How's work been?

The job I work at is normally pretty relaxed, but we had an issue last week that's still bothering me, and the fallout of it is still going on. Mostly writing this to vent about it.

I work for a company that leases out servers with proprietary software (built within CentOS) that allows a person/company to stream video into our cloud network, and we provide ultra-low latency transport from endpoints. I'm one of a few people that physically sets the servers up in an install rack using PXE, configures them, tests them, and then ships them out.

To preface this, we have a pretty standard redundant setup, which will have two appliances with hostnames ending in -1/-2, which triggers a redundant configuration in our network. If the primary fails it will automatically fail over, and if the secondary fails we get notified and will troubleshoot to maintain redundancy. If we want to run a non-redundant setup with two appliances, we'd name them -a/-b and they'd be treated as separate sites, effectively... no failover because they aren't tied to each other in the same way.

A few weeks back we get a ticket for a pretty standard redundant site with 2 ISPs, but we didn't have all the IP addresses we'd need to configure the equipment. I kicked it back up to project management, and the build got put on hold until they could finish getting the configuration from the client. Last week we got the ticket back, and while the configuration was what we'd expect, the ticket was changed to reflect a -a/-b configuration instead. Well... considering how weird that was, we ran the flag up trying to get clarification on whether or not the plan changed.

We asked engineering. We asked project management. I sent direct messages to the NOC lead asking him to weigh in. Silence from pretty much everybody. Eventually we get the go ahead from another project manager, in that he agreed with us in that his interpretation is that it's -a/-b. Well, ok, -a/-b it is with a really F'd up configuration (because the IPs I needed before now didn't matter, even though I now had them). I send it up to the NOC to finish the configuration, it's activated (so I no longer have any ability to do anything with it, my logins get removed), and out the door it goes.

It gets to the customer, and the customer calls to ask why it's set up that way, because it's completely wrong. Queue finger pointing. Installs messed up, it should have never been configured this way. Thankfully our direct supervisor basically told them that we'd been bugging everyone that day for clarification and were told to go with this setup.

They're still trying to reconfigure the site. On top of all the work that now has to be done remotely, our puppet system (which is required to fix this, as well as to complete installs) has been down for two days, and the developer that worked on it primarily quit last week for a better job with higher pay. So my department is down, the NOC is handicapped, engineering is a mess, and this site is just in limbo until it all gets fixed. And even though I logically know we did what we could, I still feel bad about a site going out that was so obviously F'd up.

There's a guy at my work who every time I interact with him I think about quitting. He's just a jerk and frankly a bully.

That is no fun, DSGamer. You should definitely do everything you can to report that person to everyone you can (HR, your boss, his boss, etc).

PurEvil wrote:

I work for a company that leases out servers with proprietary software (built within CentOS) that allows a person/company to stream video into our cloud network

HA! I bet I know where you work. If I'm right, I have an endpoint at my work.

DSGamer wrote:

There's a guy at my work who every time I interact with him I think about quitting. He's just a jerk and frankly a bully.

ThatGuy42 wrote:

That is no fun, DSGamer. You should definitely do everything you can to report that person to everyone you can (HR, your boss, his boss, etc).

My suggestion is of a different tact. Most of the time bullies are people that are insecure about something and they lash out to take focus away from it. Instead maybe reach out and ask for help/advice from said bully and maybe it will make them change their tune.

LilCodger wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

I work for a company that leases out servers with proprietary software (built within CentOS) that allows a person/company to stream video into our cloud network

HA! I bet I know where you work. If I'm right, I have an endpoint at my work. :)

Very possible. If it's a three letter initialism, then yup. I was trying to be a bit vague since we are still a bit of a niche use, but not surprised someone here would know it.

Thankfully that situation is now a meme for us. We'll raise the flag on an issue, and reference that customer as "we don't want a [____] happening again" and people tend to give us input now. But holy hell are we ramping up. We're still at half capacity and I think we're about to get slammed with three major deals that all have to be installed by either the beginning or end of December.

DSGamer wrote:

There's a guy at my work who every time I interact with him I think about quitting. He's just a jerk and frankly a bully.

ThatGuy42 wrote:

That is no fun, DSGamer. You should definitely do everything you can to report that person to everyone you can (HR, your boss, his boss, etc).

Something I learned from these forums: HR exists mostly to protect a company from harassment lawsuits. The idea that HR is there to protect the employees is a myth.

That said, I did file a harassment complaint earlier this year with HR. I made it clear that I wasn’t asking for anyone to be fired, just that the harassment needed to stop. I also pointed out that I had already attempted to de-escalate the situation with these bullies, and yes that is exactly what they are, but that my attempts to de-escalate resulted in further escalation from the other party.

Since then the inappropriate behavior has mostly stopped, but I’ve been shunned by this clique which shows how immature they are. It’s the ol’ Viking or victim mentality. You’re either kicking ass or getting your ass kicked; one of the most prevalent and most harmful forms of male toxicity. When men who subscribe to this way of thinking encounter a man who is both polite and strong, they don’t know how to act. It breaks their little dinosaur brains and all they can do to preserve their warped sense of humanity is to pretend that men like me don’t exist. I’m literally invisible to these guys. I make a point to always say hello to them in a polite and courteous manner, and all they can do is pretend that I’m invisible and that they didn’t hear me. f*cking toddlers in the bodies of men who are pushing 60yo.

kazar wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

There's a guy at my work who every time I interact with him I think about quitting. He's just a jerk and frankly a bully.

ThatGuy42 wrote:

That is no fun, DSGamer. You should definitely do everything you can to report that person to everyone you can (HR, your boss, his boss, etc).

My suggestion is of a different tact. Most of the time bullies are people that are insecure about something and they lash out to take focus away from it. Instead maybe reach out and ask for help/advice from said bully and maybe it will make them change their tune.

I agree, sometimes this works. I have had a few instances with folks who just don't work well with me. I don't know why either personality clash or work style clash. Right now I have a team who is unwilling to accept feedback on their work, expect everyone to bend to their wish, and just requests everything very passive aggressively. Is that on us or what do we do? Pretty much nothing. It's not great to see that from a team who is all about optics the internal struggle and politics are insane.

Knowing I took this job over another irks me every day since I made that decision. it's a good job but feels like a weird dream almost every day. When people gaslight you regularly at work it blows.

Hobear wrote:
kazar wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

There's a guy at my work who every time I interact with him I think about quitting. He's just a jerk and frankly a bully.

ThatGuy42 wrote:

That is no fun, DSGamer. You should definitely do everything you can to report that person to everyone you can (HR, your boss, his boss, etc).

My suggestion is of a different tact. Most of the time bullies are people that are insecure about something and they lash out to take focus away from it. Instead maybe reach out and ask for help/advice from said bully and maybe it will make them change their tune.

I agree, sometimes this works. I have had a few instances with folks who just don't work well with me. I don't know why either personality clash or work style clash. Right now I have a team who is unwilling to accept feedback on their work, expect everyone to bend to their wish, and just requests everything very passive aggressively. Is that on us or what do we do? Pretty much nothing. It's not great to see that from a team who is all about optics the internal struggle and politics are insane.

Knowing I took this job over another irks me every day since I made that decision. it's a good job but feels like a weird dream almost every day. When people gaslight you regularly at work it blows.

The problem with this approach is that you are essentially feeding the troll. It totally works with a certain type of bully, but then you need to maintain a submissive posture with them in order to stave off the toxic behavior. In certain situations you might be able to gently re-assert yourself as an equal, and that would be the ideal course of action. If that doesn’t work, you’ll need to firmly and politely assert yourself. That’s the point where you break their dinosaur brains, but they won’t go down without trying to stab you in the back or switching to a more subversive type of harassment. It’s both maddening and sad.

RawkGWJ wrote:

Something I learned from these forums: HR exists mostly to protect a company from harassment lawsuits. The idea that HR is there to protect the employees is a myth.

While that may be true, this is exactly that situation they're trying to prevent against. It is in HR/the company's best interest to get the harassers to cease and desist before you end up litigating a hostile work environment.

Do any of these people have a position of authority over you (either direct line of control or indirect)? If so, their behavior post-complaint could be viewed as retaliation (illegal). Especially if your "invisibility" has included potentially losing out on opportunities that you otherwise might have been considered for.

If the company via HR or other corporate structure are not able or willing to create a non-hostile work environment, you should consider contacting an employment lawyer to discuss your options. If the company's solution is to do anything that could be seen as punishing you, definitely consider contacting an employment lawyer.

PurEvil wrote:

Very possible. If it's a three letter initialism, then yup. I was trying to be a bit vague since we are still a bit of a niche use, but not surprised someone here would know it.

Thankfully that situation is now a meme for us.

Probably it then -- we're a TV station that feeds to CBS with some regularity. Pretty niche.

That's awesome that they responded to it. That's not as common as one would think in the video business. Hope everything works out and the orders roll in. I know I've seen the endpoints at a lot of venues.

kaostheory wrote:
RawkGWJ wrote:

Something I learned from these forums: HR exists mostly to protect a company from harassment lawsuits. The idea that HR is there to protect the employees is a myth.

While that may be true, this is exactly that situation they're trying to prevent against. It is in HR/the company's best interest to get the harassers to cease and desist before you end up litigating a hostile work environment.

This. Frame everything with "potential lawsuit". If they are harassing and you have "evidence", HR will be the end of them. If they are harassing and the "evidence" is suspect/missing, it could well be the end of you.

I spend a lot of time on these forums venting about my work stress. Today is one of the few days where I can say is work is on track for me. Everything is clicking today. Meetings (while still sometimes a waste of time) were productive today. Projects are getting done. Timelines are on track. You know what? I love it when a plan comes together.
IMAGE(https://clipperdata.com/wp-content/uploads/I-love-it-when-a-plan-comes-together-1-300x220.jpg)

LilCodger wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

Very possible. If it's a three letter initialism, then yup. I was trying to be a bit vague since we are still a bit of a niche use, but not surprised someone here would know it.

Thankfully that situation is now a meme for us.

Probably it then -- we're a TV station that feeds to CBS with some regularity. Pretty niche.

That's awesome that they responded to it. That's not as common as one would think in the video business. Hope everything works out and the orders roll in. I know I've seen the endpoints at a lot of venues.

Well, we don't really give them a choice. It caused our senior staff so much extra work that it literally set other projects behind just cleaning up that one site. And it was altogether stupid for someone to not look at it and go, "hey, that's wrong, do it as a redundant pair." That sentence is literally all we would have needed to avoid about 50 man-hours of clean up. It was just so odd to have the build card change from a very standard type build (with a missing IP) to a very different standard that we use in other venues... We figured it had to be intentional.

And yeah, TV stations make up an overwhelming majority of our customers, and we're the only company out there set up this way, so... Hopefully you guys are happy with the service, but if you aren't just shoot me a message.

LilCodger wrote:
kaostheory wrote:
RawkGWJ wrote:

Something I learned from these forums: HR exists mostly to protect a company from harassment lawsuits. The idea that HR is there to protect the employees is a myth.

While that may be true, this is exactly that situation they're trying to prevent against. It is in HR/the company's best interest to get the harassers to cease and desist before you end up litigating a hostile work environment.

This. Frame everything with "potential lawsuit". If they are harassing and you have "evidence", HR will be the end of them. If they are harassing and the "evidence" is suspect/missing, it could well be the end of you.

One other thing to be mindful of: the company, by way of HR, might insist that you try an in house arbitration before you sue. If arbitration fails and you try to take it to court, HR will insist that the arbitration process is still in effect and that you cannot take the matter to court because you signed a contract saying you would do non-legal arbitration. Yet in reality, HR and the company are doing nothing, besides stalling you out.

My Monday -

InfoSec makes a bunch of demands and my manager meets with them, tells them we don't have the manpower to do a lot of it.

So InfoSec waits for him to go on vacation and then submits all the work anyway and demands we do it. As the Assistant Manager I argue with them, close the tickets, argue with them some more.

Eventually my manager calls me and says to stop responding.

Then HR incorrectly submits termination tickets for employees that are not supposed to be terminated. Their managers come shouting at my team and I think we've finally got their accounts, licenses and access reinstated. Meanwhile my team is backed up with all the work they were supposed to be doing all day.

Today I did 45 minutes of data entry. The end result is 11 promotions and 19 additional raises for people in my group.

Wouldn't mind doing that every day.

At work we had a showcase with one of the user groups for the application we're making. It was so rewarding to literally hear them say "wow" at the different new things we're doing for them. They're certainly not impressive from a technical point of view, but we've analysed their workflow, removed what's not needed and made important stuff easier.

It's been a really rough couple of months, with the whole team kind of reaching a point of "screw this, screw the whole damn thing". That's mostly due to office politics, middle management temper tantrums and whatnot. But having the people who actually use our software love what we're doing and instantly recognise the value of it feels really great, really vindicating.

halfwaywrong wrote:

It's been a really rough couple of months, with the whole team kind of reaching a point of "screw this, screw the whole damn thing". That's mostly due to office politics, middle management temper tantrums and whatnot. But having the people who actually use our software love what we're doing and instantly recognise the value of it feels really great, really vindicating.

mrwynd wrote:

My Monday -

InfoSec makes a bunch of demands and my manager meets with them, tells them we don't have the manpower to do a lot of it.

So InfoSec waits for him to go on vacation and then submits all the work anyway and demands we do it. As the Assistant Manager I argue with them, close the tickets, argue with them some more.

Eventually my manager calls me and says to stop responding.

Then HR incorrectly submits termination tickets for employees that are not supposed to be terminated. Their managers come shouting at my team and I think we've finally got their accounts, licenses and access reinstated. Meanwhile my team is backed up with all the work they were supposed to be doing all day.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading about leadership styles and work culture; the leadership sets the culture, whether they like it or not.

The “power over” leadership style utilizes fear, intimidation, shaming and blaming to inspire their employees. This sets up a culture which encourages lying, backstabbing, perfectionism, gossip and other things which get shoved under the umbrella of “workplace politics”. It’s my assumption that most companies use this style of leadership. Rigorous studies have shown that this is the least productive style of leadership. These same studies show that companies who use more healthy styles of leadership get more productivity out of their workers.

I hope that someday “power over” leadership will be the least common. I’m convinced that I have a form of PTSD from the intense “power over” leadership of the company I’ve worked at for the past 28 years. I don’t want my children to have to endure what I’ve had to at work.

It's probably the most common because the better styles require a deliberate choice to implement, and specific training for new managers. I imagine what normally happens is that when someone who worked under that style gets promoted to manager, they default to the style of management they worked under, perpetuating it.

I love actually getting feedback from users. We had an early adopter of the new software I've been working on for over a year back in the summer. And one user made a video talking about how much faster and easier the system was. Very rewarding.

And we had a lot of back and forth with that location, where they asked if we could change x or y and some good discussions on why we did it a certain way vs why they wanted it a certain way. It's really the best way to develop software, with the end users along for the ride, when it's still easy (er) to change things.

I had my yearly evaluation yesterday, and my self-assessment pretty much aligned with my manager's - the good and the bad. So far so good. But it got weird whenever I pointed out my expectations outside my own responsibilities.

When I said I look forward to hearing my new direct manager's plans for our team, I got the reply that I shouldn't be waiting for his initiative. So I had to point out the project I did with a vendor, partner and marketing agency (again). When I asked for my future manager's plans for our teams directly, I got a big nothingburger of corporate speak, and the same feedback. So I had to again point out that I was looking forward to having someone to spar with, and that I was NOT implying that he would have to do the heavy lifting alone. To me this says my new manager does not have a plan, and that our general manager will put the blame for that on me not him.

I expressed my frustration with colleagues who forget to put me or my fellow team members on a quote/sales order we work on. When this happens we don't get recognition, so no bonus and of course trouble when we don't meet our targets. I specifically said that I get that mistakes happen, but that it's demoralizing and infuriating how casually people react when these surface. They directly impact other people's pay-cheques, which would mortify me, but internally they're met with a shrug at best. Despite actively and specifically asking for support of my management, I didn't even get a reply.

The reply I got during the evaluation? "I wish you were this passionate when selling our services."

That's what I got each and every time, a deflection back to me, even though I 100% owned up to my mistakes this year. I felt like I was being gaslighted, honestly, if only in how I only fully realized afterwards what had happened.

Sounds like it is time to look for a new job even if you plan on staying at your current one.
Also document this. Technically it is documented in the review process but you probably won't have access to that and or you won't necessarily know if your concerns are documented accurately. (unless you do it yourself)

Yeah if whoever gave you that eval is going to stick around, time to look for a new job. They have already formed their opinion and don’t sound interesting in changing it.

I think about all those birthday/new baby/congratulation cards I signed for co-workers at my old company that fired me a year ago. I meant it all. "Congrats!" "Happy birthday!" "Wishing you the best!" "Kids are great!"

Now I'm just not there.

Thanks fangblackbone & LeapingGnome for being so direct, you're right and I'm starting to realize just that. Every meeting I've had with him during the last year (all 3 of them :lol:) went the same way honestly.

I'm putting out feelers with my contacts, and assume I'm on borrowed time at my current place.

Well, hopefully what I/we said was constructive. It isn't a great time to look for work but while everyone has to put up with some degree of lack of recognition at work, dealing with zero recognition has never ended well for me. That includes whether the job was ending within a couple of weeks or as much as 6-8 months later.

I am pretty hard on myself but the one thing I know is that I am very competent. The one job that lasted 8+ more months with lack of recognition almost had me believing I was incompetent. That is a serious mind f*ck that can do real damage and took a couple of years to recover from.

It was really constructive for sure. Nothing egregious has happened so far, and I get mixed signals all the time, so it's nice to hear I'm not going mad Basically he always SAYS he appreciates me, I'm the best in my field, yadda yadda, but when it comes to ACTIONS he never has my back.

Two more great colleagues have resigned in the meantime, I've spoken with both of them and boy the stories... One guy especially, who is now a sales but used to be manager, has been shafted on numerous occasions. I'm talking actual sabotage through shifting customers away, setting impossible targets, or refusing to recognize deals on his accounts. And management is acting really sh*tty on the terms & conditions for their departures as well. No company is perfect, but this is not how we used to be for sure.

On the plus side, that sales guy thinks he has an opportunity for me but can only discuss it when everything's sorted out. I have a talk with a former partner on another opportunity early next year, and a few more ideas in my head. So the ball is rolling.

My biggest fear: that I will be equally unmotivated in my new job. I really want that drive back from a few years ago, but am SO afraid that I will not be able to muster the energy to really dig into a new job. The only way to find out of course, is to actually make the jump.

Leave a few weeks in between jobs to recharge. Even if you think you are not stressed, you are. Take the time, a week or two more than you think you need. It'll be worth it.

I'm working for a startup (my first ever), and they're great guys, but wow they have no idea what they're doing. This is the third time my entire workflow has changed since I started. In October. It gets a bit better/more manageable with each change, so it's going in the right direction, but DAMN.

I can't be mad about it because they're great guys and hiring me in 2020 is amazing, but I am VERY...bemused by it all.

My 2020 was overall really good.

I'm at 3.5 years at my current employer - sort of. My company (40 employees) was bought by a larger company from another state (900 employees) in January of 2019. My Manager and his Director got a layoff. They brought in a new Director above me and we get along great. He promoted me to IT manager early this year. They bought another software company in my city and having me here is a great advantage so there's no expectation to move. My Director has expressed a desire to promote me further.

On the personal side my wife and kids are healthy and happy. We bought a house that's twice the size of our old one with almost an acre of backyard exactly where we wanted. Since being diagnosed with HCM in 2018 I'm on meds and diet that make me feel better than I have in years. I'm at a financial point in my life where I can save, provide for my family and donate to causes I feel are important.

I'm in a really good place and wanted to share, thanks.