How's work been?

Malor wrote:

I think that differs by state. I'm pretty sure that in California, for instance, employers have to pay you for any vacation leave you had on the books. Sick leave just vanishes, but not vacation or comp time.

Except many companies are moving to a MTO system where they tell you take as much time as you want off but with the caveat that you don't abuse it (aka take so much time off that your work doesn't get done). It means companies don't have to put aside PTO and when you quit or get let go, they don't have to pay you for it.

kazar wrote:

Except many companies are moving to a MTO system where they tell you take as much time as you want off but with the caveat that you don't abuse it (aka take so much time off that your work doesn't get done). It means companies don't have to put aside PTO and when you quit or get let go, they don't have to pay you for it.

Right, this is one of those "it sounds like it's to your benefit, but it's not" type of things. In California, at least, the rules state that any vacation time you have accrued you have to be paid out for. There is no regulation stating that employees must accrue vacation.

So, by not having any system by which employees "earn" time off, you have no termination liability on the books, and you also don't wind up having to pay out a big chunk of cash for yearly sell-offs (which become expected) or handle waves of end-of-year vacations by people who will simply burn days in order to be able to continue to accrue after the roll over.

I am reminded of a story of the good old days, as experienced by my father. He worked for the same company for over 40 years, and the initial agreement he signed laid out so many days per year vacation time, with the scale increasing as you had more years at the company. They eventually introduced an accrual cap, but his policy existed before said cap and he had to be grandfathered in.

Seeing as my dad pretty much never took vacation, by the time he was in his late 50s the liability on the books was so enormous that they kept trying to invent mechanisms and deals to entice him to sell it off in phases, but he just kept saying no, knowing the terms were only going to get better and better. When he ultimately retired he had well over 2 year's worth of PTO on the books, and they wound up signing an agreement to pay him quite a bit more than he was owed if he was willing to space the payments out over several years.

My company has unlimited PTO. It's great for those times when you actually are sick. No guilt, call in. And I took a full 2 weeks off for holiday travel and visiting family last year.

But I have seen some guys take a lot less, especially new people. They seem to only take 2 weeks tops all year.

I think a lot of it depends on teams and managers. AFAIK my current team (8 including manager) has never denied any PTO requests. And I know we've had 2 people on vacation the same full week, and we've had days of overlap where 3-4 of the team are out several times this year. But we're still meeting project timelines so all good I guess.

Mr Crinkle wrote:

So, by not having any system by which employees "earn" time off, you have no termination liability on the books, and you also don't wind up having to pay out a big chunk of cash for yearly sell-offs (which become expected) or handle waves of end-of-year vacations by people who will simply burn days in order to be able to continue to accrue after the roll over.

My company switched last year to unlimited pto and the year-end stacking was the main reason they told us about. I suppose they could just have let more roll over to get the same result though. Previous company had lots of rollover (you could bank up to 200 hours, checked quarterly) but wasn’t that generous about handing it out, at least to the less senior people- started at 40 hrs/quarter so you couldn’t hit the cap if you wanted to.

We were switched from a cumulating/being able to carry pto over plan where you get paid for whatever is left when you leave to a granted pto/use it or lose it/no carrying over end of last year. Any pto left from previous plan would be paid out when you leave. We were forced to take pto xmas and new years week last year which burned any remaining(all but 4 hours) of pto from the previous plan for me.

As far as using what I earned? Yah, 21 years of working there, I get 31 days of pto. Even without losing half of my department and manager I was struggling to try and use it. Really, whats the point in taking time off anymore, I'm stuck at home either way because of quarantine.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I posted before about the cultural issues that surround unlimited PTO. Effectively management and corporate culture seems to shame people into not taking their vacations. I'm super against that and as a manager I keep screaming at my team to take time off. It's literally an agenda meeting point in every single team meeting. "Who is taking time off, and when are you taking it?" I even go so far as encouraging the team to trade 3 day weekends so that they get at least a mini-break once a month.

In this time of stress, it's super important that we take time away from work. Even if we can't leave the home, a stay-cation can be very rejuvenative, and is super important for our mental health.

Rainsmercy wrote:

Really, whats the point in taking time off anymore, I'm stuck at home either way because of quarantine.

Dunno about you, but "stuck at home in front of my work computer" vs "stuck at home playing videogames with the fam" couldn't be a bigger difference.

I feel so refreshed after the 3-day Labor Day weekend, and, family bike ride notwithstanding, we were just hanging out at home the whole time.

ThatGuy42 wrote:

In this time of stress, it's super important that we take time away from work. Even if we can't leave the home, a stay-cation can be very rejuvenative, and is super important for our mental health.

Absolutely. The work 'till you drop dead stupidity is just tired old machismo, as a rested employee is always a more productive one.

I think I came to that conclusion back in March...
Pretty sure I posted on it here too

My company that went full remote in March has also been doing alternate Fridays off since June. Everything seems to be running on time still, and a few weeks ago they extended both to the end of the year.

When I was working corporate, I'd get the same amount of work done in 4 hours as I did in 8 hours. I could focus intently without getting tired or distracted for 4 hours, but never for 8 hours. In fact, I probably got less work done in 8 hours. More hours worked does not in any way mean increased productivity. Same with increasing hours kids are in school. I'm hoping this pandemic puts a big dent in the seat-in-chair for lots of hours culture.

I'd even be down with work 5 days a week for 6 months, 4 days a week for 6 months.

I tried the 4 day week for a while a few years ago, and it was amazing. I could probably do it now since I'm independent, but my client wouldn't like that (since they bill every hour back to their own client, with a markup of course).

I've always thought that 5:2 is the right ratio of working days in the week, once you reverse it.

I've been back in the office for about a month. School started locally on a "hybrid model" a couple of weeks ago. My supervisor has one kid in junior high and another in high school. And yesterday, the kid in junior high tested positive for COVID-19.

Found what I needed.

babakotia, when I'm feeling burnt out, all I can think of is some time off. I rarely get to take any time off, but if you can, maybe that will help. It's good that your manager is supportive.

I got the the offer for the job that I mentioned I was applying for. My director said a bunch of really nice things about me (and he was right) and then offered me a salary that is the bare minimum they could offer under regulations. It's actually less than two of the people I would supervise - we have all been on the job about the same amount of time, 20+ years. Due to my current circumstances, after having been passed over when everyone else got a 10% raise last year, they've offered me about 8,000 less than they would have to offer their second choice, based on administrative regulation. The other candidates are grade 12 making about 10% more than me (due to the aforementioned 10% increase, for which I was passed over) even though I'm grade 13. Upon promotion, they can offer no less than 5% per grade increase. The new position is grade 15. So, I start off at a big disadvantage.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed that the offer was so low, and I respectfully expressed my disappointment at the salary offer, and also expressed eagerness and readiness for the job. I have not declined the position, I'm waiting to see if they can offer me more.

I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place. I'm the best person for this job, I'm prepared for it, and I have the support of the administration. The HR person who is advising them on salary is against me, as was the previous administration, of which she is a holdover. I can only hope my director will come through.

If I reject the offer, they will have to either not fill the position, or pay their second choice about $8,000 more than they were willing to pay their first choice. I'm not about to give the job away, but I will be so disappointed if they say they can't offer me more. If they can't pay me more, how the hell can they hire their second choice?

I guess I'll have to put on my big girl pants and be ready for tomorrow.

Rooting for you! Definitely sounds like they're trying to get away with seeing if they can lowball you.

Say you want $7k more since that would still be cheaper than their second choice. :). Good luck, hopefully in your org it is the manager that makes the decision, not HR which would just be stupid.

@SillyRabbit, It's very hard to take a stance on salary negotiations in the current climate. You want the job, so you're almost forced into taking less than you deserve just due to the economy. But, don't fall for that!

Stand firm, talk to the hiring manager directly. Try to build a bridge with the HR person who is advising them on salary and make a case for why you deserve what you're asking for. I know it's tough to do, but always negotiate from a stance of confidence and trust your instincts! You're the best candidate for the job, and they know it, so they should be willing to pay you accordingly.

Thank you all for the advice. I was offered a little bit more and was told this was the final offer. I didn't counter offer, but I did make the case of how much it would cost to hire whomever the second choice was. I accepted the position. I was talking directly to the hiring manager, but not directly to HR who was advising on salary. That's probably for the best because she and I have a history and I'm sure she was not super keen on me even being the first choice. That's fine, I hear she's retiring soon.

The salary is a bit disappointing considering the additional responsibility and likely hostility from those who didn't get the job, whom I will be supervising. But, as they say, the cost of refusal was just too high. I've come to terms with the salary offer, and got it all out to the hiring manager (our director). I've suggested the possibility of earning an Award for Continued Excellence, which, in my government job, is really the only way to get a raise outside of promotion, and was told that if I gave him a reason to award one, he would. I said, with an earnest smile, "I will!"

So, I'm really excited for this new position! I've worked hard for it, especially over the last year. I feel like I've been forged in fire and made stronger by all the adversity I've experienced, and because of it, I'm ready for this.

It's going to be anything but a cakewalk. After learning the news, one of the other applicants, someone I will now be supervising, met with the director to express her disappointment and then left for the day unexpectedly. The other one, who I also expect to be trouble, was not in the office today. Made for a peaceful day.

Congrats SillyRabbit!

After learning the news, one of the other applicants, someone I will now be supervising, met with the director to express her disappointment and then left for the day unexpectedly.

"I'm going to show my disappointment with not getting a promotion to supervisor by proving I have no leadership qualities!"

I'm not officially a project manager type yet but I've been a part of my team's weekly production meetings for a while now. These are usually pretty run of the mill discussions between producers, PMs and various team leads. Today's meeting was a bit different. One of our newer producers proposed a slew of timely and very hard-hitting topics, one of which revolved around team morale. That discussion unraveled into more pointed observations about how there's a lot of distrust between the disciplines on the team, about how our penchant for working in silos was reinforcing this distrust and basically how tired and stressed everyone was about the project, which is currently running quite behind schedule on a very pivotal release.

This chat obviously hit home for a lot of us in attendance and you could tell how obvious it was we needed the bolder new guy on the block to shake the trees a bit and russle them leaves. Conversations immediately sprang up about how to address the sinking morale, the impact on productivity and the high risk of turnover in the coming months. And yes, we were probably long overdue for some good, old fashioned team building.

Our executive producer listened and when it was time for him to address all of the concerns being raised, his response could not have landed with a bigger thud. We don't have time for this. The next release is the most important release. We're behind the 8-ball and it's only going to get worse. I know it's not popular to hear right now but I'm going to be asking for weekend sign ups (for working).

I feel for the pressure we are all under, including our exec producer, but this response was way too bare and raw. No sugar coating whatsoever. No bone thrown. Just bare & raw project > people type of talk. Would it have killed him to at least couch it in an empty promise? Something along the lines of: "Hey, I hear what you're saying. Morale DOES suck right now. But this next milestone is critical. Let's all drive hard to make this the best release yet and I promise you we'll implement a plan for improving our team morale and communication by [insert date here]."

This meeting ran overtime which wasn't surprising given the hot topics but I had to excuse myself to run a meeting with my own crew of specialists stationed across our other projects. But I had my doubts the production meeting ended on a much brighter note after I departed. It was one of those exhausting days of chained meetings, one after another, so it wasn't until I was ready to "punch out" that I was able to send a DM to my manager (who was also at that same meeting with me). Pretty much expressed what I did here in much fewer words. I wasn't framing my opinion with a particular agenda of wanting to resign or take time off or wanting a transfer or anything like that. I was just like, wow, did he really have to say it like that? We were literally just moments past discussing low morale and what he said probably took a few more baseball bat strikes to the kneecaps of poor Morale.

It's not often I share my opinion like this with my manager so my hope is that it resonates and we can have a fruitful discussion about how we can at least better manage the morale of our own sub-team on the project.

Anyone ever been in one of these meetings I just described?

YES! I vented something very similar about my workplace a while ago. It's damn depressing and demoralizing.

In the end, all you can do is control yourself and your responses. Focus your efforts on building out the morale of your team. Congratulate them on jobs well done, give them praise for meeting deadlines in stressful situations. Then, most importantly, give your team time off to recharge. I have a team of 5 now, and I made sure each of them got a minimum of a 4 day weekend as soon as the project completed. One of my team members took a full two weeks. In a super siloed environment, all you can really do is tend to your own.

Maclintok wrote:

I feel for the pressure we are all under, including our exec producer, but this response was way too bare and raw. No sugar coating whatsoever. No bone thrown. Just bare & raw project > people type of talk. Would it have killed him to at least couch it in an empty promise? Something along the lines of: "Hey, I hear what you're saying. Morale DOES suck right now. But this next milestone is critical. Let's all drive hard to make this the best release yet and I promise you we'll implement a plan for improving our team morale and communication by [insert date here]."

To many people in management are not authentic. They will sugar coat everything to make it sound good hoping to fool the employees into being happier. At least for me, it is a huge red flag and so easy to spot. I would rather a straight up answer that says things as they are. The issue I had with what was said was that it didn't address the issue, it just ignored it. He should have said that at least he wrote it down so it can be addressed after the goals have been met with maybe some kind of promise that action will be taken.

I thought about going into management back when I was still in corporate, but one big issue I came across is that I just didn't fit into the culture, and management style doesn't change unless the culture changes, and culture is extremely difficult to change because managers tend to breed other managers who are exactly like themselves. So if you are in a toxic management culture (like I was), then in order to go into management, then you would need to become toxic yourself and I just wasn't willing to do that. And ultimately, I wasn't willing to remain employed in a toxic culture either. I wanted life balance and they wanted life to be all about work and metrics.

I work for a service provider/reseller, and 50% (or more) of our business is Microsoft-related, but I work on other major vendors. Our team, while often meeting targets and steadily growing, is usually a bit ignored at best.

Then last week management announces that multi-vendor would become super duper important again, starting next year. So I asked how this would be reflected in the sales team's bonus plans, or in the services we will position in the future (which are now 99% Microsoft-focused, leaving us a bit in the cold), or on integration of multi-vendor in existing services, etc.

Nothing.

So basically the message is "your targets will increase faster than your colleagues', and aside from empty words we will do f*ck all to support you".

halfwaywrong wrote:

It's honestly feels weird to say this, but I think I might be enjoying my job?
...
I am in no way fit to be a lead dev - I'd pitch my skills somewhere around mid-level and have essentially been trying to do the ol' "fake it 'till you make it", but it seems to be going ok?
...
Now the only catch is that I'm supposed to be temporary, so I'm expected to go back to doing the job I dislike when it's over. I've been given a small extension to my time there, and my teammates have even asked the powers-that-be for me to stay there permanently, so I hopefully I'll be in luck.

It's also cut my daily commute in half, which is pretty damn good.

Well, the honeymoon might be over? It turns out that "fake it 'till you make it" can quite easily become "fake it 'till you're exposed as a fraud". Also every other team member has decided to propose moving office to the location of my original office. It's a big win for everyone except me, so I don't hold it against them, but that's extra time every day that I was really enjoying. My commute will go from 20 minutes to 40-75 minutes each way. It's pretty discouraging and it's really making me reconsider my future in this team.

On the other hand, I've been extended in this position until the end of the year and I think they're still hoping to poach me. I'll need to discuss this with my manager, I guess? But even that is difficult just to arrange. I can't stand my 'normal' role and I know they've reserved for me a bunch of work I really don't want to do, but I'm not sure how much I can negotiate my way out of it - I know my managers and our client really want me to go back to it asap, but just the thought of it makes me ill.

One of my plans for 2020 was to get out of this job, but, hoo-boy did 2020 do a number on those opportunities.