Lovely Christmas Bonus

[Tripnologist]

Six years ago, I started with a company that had 3 employees and was being ran out of the front room of a guys house. I helped make it what it is today, a successful company with 50+ employees and a company owned office.
To thank me for all my hard work over the years, I received this yesterday.

Following a review of our operation we feel that our needs have changed to the extent that it is now essential that our website development team is operating from a single location in Leeds. We consider that this is more likely to assist us in terms of the supervision of projects and ensure maximum productivity and quality.

As a key member of the digital team it would be preferable to the business if you would move to Leeds in order to fully contribute to the growth of the digital department. As you know we've discussed this on many occasions.

We're at a point in time with the business where if you will not relocate to Leeds then your position in Bristol will likely cease to exist. That is through no fault of your own, you can choose to work from where you wish, however should you decide not to come to Leeds then unfortunately that will mean we'll have no choice but to make alternative arrangements to source someone with your skillset from the local area. Should that prove to be the case we will have to initiate a redundancy consultation process in relation to your role.

With the above in mind will you please consider your intentions and let me know by Jan 2nd 2013. If before that date you would like any more information or to discuss the option please let me know.

Anyone know how redundancy works? I gather they're trying to go the route of saying there is no longer a position in my city, but the thing is that there never was a 'Bristol Position' as they have no business here. it's always just been 'my position'. So what they are doing is literally just forcing me out and replacing me with someone with a near identical skillset.

 

[Tripnologist]

Rough luck. Did you pee someone off?

Nope, quite the opposite in fact. I even own a 10% share in the software that's responsible for running the entire business as I helped create it.

Basically, they were perfectly happy with me working remotely for the last 6 years (in fact, they approached me for the job to start with), but now that the company is big enough, it's apparently just inconvenient for them.

They even know that I just moved and signed a lease on my house. They know there is no way I could move even if I wanted to.

 

[Tripnologist]

Sounds like they want him to run a team from the centre of the world.
Move to Leeds mate, you've been offered a chance to move up in the world.

It's this, really. The team is large enough now that it's hard being the senior dev and not being in the office.

As it is, I do spend a week each month up there, but can't move there perm as all my wife's family is here and we have plans to move back to Canada in a few years.

 

[Tripnologist]

I don't see what Canada's got to do with it?
And do you really have to stay in same location as family, after all you are going to live several thousand miles from them, could be great way to get a nice pay rise and save even more up.

In a few years, my wife will leave behind all of her family and friends, for me (I'm Canadian). At the very least, I owe it to her to let her have as much time with the people she loves here.

 

[Tripnologist]

Have you even asked her what she thinks yet?

Of course I have. She won't move.

 

[Tripnologist]

It's just a job, why would he want to live away for half of the week!

This exactly.
Plus advance purchase Bristol to Leeds is £100 per round trip. That would be £400 on rail tickets each month alone.

I'm very good at my job, so I'm finding another job and taking the redundancy . I'm just not happy about it.

 

[Tripnologist]

Put your foot down! Leeds is a lovely city. Would she rather you have no income? Besides its not that far away in the Canadian scale of things.

Put my foot down? ha. Our relationship is not a dictatorship.
On top of that, she works in a law firm and makes just as much as I do. She's also had her job longer than I've had mine. She's not just going to up and leave it on my account.

 

[Tripnologist]

In priorities, family, yourself and your work life balance come way above loyalty to any company.

That's what I've just learned.
During the year where we built most of our software, I was working 16-18 hours a day, 6 days a week, which I will never get back. Oh naive stupidity.

 

[Tripnologist]

What is the deal with your shares? I owned shares in my previous company and as per T&C's I had to sell them when I left employment (in effect shares treated as 'forced sale' so offer rate was terrible).

I can choose to keep, or sell them.
If I sell them, which I am, the other shareholders have first option to buy them at a fair market rate calculated by an independent evaluator.

 

[Tripnologist]

When they mention out sourcing to me that usually means they want cheap labour and will probably end up going to India or China for development work. With this in mind don't forget about the 10% stake you have in software shares as the value could plummet.

They're not outsourcing anything. In fact, every facet of the business is done in-house. If I don't move up there, they're going to replace me with someone local.

 

[Tripnologist]

Can they though?
Are they likely to find someone local with your skillsets, considering what you've done for the company these past 6 years?

You've said your wife won't move, but if she did, it would be a small test to see if she could handle being away from her family. If she couldn't then Canada would be a flop for sure, albeit Canada > Leeds on just about every level i would imagine.

Hold out for redundancy, would be my opinion, and sell the shares if they're worth more than peanuts.
I'm sure you get find employment again pretty quickly with your CV.

What's your timescales for your move to Canada?
Could consultancy/freelance work be an option in the meantime?

The system I helped build is finished and well documented, so yes, they'll be able to replace me.

My wife can handle living away from her family, but she wants to spend as much time with them as she can before we move, hence the main reason she
doesn't want to move to Leeds now.

Not moving for a couple years, so I'm going to need to find a full time job. My area of expertise is actually in great demand these days, so I doubt I'll have trouble finding a job, it's just finding the right one which might take some time.

I'm going to see what they offer me for redundancy, and that will dictate how quietly I go, I think.

 

[Tripnologist]

You had also made the decision presumably to quit the company in a couple of years and move to Canada in much the same level headed way.

Actually, they were fully aware of my plans and assured me that I would be able to continue working remotely after I'd moved to Canada. However, that was when plans were to market and license the system we built, rather than focus on the websites we built it for.

Op, what is your skill set?

Typical front end dev stuff really, though I'm also an able designer.
XHTML/HTML5, CSS2/3/LESS, JavaScript/jQuery, crossbrowser, accessibility, etc. etc.1

 

[Tripnologist]

Thread necromancy!!
10 year update!

• I took the redundancy
• They screwed me out of my shares by selling the CMS we built to a company the other 2 directors owned for £1. (it was in contract that any major company decision had to be voted on and approved by a majority of the directors, which I obvs lost 2-1) This left me with shares that were completely worthless.
• I took a month or two off and then landed a freelance job at a big digital agency where I spent a couple months building an experimental and interactive site for a book being published by Penguin.
• I then freelanced at another digital agency for a couple months until they decided to offer me a permanent role, which I accepted.
• After working there for 3 years and 4 months, I was promoted to Senior Front End dev.
• 1 year and 4 months later I took voluntary redundancy to save the jobs of the 2 front end devs under me (I was getting tired of the work anyway and knew I'd have no problem finding another job).
• I bounced around for a couple years freelancing, including at my old agency. And it turned out that taking the voluntary redundancy was actually the best thing that could have happened because when my Mom was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, the freedom/flexibility and money that comes with freelancing meant I was able to fly back to Canada every 3 months for weeks at a time to visit her.
• And finally, while freelancing at my old agency a couple years ago, their new head of technology asked if I would consider coming back permanently. I made them woo me a bit, but eventually accepted as I was kind of missing everything that comes with a permanent role and I'd also worked with the new head of tech before and he's quite literally the perfect boss.
  

And a couple more bullet points that didn't quite fit into my timeline

• We never ended up moving back to Canada. One day though.
• I was granted dual citizenship (British Canadian)
• My mom was initially given 6 months, but she's a very stubborn and strong willed woman and said "F that!". It's been a few years now and although it's still terminal, she's won every battle so far.
• I've done so much more than I ever thought I would with my career and I've really enjoyed it. There's an almost certain chance that you've seen/used/visited something I've worked on.
• The original company was later sold to a larger competitor and then subsequently purchased back after that company dissolved. They eventually sold it again to a major UK airport for 7 figures.