Suntan and the very weird, getting stranger search for a job.
Two interviews today. First one I took the wrong bus, so missed that. Got back to the mall in time for the second one, bus doesnt show up.
Its almost humorous.
In my experience, people are usually only fired after one of two things happens…
- They have a pattern of behavior that they are warned about, that the employer tries to correct, but it does not improve.
- There is something so horribly egregious that an immediate dismissal is necessary.
In the first case, that pattern of behavior and repeat warnings is like a really drawn out “notice” that the employee usually has some control over. So that goes far beyond a two week notice.
In the second case, that’s an exceptional circumstance, where sometimes the employer doesn’t have the luxury of professional courtesy.
I have never really been fired from a job, personally (knock on wood) but I’ve been laid off a few times. Each time, I am given a reasonable amount of notice. That’s usually a mutually beneficial situation, depending on the job, because they might request your help. As an example, I was an IT administrator for an environmental firm that was laying off most of their staff ahead of a buyout. I was informed of this situation and then I spent the rest of my time sharing all of the info I had to keep things running in my absence. It was good for me because I stayed employed for a bit longer, and had a bit more of a cushion as I started seeking new employment, and good for the company because they didn’t suddenly lose access to everything I knew.
Just as when you give notice, you might spend those two weeks preparing your employer to get by without you, maybe helping train a replacement and sharing knowledge you know. It might also give you a chance to tie up loose ends for your own sake before leaving.
And just like when someone is fired, a person might leave their job while under duress, in which case they would not be expected to give notice. Maybe they are being threatened at their job, maybe they learn that what they’re doing is illegal. Those would be the equivalent of being fired to me; you are firing your employer for cause.
Yes, this is prudent, I just wonder sometimes. And the psychologist often talks about her own ADHD kid, but when I asked about my son, she gave potential symptoms that seemed extremely geared toward ADHD hyperactive type and not Innatentive type as I am. For example she said if he can’t focus on his preferred activities, that’s a sign. What? No it’s not. People with ADHD can focus for hours and hours on our preferred activities, the problem is getting us to focus on anything else. Sorry if that’s generalizing but it struck me as really strange. What I see in him is what I see in me - hyper-fixation during which it’s almost impossible to get him to process requests, though he does get pretty hyper right before bed, getting him to focus on putting on his clothes etc is a total drag. But he’s also three, so maybe the issue is I have the mind of a toddler.
I have only ever been fired once. In that case, teaching for a college, I was a new hire and my employer miscalculated my salary; I had no way of knowing this, because what they offered matched what I was paid elsewhere for comparable work. When they discovered the error (after I taught the first class of the semester at their college), they offered me the chance to sign a new contract with a reduced salary (⅔ of what they had offered me initially). I refused, and they fired me; I don’t know what happened with the class. I was shocked.
I agree that in most circumstances, notice is reasonable, but if employers can give no notice in exceptional circumstances without penalty, I think the same ought to be true for employees. It would, of course, depend on how an employee left with no notice. “I’m quitting as of now; I’m sorry I can’t do this with more notice” is reasonable in exceptional circumstances; ghosting an employer is unacceptable and would deserve a poor reference.
The penalty is the same in each case. Note that the “penalty” is a social one. The employer will be a bad reference that can hurt your reputation and make it difficult to get employed, but at the same time a disgruntled employee can go to a web site like Glassdoor or just general social media and share their terrible experience. It’s not like this is an uneven situation.
The only exception I can think of is where there is a contract, but everyone is bound by that contract, and a fair contract would have penalties for either side for a termination of employment outside what the contract allows.
Or if you are in a state that requires an employer to have cause to fire a person, but that’s uneven toward the employee. Or if, like me, you are in a union and can’t be fired without cause. My work can’t just say, sorry buddy, you’re gone. I have a collective bargaining agreement that prevents that. But I can just suddenly say that I had a huge inheritance so I am leaving my job to go live on an island and grow rare flowers or whatever.
That could be some of their own bias. A lot of people are biased to think ADHD in boys looks more hyperactive while ADHD is girls is either nonexistent or, if it does exist, is only the inattentive type.
Edited my own typos. Goodness. I read these posts a million times and I still miss them.
And to add to that, my “smart” phone just got a call that left a message, but when I call voicemail I can’t hear the message. In fact I can’t hear anything. Nor, in doing a test with an incoming call from my landline (an old-fashioned thing that always works) can I hear anything at all on an incoming call.
An internet search reveals that the most promising solution is to reboot the phone. Of course! It’s a “smart” phone, and so, unlike, say, my stupid old-fashioned landline phones, it can be expected to lose its mind once in a while and go dumb.
OK, I’ll reboot it. But how? Went through every possible menu option. There are options for clearing everything and for a complete factory reset, but for a reboot? Nothing! It took a bit of internet sleuthing to discover that the secret reboot technique involves holding two physical buttons down simultaneously for seven seconds.
Which I did, and now I have sound again on calls. So I was able to hear my voicemail, which was someone jabbering in Chinese presumably trying to sell me something. Meanwhile my “dumb” landline phone continues to work flawlessly, and I fear that at some point I may answer a cell phone call and not be able to hear what the party at the other end is saying, because the cell phone is so “smart”.
I miss my old Motorola Razr cell phone. It was foldable into a tiny pocket-size item barely bigger than a key fob, almost indestructible, and definitely not “smart” – its major features were a hole that you talk into, and another hole that you hold up to your ear to hear what the other party is saying. I still have it, and had to abandon it when my provider “enhanced” their network with new protocols that the phone didn’t support – the protocols that allow today’s teenagers to simultaneously stream movies, text, blog, tweet, twitter, tick, and tock, all at the same time. I understand that today’s teenagers aren’t likely to care whether they can hear anything on their phones, because they don’t use them for that sort of thing, which is probably just as well.
Well there’s your problem. You’re trying to use your phone as a phone. My generation has left most of that nonsense behind. We wouldn’t be caught dead making a phone call.
Mild hijack, but in all likelihood this was a Chinese extortion ring calling to tell the phone’s owner that their family was in trouble with the law back in China and for a mere umpteen thousand dollars paid in bitcoin these guys can “make it go away”. They call every number not knowing anything about the owners. But if the phone’s owner really is a Chinese expat, it’s a very effective scam.
To boot, sometimes it really is the Chinese government trying to scare folks into coming back, paying up, etc. Which makes the much more numerous scammers all the more effective.
Be glad you don’t speak Chinese.
I’ll tell you what I told a number of customers when I was a computer salesman (before my IT career really started). The more sophisticated technology gets, the more it resembles a car rather than a bicycle.
A bicycle is a very simple machine. It gets you where you need to go in a reasonable fashion. It requires very little maintenance, no license to operate, and repairs are simple and generally can be done by someone with minimal training. It is also cheap and does not require fuel.
A car is very complicated. You need special training to even legally operate it. It is very expensive, loud, requires fuel, requires insurance, and requires regular expensive maintenance to stay in good condition, and most of the time that maintenance has to be done by a trained professional, as do most repairs.
So why would anyone ever want a car? Simple, the car does what a bike can’t. You can’t go nearly as far or nearly as fast on a bike, it can’t be taken onto many roads, and you don’t want to operate a bicycle in awful weather. You also can’t haul passengers or cargo on a bike the way you can a car.
At the time, my argument was explaining why upgrading a computer was so expensive and brought so much complication and potential problems, but why you would want to do it anyway. It’s the same deal with a smart phone vs a land line telephone.
But, you know, people still ride bikes. They still have their place.
It’s been quite a while since I had a rant. So I guess it’s about time. My hot water heater stopped working. I’ve been dreading this day since my new furnace was installed in 2015. (The heater was installed in 2012.) There is very limited floored space in the attic. The new furnace was twice as big as the old one so when they installed it, it blocked access to the water heater. You have to climb over the furnace to get to it. I knew that would be a huge pain in the ass to deal with when it came time to replace it.
The plumber looked over the situation and was surprised that a plumbing inspection had been signed off on when the furnace was put in. He said it would be a pain but not too big a deal to do the replacement but he was more worried about a reinspection. He said the worst case would be that I’d be asked to move the furnace. Yikes! I asked about a different location for the heater and he said we should not get ahead of ourselves just yet. He is going to research the problem and let me know tomorrow what he’s found. He felt that since an inspection was originally signed off on, that should be a positive in my favor.
Well, just fuck. I really hope this won’t be an issue. Moving the furnace would be a nightmare but trying to find space to put a new water heater in wouldn’t be easy either. I’d have to put it on the other side of the attic. Where there’s no flooring, away from all the connections.
But that’s not all! He noticed that there is water in the emergency overflow pan of the furnace. He suggested I get in touch with my heat and air company tomorrow. A sucking cherry on top.
“Just fuck” is right. Really hope it works out.
My hot water heater stopped working yesterday, so it’s going around. The plumber came out today and tried to fix it. No dice. Replacement being installed tomorrow. Yikes. The only consolation is that this hwh was in place when I moved in here in 2002…and this is the first (and only) time I’ve had an issue with it. So I guess it doesn’t owe me anything. (Still!)
Again, good luck. I suppose “don’t get ahead of yourself” is good advice, but so, so hard to follow…
Every dogshit sundae I’ve ever experienced includes one last cat turd perched on top for variety and style. Sounds like you found the sundae topper for sure.
Sorry to hear. I’ve bought into a couple of those “Gosh I hope this doesn’t break before I move again” situations. Never happy to contemplate.
Sometimes I will wake before I need to. My body wants to lay there and I think maybe a little extra sleep will be a good thing. Its not, when you dream that charles manson is coming after you. Not exactly restful sleep!
Good luck to you, too. I hope yours isn’t in your attic. That’s the only thing I hate about this house. Putting a hot water heater in the attic is stupid. The last one that broke in 2012 spewed like a volcano. What a mess that was.
First up this morning, the guys are here working on the A/C. It needs a new condensation pump. $900. Gulp. And that’s just for the problem I didn’t know I had. I haven’t heard back yet from the plumber about the hot water heater. I’m a night owl and couldn’t get to sleep last night so it’s going to be a long day.
Ours, too! Luckily, it started leaking a bit so we got it replaced before it blew (brother’s HWH exploded, and he has no basement, so it flooded parts of the first floor*).
.
*I can NOT imagine a furnace and HWH in the attic! A blowout would be catastrophic… (cf aurora_maire’s)
Warning: anti-rant coming up. A whole bunch of stuff from Amazon just arrived – mostly electronic items, and mostly various storage devices, but I feel like it’s Christmas morning. Sometimes it’s quite literally the little things that impress the most. Like a fast 64 GB micro-SDXC card smaller than the fingernail on my little finger that was less than $10, and doubled the capacity of my tablet that previously had a 32 GB SDHC card in it, and which as I recall was quite expensive at the time. Gotta love technology!
Yes, sounds risky, unless some provision was made for water containment and a drain. I have an upstairs laundry room, on the second floor where the bedrooms are, which is convenient but potentially fraught with peril. I’ve taken the precaution of using armored hoses on the washer but there’s still potential for disaster, such as a failure of the washer valve.
A whole bunch of Lakewood-Style intimidation and harassment has started to show up my way, Personally, I don’t care… go worship as you like. I don’t care if you hack off Woody Allen’s nose, put a revolver to it, and scream, “Back Off or I’ll Shoot The Nose!”
( no one will get that reference )
Look, I bought my house fair and square. I paid for it in US dollars and Should I need to, I’ll sell it in US Dollars. But the last Realtor Whore who foul-mouthed and threatened me in the phone was told: " $10 Million Cash or F.O. ! Sellers market, I don’t want to sell, Block Busting is a Felony, Pay my price or F-ck Off!!! "
Can’t wait until tomorrow when one of these scumbags drops more garbage in front of my home.
You kidding? This is the SDMB. You’re clearly referencing the Leader’s nose in Sleeper.