Octopus Overlords

x-posted from my facebook page:

As a child my imagination was always captured by doors bearing the sign "Authorized Personnel Only." The only purpose I could imagine for such a sign was that there was some truly marvelous secret being hidden from all of us lowly Unauthorized people.

As I got older, particularly after I worked on the other side of that door in a restaurant, I fairly quickly came to the conclusion that there generally wasn't anything good on the other side of that door. It was just there to keep the general public out of the way of people doing boring, menial jobs.
But still...there is always that part of me that wonders about the other side of that door. My new job in the OR takes me to the other side of the door in all kinds of amazing ways that would have fascinated the childhood me.

There are red lines on the ground, marking areas one is not to cross unless dressed in specific attire. There are "semi-restricted" and "restricted" zones. There are all kinds of special machines and equipment, the vast majority of which I still don't understand. There is, of course, special jargon for everything. Today we had a class where we learned special ways of doing the normally ordinary action of just handing an item to another person. Not to mention a special way of washing your hands in a way never used in any other context.

There are constant reminders of actual dangers. Devices that have a very real risks of starting fires. There's the MRI hall, down which one may not even walk without special certification lest a stray item left carelessly in a pocket might become a dangerous projectile.

And, beyond the mostly protected of all doors, views of the inside of the human body.

I didn't mention it in this thread, but I walked into my year end review expecting the worst and walked out with a promotion. Truly was shocked.

Same job, same responsibilities, but with slightly more pay and year end bonuses.

So I guess I'll stick it out here for a while longer.

Congrats! Those are among the best kinds of unexpected surprises!

hentzau wrote: So I guess I'll stick it out here for a while longer.

Does that mean you didn't execute the remote wipe on 12,000 mobile devices that I assumed you were plotting from your FB post?

Congrats!

I have been semi-actively seeking to change jobs. My current job is stagnating badly and I'm literally at home all day doing nothing. Some people would call that the dream - I am ready to jump out the window. Anyway I'll tell you interviewing has become way wackier than I ever remember.

My quick impression is that we are in for a lot more security breaches. I've been generally only shooting for Sr. Mgr./Director level roles. So I usually have reasonably high level discussions with CISOs/heads of departments/etc. Almost every place I have talked to had severe red flags that would lead me to turn down an offer. They were almost always undersized and their organizations were not aligned to anything approaching a sane structure and/or reporting relationship with senior management. I recently went to one where I actually considered shorting the stock - they are that bad. They have a single "CISO" and an analyst. For a $5 Billion company. Wanted to outsource everything to stay "lean". Good luck with that. They weren't doing fundamental blocking and tackling even. I just couldn't figure out what would get them headline exposure so they'll probably get (or are) hacked and it likely won't be big news.

I also nearly walked out of an interview - the guy was the single biggest douche I've ever interviewed with. If he responded to one more response to a question with a sarcastic, "Cool...." I would have been out the door. There were red flags about him as a manager from the HR person even. I came to find out multiple people had turned down offers from this company. I also found out we had co-workers in common and they were not...complimentary. One of the nicest guys I know called him challenging to work with. Enough said. Guess I'll keep grinding - it feels much more like a numbers game than in the past. I get about 10 new job calls a day and am interested in maybe 2 a week. So it might be awhile.

Jeff V wrote:

hentzau wrote: So I guess I'll stick it out here for a while longer.

Does that mean you didn't execute the remote wipe on 12,000 mobile devices that I assumed you were plotting from your FB post?

Congrats!

No, our upgrade this past weekend was about as smooth of an upgrade as I've ever been part of. You know it's a good upgrade when you come in on Monday and everyone is asking "So did you do the upgrade? I didn't see anything happen this weekend."

hentzau wrote:

Jeff V wrote:

hentzau wrote: So I guess I'll stick it out here for a while longer.

Does that mean you didn't execute the remote wipe on 12,000 mobile devices that I assumed you were plotting from your FB post?

Congrats!

No, our upgrade this past weekend was about as smooth of an upgrade as I've ever been part of. You know it's a good upgrade when you come in on Monday and everyone is asking "So did you do the upgrade? I didn't see anything happen this weekend."

Let me guess...the title of the position you were promoted to ISN'T "BOFH".

No, I went from "Service Engineer - Lead Consultant" to "Service Engineer - Exp". Yeah, I have no clue. Experienced? I actually went out on our intranet and tried to find out what Exp stands for.

Expendable?

So that's why they gave me a red shirt to wear...

My employer cracked the top 20 in Fortune's best places to work. Not what you'd necessarily expect from a bank.

coopasonic wrote:My employer cracked the top 20 in Fortune's best places to work. Not what you'd necessarily expect from a bank.

Wells Fargo?

coopasonic wrote:My employer cracked the top 20 in Fortune's best places to work. Not what you'd necessarily expect from a bank.

That slide is like a 50 placement bump just on its own. It would be a 100 place bump if they allowed anyone to use it.

hentzau wrote:No, I went from "Service Engineer - Lead Consultant" to "Service Engineer - Exp". Yeah, I have no clue. Experienced? I actually went out on our intranet and tried to find out what Exp stands for.

I'd bet on "Expert" in that context.

The Meal, on Mon, 2015 Feb 02 10:01, wrote:I have a tenuous position as a design engineer in a field which promises to go the way of the buggy whip. It's a matter of how soon. Fortunately for me, I'm a highly-paid buggy whip designer, so it's hard to leave on my own free will.

I came into the industry working as a test engineer, working within the R&D auspices. R&D in my field is generally 20% test engineers and 80% design engineers (DEs). When looking for work outside my industry, that ratio seems to be even more heavily weighed in the DE direction (90%+). Within the past few years I've been moved over into the DE organization. It's nice in the sense that I'm more part of the mainstream with easier to measure metrics (to show my value to the bean counters) and generate an easier-to-follow resume for interested parties outside my field. The negative is that the job is a bit more Groundhog Day (topical!) in that I generally have a better sense as to how any given week will be spent (as a test engineer, I spent the majority of my time fighting fires, not knowing where the next design flaw of interest may crop up). The lessons learned earlier in my career translate well into my new role, but to some extent the change has sent me a bit backwards seniority-wise, as I don't have as much DE background as other folks who've been doing this job for 16 years have.

Still, positive reviews have been generated, and as far as titles go, I'm comfortable with my place in life. I watch younger, more eager, go-getters get larger amounts of responsibility without any jealous emotions cropping up. I do not aspire to bigger pieces of the pie and do not feel like my talents are getting squandered. I have suitable amounts of ownership over my demesnes, and generally work with capable coworkers who do a good part with their own plots.

The Meal, on Fri, 2016 Feb 12 10:46, wrote:

The Meal wrote:I have a tenuous position as a design engineer in a field which promises to go the way of the buggy whip. It's a matter of how soon. Fortunately for me, I'm a highly-paid buggy whip designer, so it's hard to leave on my own free will...

Nearly four years ago my current company announced a merger with one of the other big players in the field. However, one of our competitors at the time had recently picked up a smaller player, and shortly thereafter, China realized they failed to flex their authority in the process of allowing that merger to come to fruition. Not so with my company's deal, and it took the greater part of three years before it was consummated. (Business-wise, it's sort of a fascinating story, though I'm in no particular mood to go into it.)

As the deal has finalized, the past few months have seen the top levels of the new, merged organization get announced. And it's been a bloodbath for my (legacy) company executive management. This doesn't tend to bode well for folks who were currently under that old organization. I work in a small group at a satellite office to a satellite office of our former mothership, and recent product roadmap adjustments have left my team with development of a product with no practical future follow-on work.

In other words, it looks like my own free will is about to be taken out of the equation. (Official news to arrive possibly as soon as next month, but it's been promised that we'll hear no later than the conclusion of the first round of the NHL playoffs.)

Change has always treated me well, so I'm not particularly concerned. I'm still young enough and expect to interview well enough that I expect to find a soft landing spot. In some sense it will be a relief to finally start writing pages in the next volume of whatever my career will become.

In working on this end-of-platform product, I've been under the gun to an absurd amount for the past few months. That hasn't changed, though this week, with the exiting-stage-left of some principal players at the satellite office to which we report, there has been some very fishy (seemingly malicious) breakdown of our online tools required to complete our jobs. Email systems are down. License servers for nearly every one of our (non-Office) tools are broken. This began last Tuesday afternoon and promises to continue to be our reality until next Tuesday. In an industry where every day a product schedule slips is measured in seven digits to the corporate bottom line, this is rather devastating. The workload piles up behind a dam and it's going to be (extra) ugly when that sucker breaks free...

Fresh out of college heading into my industry (1998), I receive a nice salary from the get-go. I was at my first employer for 20 months and received two pay bumps in that time, including one title change promotion. When I moved to my second company (2000) I received a significant pay bump and a bonus check that'd have paid for more than 1700 gallons of milk. I don't recall how many raises I received in my 5.5 years at that company, but there was another legitimate title bump and promotion in that time. Six months before The End™ I was recruited by a local startup looking to backfill a position which became vacant when my employer had plucked one of their experienced engineers. I very nearly jumped to that new job, but stayed at my current position because I wanted stability. I translated that opportunity into a sizable bonus check (3x the milk could've been purchased that day), and then ended up jumping ship (2006) to the startup anyway (forcing them to pay off my indentured servitude). Eleven months there, a year at a different place outside the industry (2007), and then a shift back to my original employer (with but a slip'n'slide's worth of milky bonus). Salary had basically stayed neutral through that process. I managed to teabag my current employer (taking a year away from regular paychecks) and have actually seen a couple of pay bumps along the way, but nothing sizable.

Part of our compensation package is doled out as Short Term Incentives (STI, previously called Individual Compensation Process -- maybe Incentive Compensation Payment -- something ICP, anyway) which basically means we're eligible for a bonus check every six months depending on how the company is doing. There've been bonus periods where the company funds the pool at 0% (sad tuba), 10%, 25%, 133%, and just this last time around 200%. Ultimately it's up to each manager to dole out his pool of money to his employees. Depending on your title/level there's a standard amount (for illustrative purposes, say a Principle Engineer's standard is something like 10% of their 6-month salary), but the actual bonus amount falls fully within the manager's control. Six months ago the company funded bonuses at 25% (I got enough milk to wash down a box of girl scout cookies). This time around, the bonus pool was eight times bigger. So I had anticipated receiving roughly 8x what I had previously received, give or take. Well it turned out to be take. As in take home an extra 50% on top of what I was led to expect. As in good news. Completely unexpectedly, and mostly out of the blue.

But really it feels like the last hurrah. I managed to transition off the end-of-the-line product referenced in my last update to a new end-of-the-line product which probably times out before the end of this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs. And there's really not much in the way of hope for additional work beyond that (at least here on the US side -- our foreign R&D center's WARN-act equivalent requires 18 months advanced notification to let their employees go, so I'm guessing those guys are going to stick around for a while longer than us guys). There are some other opportunities within the company here on the US side, but few and far between and probably requiring relocation (and not providing much in the way of long term security on their own part), and as I implied the last time around I'm excited by the thought of seeing what else may be out there for me. But I'm (still) sticking around until that day they give me a few paychecks to leave.

Congrats on the bonus milk. Obviously you're not lactose intolerant, but did anyone ever tell you that much milk is probably harmful? By now you probably have a calcium exoskeleton and have ingested enough growth hormones to embarrass Mark McGuire.

You should see our pool.

Jeff V wrote:Congrats on the bonus milk. Obviously you're not lactose intolerant, but did anyone ever tell you that much milk is probably harmful? By now you probably have a calcium exoskeleton and have ingested enough growth hormones to embarrass Mark McGuire.

He's a super generous guy and gave me half the milk, despite my having done nothing to deserve it.

MHS wrote:

Jeff V wrote:Congrats on the bonus milk. Obviously you're not lactose intolerant, but did anyone ever tell you that much milk is probably harmful? By now you probably have a calcium exoskeleton and have ingested enough growth hormones to embarrass Mark McGuire.

He's a super generous guy and gave me half the milk, despite my having done nothing to deserve it.

Only half? In those rare occasions that I get any bonus milk at all, my wife takes it all.

Jeff V wrote:

MHS wrote:

Jeff V wrote:Congrats on the bonus milk. Obviously you're not lactose intolerant, but did anyone ever tell you that much milk is probably harmful? By now you probably have a calcium exoskeleton and have ingested enough growth hormones to embarrass Mark McGuire.

He's a super generous guy and gave me half the milk, despite my having done nothing to deserve it.

Only half? In those rare occasions that I get any bonus milk at all, my wife takes it all.

We maintain separate finances and make about the same amount of money, so his spontaneously handing me half of his hard-earned bonus is plenty generous enough for me. I tried to decline it but ultimately caved to his insistence and let him fund the MHS Lifestyle Improvement Fund for 2017.

Oh, and milk...or creamer, or something.

Milk: does a body good. Congrats!

Well... this happened.

That really takes the stapler.

The Meal wrote:But really it feels like the last hurrah. I managed to transition off the end-of-the-line product referenced in my last update to a new end-of-the-line product which probably times out before the end of this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs. And there's really not much in the way of hope for additional work beyond that (at least here on the US side -- our foreign R&D center's WARN-act equivalent requires 18 months advanced notification to let their employees go, so I'm guessing those guys are going to stick around for a while longer than us guys). There are some other opportunities within the company here on the US side, but few and far between and probably requiring relocation (and not providing much in the way of long term security on their own part), and as I implied the last time around I'm excited by the thought of seeing what else may be out there for me. But I'm (still) sticking around until that day they give me a few paychecks to leave.

It was the last hurrah. I was let go last Wednesday. It's odd because while my prediction for when the work times out is still correct, someone is going to have to take over what I was working on and without me around to assist it's going to take about 10x longer than it should. There's some history with this management group for killing a function at one sites (whether or not it makes sense), so I'm guessing this same sort of thing happened again. The numbers were pretty hefty and for folks that are still left the big question has to be the cadence for future RIF activity. I wish them luck.

The cushion is rather soft, which helps. My official termination day is in June which means health insurance until the end of that month. Severance covers things until August. The sky's the limit for what the future holds. I've had a few depressive episodes but for the most part I was mentally prepared for the ax to fall. MHS is a true trooper which makes this infinitely easier to cope with. And I'm excited for whatever it may be that the future holds. There would seem to be some opportunities in the local job market (which is our preference) and there are (less-appealing) fall-back plans if we have to move.

The three biggest bummers are: 1) Leaving behind the team I was working with. Absolutely incredible individuals and seemingly little opportunity for working with any of them again unless some of those fall-back plans are realized. 2) I was really enjoying my day-to-day work. I've been let go previously when it was like a chorus of angels singing down on me their song of ♪We're paying you to leave!♫. And 3) The inevitable 30-50% pay cut which has been realized by every one of my former coworkers who has stayed local to perform similar work. I doubt that it'll affect our lifestyle all that much, but it'll certainly hits us in the retirement department. Still I look at it as a good run for as long as it went.

Sorry for the vaguebooking in the desk thread.

Best of luck finding your next landing spot. Here's hoping it keeps you in a State of paradise...

The Meal wrote:Sorry for the vaguebooking in the desk thread.

No worries.

EDIT: Just realized that my whining about a missed bonus was in especially poor taste, given what others are going through. Apologies.

So sorry to hear about your situation Meal. Hope you find a good landing spot soon.

Sorry to heat that, Meal. I hope things work out for you. Too bad about your coworkers. Who you work with is just as important as what you do at work. Good coworkers are not the norm, especially ones you enjoy working with.

EvilHomer3k wrote:Good coworkers are not the norm, especially ones you enjoy working with.

I guess I have been incredibly lucky in my career. I can only name a handful of people I'd rather not have been associated with in ~30 years of work.

My coworkers may disagree.

I haven't had too many issues with co-workers. There's always 1 or 2 that are a PITA to work with, but otherwise everyone has been good. It's just our management that is terrible.

Skinypupy wrote:EDIT: Just realized that my whining about a missed bonus was in especially poor taste, given what others are going through. Apologies.

So sorry to hear about your situation Meal. Hope you find a good landing spot soon.

You're still allowed to vent. Everyone's complaints are their own, we're not having a contest!

Whine it up! We're all buddies in this thread. You don't have to scroll too far up to find me yakking about bringing home a big bonus check. Sorry you missed out on yours.

And thanks for the sympathy for my plight. I'm excited about what comes next.

The Meal wrote:I'm excited about what comes next.

Any leads? What is your skill set?

Very soft leads at this point. I'm a mechanical engineer trained in dynamic measurements and analysis, with a couple of decades of test, analysis, and design work on consumer electronic devices. I've also done large-scale modal analysis testing and analysis in renewable energy. I do well in both grind-it-out and creative environments, I'm a self starter, detail-oriented, and a (reluctant) fan of the oxford comma. I thrive in high-pressure, low-stability environments (though am not specifically seeking a return to working in those fields). And god-dammit, I've got people skills.

MHS wrote:

Skinypupy wrote:EDIT: Just realized that my whining about a missed bonus was in especially poor taste, given what others are going through. Apologies.

So sorry to hear about your situation Meal. Hope you find a good landing spot soon.

You're still allowed to vent. Everyone's complaints are their own, we're not having a contest!

Short version: My misunderstanding of how our new bonus structure works caused me to overlook a minor detail at the end of last quarter.

Found out today that minor detail cost me a 5 figure bonus this month.

I want to go vomit right now.

More work, more hours, more crap, same money. I HATE the new role I was assigned. I'm too freaking burnt out to be dealing with the crap I'm getting tossed into.

Skinypupy wrote:

MHS wrote:

Skinypupy wrote:EDIT: Just realized that my whining about a missed bonus was in especially poor taste, given what others are going through. Apologies.

So sorry to hear about your situation Meal. Hope you find a good landing spot soon.

You're still allowed to vent. Everyone's complaints are their own, we're not having a contest!

Short version: My misunderstanding of how our new bonus structure works caused me to overlook a minor detail at the end of last quarter.

Found out today that minor detail cost me a 5 figure bonus this month.

I want to go vomit right now.

I'm in the same boat - different cause. This is the second year my consulting gig isn't going to pay the bonus. Which is basically unheard of. One year is a huge miss. Last year it lead to a severe talent drain but I was in the middle of a big project. I just signed onto a 6 month gig and then found out we aren't paying it this year. I billed almost $400K last year personally. I'm on target to bill something like $350,000 this year to probably not earn a bonus next year considering how this year will go as the practice dies. My mood is in the gutter and I just want out. My base salary is good and all but watching people leaving in droves as our management kills the business isn't what I signed up for. And I have to decide to burn them on this gig or not. Not awesome at all.

Counting down the days until retirement (currently stands at about 85). They want me to stay on part time - they are thinking one week per month, I am leaning towards one day per month.

Jaymann wrote:Counting down the days until retirement (currently stands at about 85). They want me to stay on part time - they are thinking one week per month, I am leaning towards one day per month.

Hey me too!. I am probably somewhere in the 9000 days range. Practically speaking, I am at about the midpoint of my post-college working life. I'm going to crawl off to a corner and cry now.

Jaymann wrote:Counting down the days until retirement (currently stands at about 85). They want me to stay on part time - they are thinking one week per month, I am leaning towards one day per month.

I'm at 55 days. No idea what I wlll do when I hit that landmark. I'm funded through late September. I have 10 more years of doing something to pay for medical care till I hit medicare. 3 days a week with benefits at my current salary would be a dream!