Job woes/wins

[bob]

I don't think there's anyone out there that truly enjoys their job.

If anyone says they do - I don't trust them.

[Sheikah]

I don't think there's anyone out there that truly enjoys their job.

If anyone says they do - I don't trust them.

This. As long as you answer to someone, it'll always be shitty, to a degree.

[Ashley]

I've been thinking a lot about work recently. Came back from travelling a few weeks ago and kind of landed with some PT stuff (my old PT gave up and is doing a desk job but wanted to keep the business going) which was supposed to start this week but I'm ill at the moment and struggling to get people in for free sessions, yet alone paying. Part of me is worried I just said yes because it seems "sensible" to do something, which is a work pattern I repeat quite often.

Intend to do it along web development stuff alongside it but it is very much "to pay the bills" and not even sure if it'll do that at the moment. I am trying to resist going back to my old line of work which paid stupid well but I found it soul sucking. As Sheikah said, working for others can be a drag so I'm looking to move into something more self-orientated. I don't necessarily mind working for/with others, as long as I have some autonomy. At some point last year there was a plan for some of us to open a gym but then the Tories tanked the economy (again), but that would have given seen me work for others, but with control over my specific area.

A few weekends ago I was in London and catching up with some friends who work in creative industries and it reminded me how much I want to create. I went into my last line of work after finishing a creative degree because I needed to pay the bills and I just kind of stuck with it because I had to be self-sufficient. No slight on those I studied with (who have gone on to do very well) but those that started at the bottom did so because they had the financial support/backing of a partner or family and I didn't so I ended up in office work.

So I'm trying to think of ways to make money from creative endeavours but I think I've come to accept I'll never have one of those mortgage things so maybe I can fuck around a bit more. Pursue something less "stable" for a while to see how that goes.

[Happenstance]

So I did end up applying for the stable job and had an interview booked for tomorrow. Had today off to go to an event at the school I used to work at and got a call saying recruitment had been paused for the job. Second time I e been offered an interview at this council then got a call beforehand to say recruitment was paused 😂

[Jimbob]

Got my usual reward for my hard work this past month.  Another security incident raised against me, one i can't appeal or do anything about as it's locked down.

Cheers for that.  Nice to know I'm appreciated.

Shame similar isn't done to my so called colleagues, who will literally act like petulant children when asked to do anything outside of "browse the internet"

[Iun]

@EEVILMURRAY

Yes, it's easier to find a position when you already have one. Again, that security is so vital.

[Jimbob]

We have this new policy on the team.

"Screw up everything, get even more work to do.  Work well to a degree, get your work taken off you"

It's happened on a element of a project i do.  Two others have not been doing their parts (at all or correctly), so i raised my concerns about it and asked if their part of it could be transferred over to me.  Resulted in those who screw up their part getting the whole lot.

Great.

[Sheikah]

We have this new policy on the team.
"Screw up everything, get even more work to do.  Work well to a degree, get your work taken off you"
It's happened on a element of a project i do.  Two others have not been doing their parts (at all or correctly), so i raised my concerns about it and asked if their part of it could be transferred over to me.  Resulted in those who screw up their part getting the whole lot.
Great.

You know as they say, snitches get stitches.

[Jimbob]

On 01/08/2023 at 6:26 PM, Sheikah said:

On 31/07/2023 at 9:08 AM, Jimbob said:

We have this new policy on the team.
"Screw up everything, get even more work to do.  Work well to a degree, get your work taken off you"
It's happened on a element of a project i do.  Two others have not been doing their parts (at all or correctly), so i raised my concerns about it and asked if their part of it could be transferred over to me.  Resulted in those who screw up their part getting the whole lot.
Great.

You know as they say, snitches get stitches.

That's true.

Most of the screw-ups are happening on cases worth half a million in revenue, which in turn is costing us through fines and penalties for not completing on-time.

[EEVILMURRAY]

17 minutes ago, Jimbob said:

That's true.

Most of the screw-ups are happening on cases worth half a million in revenue, which in turn is costing us through fines and penalties for not completing on-time.

They're getting penalised and their response is to give more responsibility to those causing the issue?! Originally I just thought the company were telling them to go fuck themselves and teaching them a lesson, but if they're losing money from it, that's suicide.

[Jimbob]

5 hours ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

They're getting penalised and their response is to give more responsibility to those causing the issue?! Originally I just thought the company were telling them to go fuck themselves and teaching them a lesson, but if they're losing money from it, that's suicide.

I just don't understand their logic at times.

I just chuckle when i see things coming out about issues i've raised, but they deny it's happening until it is too late.  It's quite funny seeing management running around in a frizz, when if they acted upon issues earlier it would have been much better.

[Julius]

Seems like my employer and many others over the last few weeks/months have decided to pull the trigger on "hybrid contracts" having compulsory in-office attendance of 60% (so 3 days for FT workers).

So far it's been a lot of deflection from higher-ups pointing at contracts and not really answering questions, I wouldn't be surprised if it's more a way to offload people without severance and the publicity of mass layoffs (we had thousands of firings once the impacts of COVID calmed down and swollen departments simmered back down to a more typical size) and also just to do with commercial real estate just...well, sitting there. 

The reason that they're giving for my workplace is that we're pretty low on customer service scores compared to our competitors (I need to check the numbers but I swear we weren't great at that pre-WFH/COVID anyways). I work in a team which is not customer-facing and works in the background, with people situated all over the country (some very far from offices), so I really don't see the value-add, and my manager prior to this call today had guaranteed - even in an email - that my team wouldn't need to go on, but the problem with this blanket approach is I have no idea what's going on. They're also saying that "we're all adults and trust you, we won't track you individually if you go in and there won't be consequences as such, but things might get more Draconian if the in-office anonymous aggregate isn't 60% or more though"...just, did anyone think this through? It kind of sounds like I can just ignore it until someone makes it explicitly mandatory, it's really strange. 

Idk. Someone even called out that a competitor who is one of the best at customer service in the country is still WFH and is committing to staying that way, to which they said we aren't trying to be them, and score better than them in other categories (no doubt categories that they aren't even part of lmao).

So much deflection and so little clarity. The most annoying part for me is I was planning to upskill other areas over the next year or two in my own time, with the benefit of WFH meaning I don't have travel time to get cut away at my free time, to potentially move industry.

Just, urghhhhhhhh 

[Happenstance]

The money has finally become available to make my job permanent instead of just a rolling contract. Had to reapply and interview again but thankfully they've stuck with me. I really do hate interviews though. I don't think I've ever had one, even when I've been offered the job afterwards, where I didn't come out of it feeling worse about myself in some way!

[MindFreak]

I'm having af small beef with HR at my work at the moment. Thing is, I got a daughter in August and am planning my paternity leave. My workplace gives me my normal salary for 12 weeks of my paternity leave (which is pretty normal here in Denmark). However, they will only do that if I spend all 12 weeks before my child is 52 weeks old - but my wife and I think it's better for our child to be at home for a longer period of time so my wife takes one full year (some of it is without income) and then I take over. But we can't do that because of my workplace's random rule, and HR is not willing to discard it even though they can give me no reason at all as to why it is there in the first place.

In the public system, we can take our paternity leave (or parent's leave) at any time until the child is 9 years old, and we get compensated by the public system with a (somewhat) small amount of money. A workplace can then take the compensation and pay out the full salary instead which is a privilege, I know, but this being the case, my work should not care the least about the age of my child, which is what provokes me. It's just a local agreement with a local union at my work. When I talked to them, four HR people quickly surrounded me and told me that what I wanted was simply not possible, despite me having done it twice without problems.

I lose about 65,000 Danish Kroner. because of this, which is about two month's pay, so it really affects my financial situation privately, even more so because my wife is without her usual income for half the year already. But since I believe that more time at home will give me a more robust and strong child, I'll take my leave. I could also just accept the situation and take the leave within the 52 weeks but then I wouldn't be alone with my daughter, my wife would be home as well, and then it doesn't really make sense for me as the time is spend to bond with the child.

Edited September 27, 2023 by MindFreak

[bob]

That sounds like a crap situation, but you really aren't going to get much sympathy with such an amazing paternity situation in the first place! I only got 2 weeks paid leave!

Could you not just take the time off now and spend time with your daughter, and your wife can have some time alone? Honestly getting 12 weeks with your wife and daughter fully paid sounds like a dream anyway...

[MindFreak]

Have you met my wife?

Yeah, I know that I won't be getting any sympathy but I was (and am) frustrated by the lack of flexibility in an otherwise excellent scheme. But it turned out that my workplace is not to blame, the government forced some new rules on paternity leave that make it impossible to spend the time and still get money after the child is 1 year old. Previously, there was an upper limit at 7 years old but they wanted the fathers to spend more time at home in the early years so they changed the system and made 11 weeks exclusive to the father where it was shared beforehand, meaning that less fathers took the time off. 

[EEVILMURRAY]

I'm in a slight quandary now... In a usual phase of being fed up with work and sending out prospective emails for legal secretary work, I actually get a reply regarding a not-yet-advertised legal admin role at a firm. They ask me my expected salary and I do what I assume is the norm and add 1/2k on top of what you're already on (I'm on 25k) They came back a week later saying this role is up to 23k, so at least 2k less than currently at apparently their higher bracket of what they're offering.

I said I was still interested and have an interview tomorrow. I'm feeling stuck on what it is I want from this. With the NHS you're fairly stable with a job, and if I stick in current job for another year I think the pay goes up again. But I'm just bored.

I know people like to lament on money v happiness, but happy never pay no bills (I know it's not a drastic decrease, but still a reduction)

I'll be asking about progression at the interview tomorrow, but I'm not sure how I would feel if I were offered anything. There still isn't a vacancy for this on their website, so I'm not fully sure what the role is about.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Well... They offered me the job. I've provisionally accepted, but I'm waiting to see the figure they're offering me...

[Iun]

On 21/02/2024 at 3:27 AM, EEVILMURRAY said:

Well... They offered me the job. I've provisionally accepted, but I'm waiting to see the figure they're offering me...

What's the job?

[EEVILMURRAY]

8 hours ago, Iun said:

What's the job?

Titled as a legal administrator, although the details are still a bit vague, there seems to be a fair few things this job does, but there's a team and whilst they all do a bit of everything, each person focusses on one bit mainly. Going on the vibe I was getting in the interview, it may be chasing up the police etc for reports n stuff.

I appear to have been the 4th person to hand in their notice in a short space of time too.

I start on 2nd April, they did offer the 23k max they talked about, which as said is a cut, but I feel there will be more opportunities to advance. The role above my current position, which I think I applied for about 10 various departments and got maybe 2 interviews, all said upon rejection about how many applicants they had (one said 40 people). I could tell I wasn't going to get anywhere any time soon, and in when in a job I always have the sense of "oh, the team will stay together and we'll work alongside each other forever", and when the others leave for better jobs my mind goes "wait a minute, why aren't *I* being offered these better positions?!", simply because I'm not taking the risk and putting myself out there. Now I have, fingers crossed it pays off!

[darksnowman]

On 09/03/2024 at 9:52 AM, EEVILMURRAY said:

fingers crossed it pays off!

Hope the sax life is paying off for you.

 

[EEVILMURRAY]

5 hours ago, darksnowman said:

Hope the sax life is paying off for you.

 

Me and the sax will forever be one.

This job though is horrendous. I'm trying to get back into NHS.

[Mr_Odwin]

I'm feeling a bit burned out tbh. I've got nostalgia for when I joined the company and there was about 50 employees, and there was so little bureaucracy. Now there's like 300 employees, and we're owned by a megacorp, and everything involves so much paperwork and there's a committee for everything, and the overlord company just seems to send down edicts that make the company I work for worse.

I keep looking at part time jobs and dreaming about something mentally easy like delivery work or working on reception.

[bob]

21 hours ago, Mr_Odwin said:

I'm feeling a bit burned out tbh. I've got nostalgia for when I joined the company and there was about 50 employees, and there was so little bureaucracy. Now there's like 300 employees, and we're owned by a megacorp, and everything involves so much paperwork and there's a committee for everything, and the overlord company just seems to send down edicts that make the company I work for worse.

I keep looking at part time jobs and dreaming about something mentally easy like delivery work or working on reception.

I'm a bit worried that's where my company is headed (the one I work for; I don't own it).

It's been pootling along for 25 years with ~10 employees and doing fine. 

Now it's got a new CEO who is trying to grow it and expand, and now everything is about profitability and efficiency and keeping track of timesheets and planning etc. It's taking the fun of the job a bit.

[Shorty]

22 hours ago, Mr_Odwin said:

I'm feeling a bit burned out tbh. I've got nostalgia for when I joined the company and there was about 50 employees, and there was so little bureaucracy. Now there's like 300 employees, and we're owned by a megacorp, and everything involves so much paperwork and there's a committee for everything, and the overlord company just seems to send down edicts that make the company I work for worse.

I keep looking at part time jobs and dreaming about something mentally easy like delivery work or working on reception.

Pretty similar experience with me except on a much smaller scale

When I joined my company I was the fourth employee. Now we have about 30. Covid put a bit of a dent in our growth trajectory or we might've been a bit bigger now, but also with the rise of WFH we have lots of people we've hired from around the world that we never see in person. We've gone from being a creative agency to very much a corporate back-end systems agency with a little sprinkling of the creative stuff still happening on top, and that side was always what interested me most. On the other hand I've climbed a (fairly small) corporate ladder and got a small team now, and the money's decent. But yeah, hard to not get nostalgic for the simpler days.

Once, in our first couple of years, work got quiet and the whole team just played CoD MW2 in a mini lan party. These days we're lucky if anyone comes out for a drink one Friday a month.