforehand when I have nothing better to do - it's to get me to that elusive Ironman.

I also want to write a blog about something. Since I don't know what that something is just yet, I'm setting up a blog for my daughter - that occupies my time as well. I'm thinking about eventually writing a novel in NaNoWriMo, but can't get the gumption up to write for that long, so editing my daughter's writing is kind of my stepping stone to that.

What I'm saying is, I suppose, go for it! There's a lot of prep work you should be doing anyway before seriously considering a career change. At the very least, you could be using the time to network with the local police officers and get chummy with them.

Spoiler:

The rest of my time is soaked up with my bucket-reading-list. There's a bunch of reading material I've always wanted to read but never quite got to reading. Which reminds me - I need to get back to reading The Notebook.

My own work has been really busy. Got dumped with a bunch of committee work this year. Seems upper management likes to dump paperwork on the new guys. Also, rereading "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Need to get my claws into some upper management dudes (actually mostly women, which complicates things for me) ASAP.

I've made some moves in that direction, for sure. I've gone on multiple ride-alongs with state and local officers, and have been training physically for the PT test and life at the academy in general. My 1.5 mile run time is not where I want it to be (bad knee and all), but I'm getting there. I suppose I'm just apprehensive about it lately; I have a hard enough time going to work for 12 hours and leaving my daughter at home. The thought of being gone for months for training is hard to stomach at the moment. But I'll keep at it.

And a kettlebell under the desk is a fantastic idea. Man, I should have thought of that years ago.

I get that. I should be going out to study for my subspec fellowship, but the nearest ones I respect are in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia; and I can't stay away for 24 months. I got rugrats to train, too. I got into a distance education program in Hospital Administration in 2011 - a non-thesis Masters in HA. It's not a subspec fellowship and most people think it's crap for being non-thesis, but it is something. Maybe you got options like that, too.

So I changed employers last year. I went from a legislative atmosphere to an education setting. It was a huge culture shock for me. With my previous employer there were different IT departments within the division while the IT department/division here now is 3 guys (including myself) doing everything IT related. Mine and my coworkers' job duties are but not limited to:
Network Admin
Sys Admin
PC Helpdesk Tech
IT Professional Development Trainer
IT Security Professional
DBA
Web Design/Development

When I got interviewed/hired I told them, that I'm a jack of all trades and can pick up a lot of things very quickly. I guess they liked that because I quickly found out that I'd be doing a lot of things from near-nothing and at a much smaller scale but they had the funds to upgrade but didn't know where to go. Lately I've been building up a lot of fundamental things like network capabilities, inventory system, and tech policies because there was a lot of improvement needed. For example they were using separate names for different wireless access points, I changed that up so that they were all the same and on a wireless management system. Inventory was a joke. It consisted of the business manager printing out a label with "Property of" on it. Also, no documentation of the inventory. That was a pain in the ass to completely update. I found some inventory software that would work, built a database, and came up with an inventory scheme that made sense. The tech policies were another thing that needed some fixing. Everybody had a different device so there was never any spare parts. There wasn't a unified image. They would create domain logins for people but nobody had a PC set for the organization domain. It didn't help that the business office would handle all receiving and delivery. Upon receiving the PC/Laptops, the business office will deliver it directly to the user. The only thing we get after all is said and done, a helpdesk ticket to be able to access the network drives/printers and the install disks (after the realization that this is a brand new pc) for the inevitable reformat. Some people fought me tooth and nail about changing how we handle new device deployment, mainly the business manager there wants to be the Executive Director but got passed over so he tries to get involved in every single project. He also didn't like that the Executive Director actually would listen to me when I offered advice on what needs to be improved. I forgot to list on my duties that I also get to report directly to the Executive Director. It also doesn't help that I have certain personality traits that don't jive too well with him.

Despite all of the work, I really enjoy my job. The people are all great, even the ones I don't immediately get along with. The only thing that really bothers me is trying to teach people IT concepts and basic computer usage when they don't want to learn, just for the computer/program to work how they expect it to

I love my job. I switched to a new lab a few months ago, and while I enjoyed my time there and learned a ton, I never really felt like I was at home. In fact, in all the years I've been doing science as a career (over 10 now) I've never felt at home in my lab. This time... this time I feel like I'm at home, and I enjoy thinking about work even when I'm not there, and when I am there I don't really want to leave because it's great. The science itself seems to be going in a good direction too, which doesn't always happen.

The downside is that all this great work time has left me with a lot less time for other things, which makes me sad. That includes playing games and hanging out here. Time management... I suck at it.

Incoming Rant:

So, I have an idiot co-worker. This co-worker isn't particularly good at her reasonably simple job, but she's recently begun to show even more of a really, really infuriating flaw of hers, a flaw that I allowed to put me in danger.

My Idiot Co-Worker (ICW from here on) has the overnight shift at our place of business. It's a boring, largely BS shift, where nothing happens for the first four hours and you're basically getting paid to try not to fall asleep. I work the shift just prior, so the overnight person takes over from me. We're supposed to do a verbal and written hand-off, to make sure any tasks, any particular snafus or events that are coming up are relayed from one party to the next, so nothing gets missed. Like I said, I don't think the shift is particularly smart, but it's what the client wants, so whatever.

ICW is often late. Now, speaking as a chronologically challenged person myself, I let it slide at first, because I figured I was in no position to Female Doggo. However 10 minutes became 20, 20 minutes became 30, and then even longer. Now, in all honesty, I didn't raise a stink because, as I said, I thought the shift wasn't life-or-death, so 10-20 minutes here or there wouldn't make a dent since she wasn't going to be doing anything anyway, as long as she got here. That was until recently, specifically this week, when ICW was two hours late twice this week.

Worse yet, ICW was late not because she had a accident, or the weather was bad (which would've at least been an excuse earlier this week during the snowstorm), but, verbatim, because "she felt like taking her time."

Now, a few notes. First, I'm a largely non-confrontational person. I know. I'm working on it. Second, while ICW believes that I can just leave my post, since there's nothing happening, I really can't, since there's supposed to be someone here 24 hours a day. If I just up and LEFT without notifying anyone, while she sauntered her ass in whenever she wanted, sure, she'd probably get hammered, but I'd also get it in the neck for abandoning my post like that. So I'm getting home later and later behind her BS.

But honestly, the worst part of this, the part I'm really angry about, is how I've allowed myself, through trying to be "nice" and non-confrontational, to get dragged into ICW's world of idiocy. Because I never called her out, and because I actually covered for her once when my boss asked why I left late one night, because I didn't want to be the guy in the office who threw someone else under the bus/got them fired/was trying to be "nice" for someone I thought could shape up. So now I've f*cked up.

Anyway, so ICW rolls in tonight, and I let her know, y'know, this sh*t really can't go on. That this is ridiculous, and unprofessional. And she makes some excuses about the shift being hard and silly, and she took some part-time gig in the meantime that was wearing her down, and she's gonna fix it, and yadda yadda yadda. And I went home, annoyed to hell.

Annoyed because now I'm complicit in this. I'm not the only person who has noticed ICW rolling in late. Other people have too. Now, no-one's made a stink about it, but if someone does, I've left myself vulnerable. Because I didn't immediately call out this unprofessional halfwit right off the bat. And between that, and covering for her, makes me look like a really sh*tty employee, my own work habits be damned.

Basically, I've let a immature, unprofessional asshole drag me into their world of stupidity, and possibly hurt myself in the process.

Now, again, no-one has made a stink about this. The rest of the overnight crew are generally too into their own worlds to care what we're doing on our side, so for the most part, it's between me and her. But I'm still really angry at myself for not noticing this bullsh*t sooner, and for allowing it to go on for as long as I did without making a stink, what other people thought be damned.

I mean, I don't know anything about where this might go from here. As I said, nothing has happened yet, this hasn't blown up yet. I know my boss and I are on good terms, she knows I'll do whatever she asks to the best of my ability, and have for the two years I've been here. She knows that I've worked hard, always tried to improve, always volunteered to help, et cetera. But I'm really pissed off, like I said, at ICW, for her continued stupidity, and at me, for allowing myself to get involved in her swirling bullsh*t vortex in any way.

(A good example of the extent of the idiocy of ICW: As a way of making amends, she offered to let the boss know she was two hours late, and that she'd come in two hours early tomorrow. Now, take note, we're not hourly, we're salaried. So all our boss, all MOST bosses are going to see, IMHO, is "I was two hours late", and then some silly BS about working overtime to make up for it. I haven't worked a job in my life where any boss is going to really care about anything outside of "two hours late".)

Again, just frustrated and angry with myself. Moreso than with ICW, who'll probably figure out a way to get her dumb ass fired soon enough. I just don't want to get caught in her implosion.

avggeek wrote:

Well the waiting is over and it's not good - my current boss has basically told me there is nothing much he can do about my compensation and it's up to me whether I want to jump for a better salary but waay more travel or stick with a slightly less stress job (though the last year felt anything but less stressful). Also, now I have to wonder how much I've screwed myself if I don't quit by having had this conversation.

Faaaantastic.

So it's pretty much a done deal at this point - my ex-boss came back with a much more interesting role in his company at a salary that's way higher than what I would be getting if I stuck around at my current job. I still am worried that day-to-day the role at the new company might be very different from what I'm apparently being hired for as it's a very small company and there's always pressure to be making billable hours. That said, I think it would be silly if I stuck around in my current job just because I'm in a comfort zone.

Waiting for my boss to return from vacation in a few days, but 8 years and 11 months after I first joined I'll be starting the final 3 months at my current workplace. I'll admit to feeling a little sentimental as I think about it, more so as the person who hired me in my current job is also leaving the company at the end of the week.

*incoming rant*

Okay so i posted a little while ago that my boss gave me an ultimatium be ready to rock and take over the company in August or I'm closing her down... well i got called into his office Monday and he said essentially, never mind i'm going to give the company to one of our property supervisors and you can be her accountant.

Well grats for her she's been working here 8 years and been in the industry longer than that so i'm happy for her. But damnit i didn't take this job to be an accountant for my entire life. The point was you were going to teach me the company and help me figure out accounting and then in a year or two i was going to take over. Then you move the time table up, get mad that i don't know every in and out of accounting(WHICH I TOLD YOU TO BEGIN WITH!!!!) and now you throw me under the bus to one of our clients (oh yeah i overheard that phone call through the closed door of your office, it's not that sound proof)... well hell now what?

Damnit I knew i should have worked harder to get Riot Games to hire me... Wonder if they still have my resume?

/rant off

So about half a year ago my boss hired another person so I wouldn't have so much work load. Right when we hired her I knew she wouldn't last. And then we found out she's engaged a few weeks later what do you know? you cant fire her for that. Few months after that she puts in her two weeks so she can do wedding planning. wtf. I saw this coming the moment she said she was engaged. I spent 3 months training her and for what? SO she can take whats she's learned else where? not fun.

Just finished up my last work day in China, probably ever, and just under 18 days till we head stateside. Looking forward to the much needed change of scenery, i.e. scenery I can actually see.

Two days ago a colleague announced she would leave the company. It turned out to be a wake-up call. She was without a doubt one of the best people I've ever had the honor of working with: she's diligent, disciplined, smart, modest, funny, professional, and above all FAST. Suffice to say we lose a great colleague but also a great person.

I've been team leader for two years now, and have written training documents, streamlined our sub-unit's procedures, introduced a paperless workflow, trained new colleagues, stuff like that. But all this was on top of the regular internal sales work I've been doing for 5 1/2 years now.

I will have to pick up most of my colleague's workload until we find AND train a replacement, and I'm so f*cking DONE with that mindnumbingly boring work. Just the thought of doing even more of the same crap feels like a punch in the gut. Even on days where, after doing version 2013 of the same old offers, there's some time left I feel too... empty to get to the interesting stuff.

I have already signaled this to my direct manager several times, but he can't really help that our general manager keeps stalling the replacement of a colleague who left in January. For two years now, they've been promising that SOON they will lighten the internal sales burden so I can work on more interesting projects, but every single time they yank the dangling carrot away due to 'unforeseen' circumstances.

Now I've had it. I told my direct manager that I'm fed up with the internal sales work for good. There is some talk of making someone process manager for the whole Belgian division, and that would be right up my alley. Still very vague though, and with a lot of ifs and buts.

In ten minutes, I have a meeting with the general manager and two colleagues I don't have anything to do with. The invite came yesterday afternoon, and I haven't been informed of the meeting's purpose. I did receive a text message this morning from my direct manager telling me to 'explain my point of view' and that he will 'call me this evening'. Talk about clear communication.

If only I knew what I actually wanted to do, besides becoming process manager at my current company, I would have looked for something else a long time ago. I'm going to sit it out until after the summer (when the job market picks up again) for now.

edit: meeting 45 minutes late, still hasn't started. We know why: the head of Purchase department got fired. :-O

edit 2: the purchase team will be integrated in our sales team, and I'm supposed to act as team leader. Which sounds like a challenge, but also like yet more admin work. I expressed my grievances, was assured that new hires are coming. I'll believe it when I see it, but I'm going to wait it out for a while.

I am going to read this thread starting from page one and up. It's really interesting and a great way to get to know the goodjers better.

Myself, still in the Dutch navy over 16 or 17 years by now. I've been put in Curacao (Caribbean, next to Aruba). And working for the coastguard.
It's a great job. Flying as a sensor operator. And now really close to become an instructor. Need to do one more instruction and that's that.
But, my plans are to immigrate to Canada. Where the kids are and their mother. I've applied with a company, but it's slooooooooow.
Hopefully soon an update on that, meanwhile looking around for jobs in Canada to apply for

So yet another month has gone by and we still don't have our 2013 raises. Once again, the excuse is that it's taking longer than planned to finalise new contracts and complete salary reviews for the employees of the company we acquired. And once again, everyone is wondering why any of this is our problem and why one thing has to be tied to another. It would be trivial to give everyone else their raises and apply them to the other division once their reviews are done.

Management has also still not openly communicated that (for apparently the first time in company history), the raises will not be retroactive. A lot of people aren't upset about the delays yet because they're assuming we will get retroactive raises. I found out they won't be from a private conversation I had with an executive so I'm not going to break their confidence. However, I expect morale to go through the floor once this is revealed. Much as I love where I work, our management has always been terrible at communication and they keep saying they're working to improve but nothing changes on that front. I'm getting pretty pissed off that I've probably lost almost $1,000 so far this year in salary increases that I'm not getting because of things that I have nothing to do with. Yeah, management isn't getting their raises either but most of management makes over $100K/year, owns large amounts of stock and isn't swimming in debt that they're trying to pay off in time to buy a house next year.

It's two months to annual bonus time as well and we've also been told the bonus structure is changing but not how. I'm counting on still getting my bonus in cash so I can pay down debt but we aren't sure if management is going to try to change that into options now that we're public.

I love my job, my work environment and my co-workers but this is really unfair and starting to eat away at me.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Just finished up my last work day in China, probably ever, and just under 18 days till we head stateside. Looking forward to the much needed change of scenery, i.e. scenery I can actually see.

We are preparing the welcome wagon, your Excellency.

Yes, I realize this is a bit of a rant, and also that it's sports related. But since it has more to do with workplace relations than sports, I've decided to post here.

Let's just say I work for one of the big tech companies in Seattle as a contractor. Tonight I had to stay till 7 but not wanting to miss March Madness, i was watching the Oregon-Louisville game on my second monitor while finishing up a white paper.
One of the managers (not my direct boss), drops by my desk and proceeds to give me the third degree about goofing off on company time. He then goes into a tirade about all the billions that companies lose during March Madness due to lazy Americans and their obsession with basketball.

I would be ok with this except for one thing - my company has a huge double standard when it comes to watching sports during work hours. Last time there was the World Cup the place practically shut down, and I had a devil of a time getting ahold of this same manager because he was too busy in the break room watching some quarterfinals match for the entire game. Meanwhile, I'm actually at my desk multitasking and getting my work done.

Yes, I recognize that I may have technically been out of line according to company policy. I also recognize that as a contactor, I pretty much have to do everything that a full-time manager says short of jumping to attention and screaming "sir! yes sir!" I really also want to be culturally sensitive and realize that soccer is a way bigger deal in his home country. But I just can't shake the feeling of a massive double standard here.

/rant

clover wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Just finished up my last work day in China, probably ever, and just under 18 days till we head stateside. Looking forward to the much needed change of scenery, i.e. scenery I can actually see.

We are preparing the welcome wagon, your Excellency.

Please, I'm a man of the people. But be sure that wagon is bedecked in Swarovski.