Work - The pros and the cons... - The Bear and Badger

HawBawJaws

All else fails, it's looking like we're gonna be crying out for team leaders (formerly known as supervisors) in about a month. Tenner an hour, I'll put a word in. I know the gaffer.

afgavinstan

Cheers chaps. I'm sure I'll be fine, just picking up bad vibes at the moment.

If there's not gonna be any conflict of interest probs Scott, go ahead.

HawBawJaws

They're sorting out Manager positions just now. But they've shit themselves at the amount of managers taking redundancy, so yesterday opened it up to existing supervisors. If they pass the manager level but don't get offered a job, they automatically get a team leader job without having to interview for it. But just at Renfrew Street, we're gonna be left with 3 team leaders (as it stands just now), we normally have 10-12. Even if there isn't space at Renfrew Street, or there's a conflict, i can pretty much guarantee there's gonna be space at parkhead/silverburn/ possibly the imax.

I'll keep you posted.

poprock

Our place have really fucked the handling of the current situation with my Mrs.

At the end of last week, the MD called her in for a chat, where he told her that we’re not doing well this financial year and he needs to make savings in the admin team. He tells her that her job may be made redundant in the next week or two. But then he bangs on about how ‘this could all change in a day if we win a big contract’. He takes great pains to say “this is not an official conversation”.

So, obviously, my Mrs starts job-hunting in earnest. Which is going well, after just one week. Fuck staying here if that’s how she’s going to be treated.

There is no good outcome from that conversation for the MD. The only possible reason he has behind it is to try and make her find a new job and resign of her own accord, thus saving him from paying out redundancy money.

So, from talking to our HR guy, she now knows there are likely to be multiple redundancies and she’ll be first. But they still won’t commit and say so on the record. They keep disappearing for half-day long private meetings offsite, so that we can’t hear what they’re saying, then coming back and pretending everything is fine. They’ve said nothing to the rest of the company.

They must know that my Mrs will tell me all of this. So they know I’ll be jobhunting as well. You’d need to be really thick not to know that.

So the logical reasoning is that they think we’ll both fuck off quietly and they won’t have to go through a redundancy process with everyone, or need to pay me off for the 15 years I’ve been here.

Pretty galling to be treated like this, really, by people who claim to be our friends.

Spoiler:

HawBawJaws

Does sound like they're hoping you'll just decide to leave pop, sounds like they're being quite underhanded about it. Just keep doing what you're doing, see if there's something better out there. If you get a good offer, see if you can stall it for a bit to find out if you've got a chance of redundancy at your current place. Then it's win win, you get a payout from your current job and you're into a better job as well.

You'll be livid if you just leave with nothing then find out if you'd waited a month you would've got a decent payout.

Cos

Yeah, sounds shady as hell. Part of me would want to stick it out for the redundancy payment just to spite them but if the right job comes along while they're still playing silly buggers, it sounds like getting out of a toxic environment might be worth the financial sacrifice.

Yossarian

Try to start taking steps that give the impression that you're planning to stay for a long time to try and force their hand, maybe talk to HR about increasing pension contributions or something.

[Deleted User]

Sounds like when I got made redundant.
Lots of big meetings and a certain feeling around the office.
Promises of one more big contract and it will all be fine, if they get to that stage it is all over.

They tried to act like it was a hump in the road but I found out much later that the company was a fortnight away from folding without being able to pay wages.

Don't bugger around, just get those CVs done and get into interviews (which you are already doing and smashing). I get the feeling the design industry is quite strong at the moment.

poprock

HR guy says they’ll be giving my Mrs a ‘decision’ on Monday. She forced their hand by telling them she wanted time off yesterday to attend a job interview elsewhere.

This morning, suddenly, we had a company-wide email with a timetable for individual ‘personal development programme’ meetings on Mon/Tue. Two months late, and they suddenly decide it’s urgent. Aye, right. Guess whose name was missing from the list? Mrs Poprock. No personal development for her …

poprock

Liveinadive wrote:

I get the feeling the design industry is quite strong at the moment.

Yep. Jobs advertised all over the place, and the best leads I have so far are with people who weren’t even advertising – just places that have enough cash splashing around to create a new role for me if they want to.

My Mrs wants to head back into architecture, which isn’t doing as well as an industry (which is why our place is struggling – we rely on joint contracts with architects). Most of the places she’s speaking to so far have had rounds of redundancies in the past year. Doesn’t affect her role really, but does affect how many practices might be able to afford her help right now.

I couldn’t sleep properly last night. First time that’s happened in a few years.

[Deleted User]

Yeah, I haven't had any of my architect clients ringing for a while now.
I am convinced it is Brexit, it will be putting off that scale of investment.

poprock

Quite a few of our potential projects for the next couple of years have suddenly been pulled or put on hold. Definitely Brexit.

HawBawJaws

So, got confirmation I passed my interview. Apparently quite comfortably; boss said that even if i was still on a pip, had a final written warning and the pass rate was at 67% instead of 57% i still would've passed.

Confirmed my basic rate of salary isn't changing as well, but I'll be getting a location allowance, so I'm seeing a small wage increase. Other than that, it's business as usual.

Paul the sparky

Letting your mates in through the fire escape and wanking into the salted popcorn?

Yossarian

Congrats, HawBaw.

HawBawJaws

Paul the sparky wrote:

Letting your mates in through the fire escape and wanking into the salted popcorn?

No no no, wanking my mates in the fire escape.

Get it right, jeeeeezzz......

Unlikely

HawBawJaws wrote:

Paul the sparky wrote:

Letting your mates in through the fire escape and wanking into the salted popcorn?

No no no, wanking my mates in the fire escape.

Get it right, jiiiiiizzz......

g.man

afgavinstan wrote:

Probation review scheduled for Tuesday. Been confident as a mofo the last wee while but now I know this is coming I'm absolutely riddled with self-doubt and convincing myself I'm going to get the boot, or demoted. Ugh, hate this feeling. Now beginning to ask myself if I'm truly happy here.

If it's any consolation, I've been pointing cameras at things for about twenty-five years now, and I'm still waiting for my employers to realise I've just been making it all up as I go along.
Think the trick is just to make it look like you know what you're doing

worked for me anyhoo

g.man

cockbeard

Well done Hawbaw, good luck Gav, and g.man has it, imposter syndrome (it has a name nowadays) is hugely common

Escape

Unlikely wrote:

HawBawJaws wrote:

Paul the sparky wrote:

Letting your mates in through the fire escape and wanking into the salted popcorn?

No no no, wanking my mates in the fire, Escape. Get it right, jiiiiiizzz......

Written warning, is it?

poprock

Mrs Poprock has been told that she’ll hear whether she’s facing redundancy or not at 4:30pm.

So what a lovely fucking day we’re going to have in the office, knowing that.

I’m getting more and more pissed off with the directors playing nice and making jokes while they have us sitting on a fucking knife edge.

cockbeard

Then the answer is yes, that's why 1630, what a bunch of wankers, can't tell you at 0900 because it's shit news and we want you motivated for today's work. Hope I'm wrong but it's that kind of shithuose management was why I was so wary of coming back to employment

poprock

Aye. To top that off, the rest of us have been scheduled for our individual six-monthly reviews, starting this afternoon with me. Definitely not a sneaky way of assessing everybody on the quiet before starting an official redundancy scoring process. Oh no. Not at all.

poprock

On the plus side one of our clients emailed me this morning to say they’ve heard I’m jobhunting and would like to meet up for a chat. Two of their designers and their creative director were all poached from our place …

afgavinstan

Cheers, G.

Diluted Dante

I hope that before 4:30, she gets a job offer, and then they give her redundancy.

poprock

That would be lovely, yeah.

Even better if I get one too, before my ‘review’ this afternoon.

So far I’m waiting on formal offers from four different people … as soon as the first one arrives I’m all set to resign (waiting to hear on company-wide redundancies first, obviously. I’d like that 15 year payoff.)

g.man

Fingers crossed this all works out in your favour.

poprock

Och, it will. It’s just a matter of how much nonsense we have to get through between now and then.

ShabbyMcCrabby

regmcfly wrote:

Hmmmmmm turns out it's a counseling job in the most literal sense of the word, so not my job. I'm apparently after a "head of house" post.

Dang, I was starting to plan on crashing at your place if/when I go to Japan next year.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories