Depending on how such insurance works in the UK, it might not cover getting fired for cause. Layoffs / redundancies / company going belly up: sure. Fired for leaving a dead fish in the CEO’s desk? Not so much (at least here in the US).
Plus, here at least unemployment is a fraction of what the lost salary was - if I were to lose my job, it wouldn’t cover the mortgage payment.
Moral of story: in addition to any other actions Bob takes to improve his lot (job hunting etc.), he must be very, very careful not to get caught placing that fish.
Sorry, I just skimmed parts of this thread, but . . .
Was it ever established in this thread whether “Bob” is just a hypothetical, or is really [del]Mangetout himself[/del] a real person in this fix? The above remark seems to answer that.
(OTOH, if OP poses this dilemma with no answer then answers “Yes, but…” to every response, then it begins to sound more like one of those obnoxious interview questions that are all the rage these days. :eek: )
I have a friend from my last job who is in Bob’s position. Ironically, he is one of the few senior manager / director level managers who did not get laid off or quit when our company went to shit. While the rest of us had new jobs within 3-5 months, he’s still stuck there complaining about how much he hates it. I’ve tried bringing him to the same networking events where I found my job but he’s always like “I hate networking” and “I don’t have a network in New York” (even though he’s been here 10 years). And so he stays where he is.
My wife is the same way. She complains about her job that she’s hated for 8 years. I’m like “what have you done to change it other then sending out resumes 8 years ago?”
Yes, having to look for a new job sucks so a lot of people settle for their current shitty situation because they don’t want to be bothered. What would you do if you got laid off tomorrow and didn’t have a choice? Try doing that.
I’m reminded of the act that I saw on TV years ago (Ed Sullivan Show, perhaps?) of a fellow spinning plates on a number of thin, self-standing poles. He’d start with just one, and then run among the poles, adding spinning plates, adding more spin to the ones that were faltering, etc. Some would fall and smash, but he quickly replaced those and kept running back and forth until all poles had spinning plates on them. TAA-DAA! But indeed, then they would then fall and smash on the floor.
Bob’s job is that of the plate spinner and he can only keep them going for so long. Every once in a while, one of his tasks fails, but he’s there to rescue it and get it going again. But there will come a time when he can no keep all those plates spinning, and they’ll all come crashing down.
Some day, there will be a conversation in the break-room about the guy that was at work before everyone else, stayed after the whistle blew, gave up his vacations, and finally had a giant M.I. at his desk… and no one will remember his name.
This reminds me of a job I had years ago. Due to various staffing constraints and mismanagement, I went from being the engagement manager of a 4 person team to an engagement manager who now had to do all the development work of that team, the support and maintenance work on the system we were replacing as well as reverse engineering our product so we could we could do things with in that were not intended (nor supported by the organization). After working until 4 am and every weekend for months, I got a shitty performance review. Turns out while I was really good at all those jobs, I wasn’t good at doing all of them at the same time.
Right after my review, I started leaving at five, making a point that my boss see that I’m leaving at five. When he asked me about it, I told him “if I’m going to get a shitty performance review anyway, write me one for doing the bare minimum.”
Bob is actually one case amongst several managers in very similar situations within a rather disfunctional company that grew too fast for its own good, and is doggedly trying to apply little-business methods to an SME environment. Some of the detail of Bob’s situation has of course been rendered in more simple terms to make it fit into a message board conversation.
It may please some of you to know that Bob (as are some of his peers in similar predicaments) is doing something about his problem. Bob has just been shortlisted as an applicant for a promising role in a different organisation.
Your OP struck a note with me for a couple of reasons. [ol][li]My name IRL is Bob, and I have been, not in the same situation, but in a similar one.[/ol]I was working unreasonable hours, not allowed to take scheduled vacation because there was too much work, all the responsibility and none of the credit, etc. And I was making almost all the money in the family, and was concerned that if I pulled back at work, we could not make it financially. [/li]
There are a number of reasons I am quite fond of the Lovely and Talented Mrs.** Shodan**, but not least among them is her instant response when I voiced those concerns. “I would rather have you, than the money.”
Fast forward a couple of years. New job for me, somewhat less money from me, somewhat more money from her (almost a wash, in fact), and hugely less stress for me. And her response is “Boy, you are a lot easier to live with” and we go on as ever.
I am blessed in my life and my wife. I hope Bob is the same.
Hey, OP - any updates on Bob’s situation? Apologies if you posted it in another thread and I missed it. Hoping for good news - no news is good news, right?
Since this got bumped. My old company got bought by a bigger one. This one has the philosophy that 20% of people get raises, he other 80% get nothing. (Amazon does also but that isn’t it.) There are lots of good people, far more than 20% here. After two years of this a memo came down about how awful it was that people were coming in relatively late and leaving relatively early. My boss, who is a good guy, could hardly keep a straight face reading this in our staff meeting.
So you ain’t the only one.
Scotland Yard doesn’t have facilities to dust for vomit (which is true; you can’t get DNA from stomach contents) but you can get DNA from stool, and I know this because a crime in my area was solved this way.
Long story made short: Five teenagers broke into a school during the summer and vandalized it, which included defecating on a teacher’s desk. The funny-weird thing is that the culprit was a fraternal twin, who tried to say that his brother had actually done it. :smack:
Some people I worked with who had attended that school talked about which teacher’s desk they would have liked to have taken a dump on.
Surprisingly, when I put down “do the least amount of work possible to keep my job”, that is not considered an acceptable “goal”. Why does everyone always have to “exceed expectations”. If that’s how hard you want people to work, why not just make that the “expectation”?
Even if everyone did exceed expectations, performance review policies would not believe it. Most I’ve seen - especially in Silicon Valley - force percentages in different performance bands. So, if everyone did work really hard and effectively, a large percentage would still get screwed.
Before people wised up to this there was a lot of staying late (to talk to suppliers and partners in Asia) - but I don’t see that many people in those meetings now.
I think the philosophy is that we’re going to screw you over so lots of people won’t put in extra effort, and since they don’t put in extra effort we are justified in screwing them over.
I’m retiring next week so I don’t care. (at them, not you.)
