Octopus Overlords

So I allowed my hat to be thrown into the ring regarding a job that would be a huge step backwards. The reasons for doing so is (1) I no longer NEED to make what I used to make, (2) the location (Naperville) is as convenient as I'm likely to find and (3) the countdown is down to 2 years if I wish to remain in this country.

Now, the recruiter is a company I've dealt with many times so far, with maybe one client interview. That is not a good track record. Reasons I think it might be different this time? 40% pay cut, and they are looking to fill the job immediately -- meaning the Disney trip in less than 4 weeks could be in jeopardy.

I just asked my 5 year old daughter which is more important -- Disney or daddy finding a job. Without hesitation, she said "daddy finding a job."

If you tell them some flexibility would be worth a pay difference, you can probably get that Disney vacation.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Wed May 25, 2022 2:53 pm I just asked my 5 year old daughter which is more important -- Disney or daddy finding a job. Without hesitation, she said "daddy finding a job."

It's funny, kids will get upset if they lose a rock, but when it comes to the big things that matter in life they're usually spot on.

Two weeks to go.

The Head of School dropped a bombshell about possibly lawsuits over people who left anonymous reviews on an international teaching website (behind a paywall) that got out onto Reddit and into the hands of some of the parents. While I will miss some parts of teaching I'm becoming convinced that it was a good move to leave now instead of going for 2 more years in this school.

My wife and I are handling things very differently. She is dealing with all the details of the move back the the US, planning health appointments while she still has the international health coverage (because its deductible has been met), and attempting to pick dates for seeing my parents, her mom, our kids, and my siblings in the first month or so without spending all the time driving. I've become very laid back on those plans but really want to talk about the longer term issues around our one best chance to intentionally pick where we want to live. Normally this split in thinking is actually a good thing but right now I feel like I am spinning my wheels while she feels she is going crazy.

I don't remember how much I posted about this upthread, but quick summary: started working for a startup recently, and I might have mentioned spidey senses going off.

Said senses were correct on a couple of issues (at least).

1. They are definitely pitching the company to sell, even though HR was adamant when I started (and maybe before I agreed to work here) that the owner was going to retain at least 50% control, did not want to sell his millions dollar baby. Now today our CFO says that they are down to 3 "investors" from 25. I straight up ask him in front of everybody (bc I suspected): how many of those offers are for more than 50% of the company? Answer: all of them. OK. Actually, from what I have seen so far, that's probably a good thing (unless it means I get cut before I can bounce to another job)

2. A/C in our downtown office building has been broken for the past week (for reference, it reached 95 today). There has been very much a hesitation to send people home to work instead of just sweating it out in our office (even with two commercial internal A/C units, it was between 82 and 86 inside). 82 is tolerable but not great, 86 is....not comfortable, and for me personally, makes it hard to concentrate. To be clear, they HAVE been sending us home, but not like "oh shit, it's 82 and climbing, everybody go home to work again today"...it's very much a wait and see and delay making a decision (it's not going to get any cooler so I have no idea what that is even about). The whole feeling about it has turned me off bc I think it's probably representative of senior management's mentality.

3. I'm somewhat pissed at myself for accepting a job at about a 40% discount compared to what I made previously (before being a mailman, construction worker grunt and delivery boy ) I guess on the bright side, at my age, even being ABLE to get back to 40% of my previous base salary is pretty good compared to what I was doing (and making, relative to time required).

I'm not even sure I can go further (this list could go on for a long time...I will spare us all that pain)...I think I just need to start looking asap. They have basically ignored me, and I am starting to think they have just been trying to hire a bunch of new people as quickly as possible to fill seats so things look good for potential buyers....growth! New building! New team based in the US! etc.

An outside sales guy that has been here a year just quit the other day. The customer service guy they hired with me (inside sales) is quittting tomorrow. My direct boss, commercial director, has been completely absent. I literally did not hear peep from her for at least my entire first week here, and maybe even more. Can't even leave a vm or send a quick welcome email lady?! I bet you're thinking "that's pretty damn unprofessional", and I would agree, except this lady worked for a massive multinational company for like 20 years before this, as a pretty high up global sales director. Probably one of the biggest reasons I agreed to work here (and the fact that I needed income asap). I finally figured out she is just one of those ppl that talks a VERY big game, and bc she's been in sales forever, and is VERY good at it...she uses those particular set of skills very well in her everyday dealings with other people, including direct reports. i.e. all talk, no action.

Side note, unrelated: she was literally three days ago diagnosed with stage 2 throat cancer, and has already started treatment (chemo I guess?). Sent a MASSIVE text to the US sales guys (there's 5 of us currently) going off on "senior management" (which is like...three people at most), saying they can fuck off, etc. (obviously on meds...but maybe not!). Asked us not to tell anyone, bc she doesn't want them to know (except the CEO for some reason?!). Anyway, it was a pretty big tirade from someone either in shock at learning such a horrible thing, or more likely IMO, on some serious meds (completely understandable). Point being, she has been butting heads big time, and I had already predicted this...is likely going to leave (I thought this BEFORE the cancer issue) soon, or be let go. Bad fit, she sucks...whatever...was not working out.

She also had sent me some cryptic ass messages privately along the lines of "there's some good news I can't tell you about until after next Tuesday, and PARTICULARLY good news for you!" OK? Well, that Tuesday came and went, and I even asked about it. No answer whatsoever.

Final thoughts: it's so damn early...this will be my 5th week here FFS! I just see the exact opposite of what I was HOPING for this to be, which was an agile, hungry startup, that was 150% focused on customers. This is not that company. It's like they took the inherent advantages of a late stage startup (namely agility, flexibility, great one on one customer service, etc) and suffocated it with processes, BI, HR(!), and a turtle-like speed with clients, according to the guy that just left.

Inevitable car analogy: It's like taking a beautiful, brand new 911 Porsche and stripping off the awesome OEM tires, and replacing with the kludgiest snow tires out there. Then putting bricks in the trunk. And a rack on top with as much weight as it will carry. And filling it with the shittiest gas you can buy. You get the point.

TheMix wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 3:19 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 12:33 pm

Archinerd wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:05 pm I may need to find a new job. The stress form mine has contributed to giving me GERD, which I think is basically an ulcer heading toward the input instead of the output.

Don't sacrifice your health for a company that won't help you when you ask for it.

Q.F.T.

First resume out. I'm applying for a job where the posted min. salary is double what I make now, and it appears to be about half the work.
Even better, I'm qualified. We'll see where it goes.

Good luck!

Archinerd wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 10:18 am

TheMix wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 3:19 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 12:33 pm

Archinerd wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:05 pm I may need to find a new job. The stress form mine has contributed to giving me GERD, which I think is basically an ulcer heading toward the input instead of the output.

Don't sacrifice your health for a company that won't help you when you ask for it.

Q.F.T.

First resume out. I'm applying for a job where the posted min. salary is double what I make now, and it appears to be about half the work.
Even better, I'm qualified. We'll see where it goes.

Luck to you!!!

I have a phone interview tomorrow at 4.
Extra wrinkle, I also have covid. It's a weird week.

My career is officially gone.

On Friday I finished packing the physics classroom, handed in my laptop, and waved the buses of kids off campus while wearing the silly "I'm retired. You're not!" shirt that the rest of the science department got me. I'm ready to be done with grading, feeling bittersweet about not having to deal with students in two months, and surprisingly stressed about repatriating.

Even just 9 months ago when I kicked this plan into motion I was excited at the possibilities. The rise in housing prices, general inflation, and the decline in the stock market those 9 months have done their best to temper my enthusiasm and limit my options. Even in Jan I felt like we were comfortably well above the money we needed. Now we're fine but I'm feeling much more anxious as my wife has made fairly clear that she trusts my numbers but she's not going to be the one going back to work if things don't work out.

I feel ya! I started my final preparation in September. Since than over 20% of my "wealth" has disappeared while most of the things I buy have nearly doubled in price and my car feel like it's ready to puke about two years before I wanted to replace it. So now my cash reserves are jeopardy of being needed to pay inflated prices for a car and my investments are trying to weather a storm. I'm still within living means but ow it hurts. It'll hurt a bit more when I have to start paying for my own health insurance in October.




Still, I don't have it in me to work any more. I'm a month out and I'm just as burnt out as I was March when my work work ethic went to zero. It's a full time job to walk, stretch, rest, and then do a small amount of work around the house or run errands every day. And it's nice to have a little energy in the reserves to spend with friends or family one or two times a week.

I will be receiving the Silver Snoopy award from an Astronaut on July 20th. Always hoped one day i would get one. And yes, my first name is Jeffrey, although i go by my middle name.

Lassr wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2022 9:25 am I will be receiving the Silver Snoopy award from an Astronaut on July 20th. Always hoped one day i would get one. And yes, my first name is Jeffrey, although i go by my middle name.

That's awesome man, congrats!!

Wow, congrats!

Yeah. I'd never heard of it. But that's fantastic. Grats!

Silver Snoopy? Do they have a Golden Woodstock?

Congrats!

Archinerd wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 10:14 am I have a phone interview tomorrow at 4.
Extra wrinkle, I also have covid. It's a weird week.

Update;

Initial interview went well, as did the follow up.
I was also sent a small test on the position's day to day responsibilites, which I was told I did very well on.
Tomorrow, I'm supposed to have a "job shadow" day, just to make sure "I'm making an informed decision".

I don't have a ton of experience interviewing for jobs, but I think it's been a bit of a unconventional process.

Until now, I've been pretty excited about this. It pays well, I'm qualified, and it would allow me to work independently.
But... there are a couple of red flags;

1) My first interview didn't start at the scheduled time, he got the time wrong and called me 2 hours early. I was okay with that though, I was available at the time and could just get it out of the way instead of thining about it for a few more hours.

2) The salary the recruiter posted was incorrect, and is actually closer to (but still higher) than what I'm currently making. Not double.
Which when I first learned that was a bit of a relief, becuase I kept thinking there was more to the job that I was missing, and seemed too good to be true. Turns out I was right.

3) My second interview was a video call, scheduled for late on a Friday afternoon. I didn't get any info (other than time of call) until 3 min. beforehand, meaning I hadn't been able to make sure I could download or login to any apps I might have needed, or approx how long the call was going to be. It worked out fine with no issues, but it would have been nice to have a buffer in case I needed to troubleshoot a "computer" problem.

4) A week ago we scheduled that tomorrow would be a good day for my "job shadow" day. Other than a text message from them confirming that tomorrow is the day, I don't have any other details. Where to go, what time to show up, how long I should be planning to be there... nothing. There are some basic logistics that I need to take care of on my end, it would be nice to have a basic outline instead of just guessing. I could reach out to them, but I don't really think that should be on me, we already confirmed the day and I was told a schedule would be emailed to me.

Each on it's own I can justify, but all together I'm not feeling too good about this anymore.
My gut tells me I should probably keep looking - this is after all the first (and only) job I've applied to in my current search.

I've never heard of such a thing for a job. Interning? Absolutely. But shadowing someone before they're given an offer letter? Unless that's the new rage among HR circles, I'm at al loss.

That said, I can think of a more than a few times when it might have saved me - assuming my future boss was acting like they eventually did after I was hired. It would be a great way to get information, but I'm still at a loss thinking of a scenario where I've heard about this for a post-college degree (and licensed professional) hiring.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:14 am I've never heard of such a thing for a job. Interning? Absolutely. But shadowing someone before they're given an offer letter? Unless that's the new rage among HR circles, I'm at al loss.

Intern, sure, but I've got 19 years of experience.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:14 am That said, I can think of a more than a few times when it might have saved me - assuming my future boss was acting like they eventually did after I was hired. It would be a great way to get information, ...

My thinking as well.

*sigh* The ideal driver position seems to have evaporated as "project was put on hold". I'll try to drum up more tour guiding business... AFTER I deal with jury duty which supposedly starts tomorrow.

Lassr wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2022 9:25 am I will be receiving the Silver Snoopy award from an Astronaut on July 20th. Always hoped one day i would get one. And yes, my first name is Jeffrey, although i go by my middle name.

This is legitimately one of the coolest awards I've ever heard of. Congrats!!!!!

Just found out one of my coworkers is leaving. She's an ITS II. This position was supposed to be a technical position but got converted to more of a Contracts paper pusher type position. The unsaid thing was when this position became available about 2 years ago, I would apply and interview with the hopes that I would be selected. (At least that's my impression from the hints I received) Then upper management decided to change the scope of that position which didn't suit my skill set.

So this person is leaving and they decided to realign that position back to technical duties. And of course the exam list that I was on (which they base my qualifications) was abolished 2 weeks ago and I have to retake a lengthy exam before I can apply.

So, I know what I'm doing this weekend. Right now I'm maxed out and constantly getting work dumped on me. Hoping this will work on so I can at least be compensated for that extra work and further my career.

Archinerd wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:18 am

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:14 am I've never heard of such a thing for a job. Interning? Absolutely. But shadowing someone before they're given an offer letter? Unless that's the new rage among HR circles, I'm at al loss.

Intern, sure, but I've got 19 years of experience.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:14 am That said, I can think of a more than a few times when it might have saved me - assuming my future boss was acting like they eventually did after I was hired. It would be a great way to get information, ...

My thinking as well.

I ended up doing my job shadow day on Friday. It was interesting, some good, some not so much.

I think I'd be really good at the job, the boss trusts people to do their work, and there would be a lot more flexibility in work hours & location. They have great client reviews, and the boss truly seems to support and value his employees.

... but everything is also a bit too hectic and all over the place.
His 20 year old company is still set up in a couple of spare bedrooms in his condo, and the whole thing is a cluttered mess. Piles of stuff everywhere with no distinction between his personal stuff and business stuff. It gave me flash backs to my first job out of college, another home office firm. I would sometimes arrive to work and the contractor/friend, who was out on parole for drunk driving, would be coming out of the bathroom with only a towel on. And then there was the time he met a girl on the train platform and was engaged to her within a month. She didn't speak English (and he didn't speak Spanish), and his mom was coming to meet her and stay with him for 2 weeks! Oh, and the office is moving 3 towns over 2 weeks after that. This place didn't seem anywhere near the level of dysfunction there, but I have no desire to repeat the experience.
And it's not a large company (15ish people), and about 1/3 are part-timers, which seems odd to me considering the amount of projects they do.

The next step seems to be for me to interview the other project manager sometime this week to see how she likes her job. I guess, but it also seems like another hoop.
...and still no official offer.

Something is off and I can still afford to be choosey, I'm moving on.

Wife is getting an 18% increase. As usual, she's getting it by changing jobs. Current job (which is on her second tour with) - "you are already at the top of the pay scale." Um...that was a year ago before inflation jacked everything up by double-digits. If your pay scale doesn't move with the times, eventually all your employees will seek success elsewhere. I told her by accepting that, she's for all intents and purposes accepting a 10% pay cut.

She almost blew off that interview yesterday after seeing how long the drive was (it took an hour to get there, with me driving). I told her she was there, go in and say hi, get some interview practice before declining. She came out all excited, because the structure of the place will leave her more time to do actual nursing and less time doing administrative stuff or CNA work.

geezer wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 8:19 pm

Lassr wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2022 9:25 am I will be receiving the Silver Snoopy award from an Astronaut on July 20th. Always hoped one day i would get one. And yes, my first name is Jeffrey, although i go by my middle name.

This is legitimately one of the coolest awards I've ever heard of. Congrats!!!!!

Dude! That's pretty freeekin amazing! And it flew in space which is way cool! And presented by an astronaut?! <faints>

geezer wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 8:19 pm

Lassr wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2022 9:25 am I will be receiving the Silver Snoopy award from an Astronaut on July 20th. Always hoped one day i would get one. And yes, my first name is Jeffrey, although i go by my middle name.

This is legitimately one of the coolest awards I've ever heard of. Congrats!!!!!

WTG S!

Jeffery the goat. Who'd of thunk it.

Thanks everyone. So the ceremony was postponed due to COVID. To be scheduled for a later date. Hopefully soon. I'll post pictures when it happens.

Seriously cool (pending) achievement there, Lassr!

Also, just need to say that I would go by Lassr too, if it was my middle name.

7% annual raise.

Chief is efforting a rebalance for the IT group against true employment market rates, not just for orgs our size. Because all that does is make us the training wheels for people to learn valuable skills and go make better money elsewhere. No timeline on that, as I assume there's some deep research and politicking involved.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:58 pm 7% annual raise.

Chief is efforting a rebalance for the IT group against true employment market rates, not just for orgs our size. Because all that does is make us the training wheels for people to learn valuable skills and go make better money elsewhere. No timeline on that, as I assume there's some deep research and politicking involved.

So adjusted for inflation, you're getting about a 3% pay cut?

My wage growth and promotions in previous years more than make up for it. And yes, I have a spreadsheet.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 11:05 pm My wage growth and promotions in previous years more than make up for it. And yes, I have a spreadsheet.

Cost of living adjustments are not promotions and have nothing to do with them. Your company is not keeping up with the cost of living, which means potential opportunity with companies that do. My wife's soon-to-be-former company is learning that the hard way -- they stuck by their pre-inflation guns and told her she's already making top scale -- but that's the scale she was hired at more than a year ago.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 11:33 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 11:05 pm My wage growth and promotions in previous years more than make up for it. And yes, I have a spreadsheet.

Cost of living adjustments are not promotions and have nothing to do with them. Your company is not keeping up with the cost of living, which means potential opportunity with companies that do. My wife's soon-to-be-former company is learning that the hard way -- they stuck by their pre-inflation guns and told her she's already making top scale -- but that's the scale she was hired at more than a year ago.

Not everyone is looking to constantly job/company hop in search of higher wages. Some people don't want to. Some people don't need to.

Where I work, the people usually complaining loudest about things like pay are the worst employees anyway, and are the ones who wind up getting let go or quitting and actually taking a pay cut at a new job.

This is isn't about my career. I just had to share what is going on with my wife's career though because it could be a Harvard Business Review case for biggest shit show. Her company was bought at the end of last year by a company backed by private equity. She is one of the senior most people there. 2 out of the 3 previous owners cashed out and the last previous owner was left in charge pending an integration plan. Around end of March they told everyone the plan was not to integrate and run standalone for at least a year except for HR/payroll.

Come payroll integration at the beginning of the summer they broke everyone's payroll. Due to a calendar effect, everyone had disrupted pay. The HR record keeping had been done by 1 of the 3 previous owners and they found out *AFTER CUTOVER* that they had holes in their payroll data for the entire year. For example, they lost track of everyone's PTO. So they asked my wife to figure out how many vacation days people had. I joked it had to be a test because they absolutely had to have that information. Turns out they truly somehow did not have it. She gathered the data for nearly 60 employees by hand, much of it obviously inaccurate or padded, and gave it to them. It went into the new system verbatim. OK terrific. They also broke tons of people's pay rates, tax allocations, titles, and people weren't moved into the new health care plan (including a woman on my wife's team in the middle of chemo treatment - again terrific).

Along the way, the new parent company was restructuring to prepare to eventually integrate. The former owner kept telling her they didn't have a role for her but they definitely wanted her to stay. They just had to figure something out. My wife is the person who essentially keeps the lights on at a $50M/year revenue business. She now fixes HR issues, she keeps the labs running, production running, and the warehouses going. My wife is pretty much the head of operations there in everything but the pay and title.

For this work, she got one of the best reviews I've ever seen with my own eyes. Yet, they have been stringing her along on her role in the future for months now. Some of her peers were in the same boat. One in particular eventually got fed up being strung along and took another job. The new leadership freaked out, told him verbally they were going to give him a new title, but ultimately sent him a new job description and counter offer at a salary *well below* what had been offered. That job is in a low cost of living state. Sayonara peer. He literally left in the middle of the day and took his family on vacation with his signing bonus. LOL.

This led to a massive freak-out by management as the new leadership realized senior leaders were now abandoning ship. The former owner told HR/the leadership in the new regime they had to do something for my wife because she was going to bolt too. Which is what I have been counseling her to do. I realized way back that this company was a shit show due to some of the leadership calls my wife participated in. It features some of the worst management I've ever seen. If I was told this was an update on Brewster's Millions where the CEO had to wreck the company to get a billion dollars I'd believe it.

Still the peer quitting in the middle of the day seemed to light some sort of fire to take the situation seriously...for about a minute. What's amazing is that despite the former owner saying she was the biggest flight risk and was the person keeping everything running, they focused on the impact on...day to day operations. They called a meeting with my wife and asked her to calm people down and keep the ship afloat. So she asked them point blank what her future was which kicked off pure panic. They had an HR leader call her immediately, They told her they'd be setting her up with a retention package and her role was on the cusp of being defined for her. That was 2 weeks ago.

Last week, they suddenly shutdown the whole warehouse mid-week and said all the companies labeling was in the violation of the law. Who shut them down? The central business leadership out in the mid-west. They claimed that a key piece of information was missing on product labels. My wife was working from home and I observed the conversations. It became clear to me it was the pre-text for something because no one could explain what was wrong, what was illegal about the current labels (they've been that way for years) or why they weren't producing or shipping product. They were demanding a change that would require a massive data effort. My wife has worked in this industry for 15ish years and said no one else has this labeling requirement. It was a pure mystery. I said they're clearly suddenly trying to fire her boss (the former owner).

Come last night, the former owner sends an email to all employees at 8 PM saying everyone must be in the office for a morning meeting. Wut? This starts a literal panic of phone calls to my wife about layoffs, etc. So what happened? They announced that they'll be closing the facility "sometime next year" but everyone would have jobs. Then HR brought my wife into an office and told her she was now in charge of keeping an eye on people. She texted me to ask what they meant. I said, "yup. they're firing your boss". At the end of day he shows up and says he's going on vacation and he'll probably never be back.

I have to say I've seen many bad/rough mergers. I participated in one where people were shoulder checking people in the hallway. At least that one was organized. This one takes the cake for just sheer chaos and incompetence. Keep in mind this business was very profitable. I almost feel like they are tanking the value to screw over the old ownership somehow. Or maybe it's a tax write off. Who knows.

For example, the location is key to its biggest customer. They can't relocate it so everyone is scratching their head. The product that makes ~60% of their profit alone doesn't make economic sense if you have to transport it. It's a heavier than water liquid. They are physically proximate to the customer and have a pipeline straight to the customer. The to be production location is 30 miles away and obviously there is no pipeline. They are being told they'll switch to trucking and raise the price....except they have a 5 year contract with the customer. You can't make this shit up. The new ownership apparently had no idea how the business makes money. They also seemingly didn't think through the impact of shitcanning the former owner on the day he announces the closing, along with the rest of the leadership abandoning ship over the past few weeks.

In any case, luckily my wife has had feelers out for awhile. She has a great reputation and has a call lined up with a new job. Still, she is comforting the troops at a bar right now. The retention offer? The new role? She asked about it today since HR was there. They said, it'll be soon. Lol. THIS IS PURE INSANITY. I've never seen anything like this. They are clearly stripping it down for parts but the way it is playing out only makes sense if the only thing valuable is the building. They are pretty much burning the business they bought to the ground.

Edit: Oh and that mysterious labeling issue? They'll work on it "in parallel" with operations but they need to get the factory up and running. I imagine someone is getting sued.

Time to bail this sinking ship.

i was fretting about giving this demo for the 'end of sprint' meeting but i didn't check the meeting title.... a coworker Slacks me 'i think we're going to get laid off' and i was like 'uh what?' then i saw the meeting - all the end of sprint stuff was cancelled and the meeting we were in was just called 'Discussion' and had two of the founders, the CEO, only three other coworkers and a cc: to the part time HR person

one week of severance pay!?