This Business and Moment...

[Rids]

Time for a bit of a vent.

After all the stress and drama of the last forever with my current employer, I finally broke down around 7 weeks ago and ended up having a month off with stress. Truth is I was utterly broken and despondent and I couldn't face getting out of bed in the morning. We've had an accounts team running at around 120% staff turnover in the last year, nothing has been handed over, nobody can do anything other than follow a process and consequently every single piece of information we've been receiving has been delayed / wrong / delayed & wrong. I was doing my job to the best of my ability, and as one of the few people with some historical knowledge of the business and a couple of brain cells to rub together I was keeping the accounts process from falling flat on its face, but it was hell.

My return to work was greeted by a massive backlog of time critical work outside of my domain that has been left for me because 'nobody else can work it out' - the exact reason I went off in the first place.

During my 4 weeks off the CFO, who had made me a raft of promises around designing my ideal new role has resigned. New CFO is a good guy, but has only known me a short time and doesn't know the value that I bring. As such I'm being moved into a Business Partnering role, and progression to Head of is back on hold. On top of this I'm now involved in recruitment for my replacement in the capital space... going in at Head Of level, on 20k-30k more than me with a bonus around 30k more than I was paid for the same role. Truth is that I don't want to stay in my old role, I don't want to do Capital anymore... but for an extra 60 grand a year I think I could put up with it.

I'm now in a position where I have a sideways move, with delays in the promised progression, and I've transitioned away from a role that got an automatic increase in seniority.

I'm in the process of buying a house, but there some potential hitches with the mortgage given the other half is on furlough and her return to work date just got shifted back which means the mortgage is likely to fall through. If it does then I think I'm going to walk away from this job and take 6 months off, I don't feel valued anymore and the broken promises are the last straw.

 

[Martynt74]

That's really disappointing to hear. I recall your posts around project work and the Workday side of things and how it sounded like you had a great few years ahead of you with the promises made by the old CFO.

 

[randomshenans]

I'm now in a position where I have a sideways move, with delays in the promised progression, and I've transitioned away from a role that got an automatic increase in seniority.

Oh man what a shame that the old CFO left... I hate it when things like that happen.
Can you discuss all of this with the new CFO? Is he aware of all previous promises you were made etc?

I'd be looking elsewhere at this point. I mean, it's not ideal but it sounds like it'll just bury you again and for your health it doesn't sound good.


Work this week has been a complete pain. I work for a dept. called Operational Excellence and my line manager is the head of this team. However, my main customer is the product org as I do product management excellence (defining processes, best practices bla bla) so my objectives have been set by my team but this week I thought all was going well, but apparently the head of product has been bitching to other people I'm not meeting their immediate needs and thinking too far into the future. I haven't been given this feedback and in fact I'm working on both parts, the now and next across all things. There is one of me but apparently they need about 3 of me with what they expect. It got all political and **** spreading around as the head of product (who I thought we had a decent relationship with) hates my boss. It's just caused me some really late nights and confusion and lack of trust.
On top of this it's at a point where I'm just being given tasks, like "do this, in this format, like this" which is so utterly demotivating. I took this job to use my experience and do things right. They don't seem to care about this though.

I got it out my system. Will just carry on carrying on but trying to make it not impact my evenings. I have worked all week until 11-12 at night and been starting at 7-8. I dont have much time for family, let alone Cheezus which is my only respite and fulfilment at the moment. I have a 1:1 today with my boss. She's not very good though, so not sure voicing this stuff will be helpful or fuel the fire between her and the head of product. I hate company politics... I just want to do a good job and the do the right things.

 

[HangTime]

@Rids don't be afraid to walk away if you an afford to, I quit a reasonably senior job last year because amongst other things I felt very overwhelmed/stressed due to having to juggle dozens of things at once, essentially doing two roles in one and not having time to do a decent job of things never mind do something a bit innovative. I also felt it hadn't been recognised how much my role has expanded over the prior 3.5 years, getting the standard 2% pay rise or whatever and having multiple direct reports with way less responsibility earning not much less than I was. The timing was a bit ironic, I used to have a mammoth commute so lockdown saved me a lot in money and travel time but even in spite of that it still felt pretty much impossible to run everything.

It sounds like you work in finance so just figure out the right timing to quit based on your notice period to get out before any stressful periods like half year (might be a bit late now if your FY is Calendar year). I left end of December because I didn't really fancy going through a year end plus Brexit etc.

The problem is, and I wrote along similar lines in another thread, is tacit knowledge tends to be undervalued and you'll also have some organisations with a huge amount of historical baggage where only a handful of people really understand how things work. Throwing resources at some of these problems isn't that efficient because you always keep relying on that small core of people to enable the dozens of new workers. You might never be able to break out of this cycle where you are relied on to tie things together, maybe it's best to find a job somewhere else where you will be coming in as new guy and be pressuring the old hands to fix stuff rather than the other way round.

 

[Rroff]

My return to work was greeted by a massive backlog of time critical work outside of my domain that has been left for me because 'nobody else can work it out' - the exact reason I went off in the first place.

Feel that pain - we had two shipments (on going) come through work where the labels had somehow got swapped around - each time they came through several people must have looked at it and gone *shrug* "not my job" and just moved it on without a care. So I came back from a few days off, noticed the problem, and had to spend a load of time sorting out the mess because no one else was going to.

 

[Rids]

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement lads.

I'm just biding my time to see what happens with the mortgage, mortgage advisor feels positive that the risk is low and we'll be able to get it over the line. Once that position is known I'll be in a place where I can make a proper decision on what to do.

I have a showdown meeting with the new boss tomorrow, its very much a 'tell me why I should stay' conversation where I'll be flagging development and remuneration as major issues we need to address if they plan on holding onto me. I don't think I've got anything to lose at this point, if it doesn't go well I'm in a position where I'm confident I can jump to a similar / better role in another firm. If it means phoning it in for 6 months while my mortgage gets approved I'm content to do that.

I interviewed for my replacement of my existing role last week, very strong candidate, certainly stronger in certain areas than I am, but also weaker in others. I've no issue with the package they plan to offer him, but I think I bring just as much value to the business and I've got no qualms about asking for them to bridge the significant gap that is going to exist.

Interestingly we've got a massive project that is kicking off at the moment to start fixing some of the historical quirks that the business has as we align to market standard. I am the only person in the business that is capable of doing this, if I go they'll have to use consultancy and it'll cost them a few hundred k more and take three times a long than if I run it.

I do feel that it could well be time for a change, I'm very jaded, but if I get what I'm looking for then its probably worth me sticking around for a couple of years.

 

[HangTime]

Interestingly we've got a massive project that is kicking off at the moment to start fixing some of the historical quirks that the business has as we align to market standard. I am the only person in the business that is capable of doing this, if I go they'll have to use consultancy and it'll cost them a few hundred k more and take three times a long than if I run it

In the career conversation with the new boss why not pitch yourself as having a key role in that project, Product Owner / Service owner / Business Architect or something along those lines and say you want to move into that as a dedicated programme role, stepping away from BAU (which should reduce the stress)? Although there's obviously a risk that you get called back into BAU when the fans turn brown if you are genuinely the only person with knowledge of certain things, so need to be wary of that.

Regardless of what the role is, it sounds like you need to push for some sort of knowledge transfer cycle whereby the key man dependency on you can be reduced, by getting your tacit knowledge embedded in other areas.

 

[randomshenans]

I have a showdown meeting with the new boss tomorrow,

Let us know how it goes!

I got it out my system. Will just carry on carrying on but trying to make it not impact my evenings. I have worked all week until 11-12 at night and been starting at 7-8. I dont have much time for family, let alone Cheezus which is my only respite and fulfilment at the moment. I have a 1:1 today with my boss. She's not very good though, so not sure voicing this stuff will be helpful or fuel the fire between her and the head of product. I hate company politics... I just want to do a good job and the do the right things.

I put in some hours last week. It was bank holiday for us last monday, so considering we had a day off and I took friday afternoon off, I still managed to do over 40hours last week. It was useful though and I knocked out some work that is pulling a lot of things together, so at least if nothing else, I feel a bit better about executing on a few big things. I have some reservations on my ability to do it all though, purely from a size of deliverable for one person across multiple of these types of things, but hey. I'll raise these things to my manager. I have zero chance of getting any extra support at this point but hey.

I had an email last friday morning, just before I took the afternoon off from a snr director at GSK. I had, some months ago, found out that GSK had been through a similar product transition to our current journey. It was documented online in an article, and had the names of the people leading it. I reached out to 3 of them on linkedin and messaged the most senior one. I really wanted to see if we could chat to understand how their journey went, and if I could get any learnings from them. I also thought they might be good for one of our external speaker series engagements to talk about their journey.
Anyway, we had a back and forth by email a couple of months ago and then I got really busy, as did he. He hadn't replied since my last email, but did yesterday apologising and asking if we can get together for a virtual coffee and that he had a job he thought I would be interested in...

Funnily enough, I think I was emailed about this job through linkedin notifications. It's a director of product management for GSK. Great role, great company name. In line with my current path as Ass. Dir. Product Excellence. However, it's London, and a year contract for the role... and I get a very nice salary, which would be hard to beat (not impossible, but I'm not sure package wise it'd be comparable with my Swiss contributions etc.) and of course my WLB would be worse, as travel would make this (after covid, I'd assume) more time consuming than my current setup. Although, where I am, I don't think I would have a chance of moving up to a Dir. level position... at least not for some years and I am all about the progression.
It's those golden handcuffs that make these decisions more difficult to make... risk increase for better potential longterm gain? Anyway, we're chatting this afternoon, so I'll see what he says. If nothing else it's a great connection to have.

ramble over.

 

[Martynt74]

That's the kicker isn't it? I have a mate at United Utilities, he's worked his way up and not got to a point where he's classed as "manager" level and so gets various perks that come with that (22% pension, bonus, car allowance etc), but somehow he's also kept his "shop floor" contract terms which mean he's home based so is on the clock from the moment he leaves the house to the moment he gets home, he also gets paid full overtime/call outs at 1.5x which is rare at manager level as there's always the expectation to do extra.

It's at the point he wouldn't mind moving for a new challenge but he's got such a cushy life and great salary when factoring in overtime etc that it's just not worth it.



As for me, i'm getting more and more relieved to be moving. Our company has such a rubbish structure that there's so many manual fudges to get things into the right place. I'm currently having to re-do loads of reporting for 2020 as something else has now changed. Luckily it was nice to be able to be honest and give the opinion that it doesn't matter what business intelligence software they go with, it'll never work because they can't agree on a standard layout and get people to fall in line. Felt great rather than just the usual getting on with it! I feel sorry for whoever takes some of my reporting over as there's just spreadsheets with random values moving around all over the place!

 

[Rids]

Well I had my catch up with the new boss, and while I was polite I made it clear that I wasn't particularly happy.

My biggest concern was the immediate re-grading of my old role the second I moved out of it. I was assured that this wasn't designed to be intentionally deceitful but there new CFO and the old CFO had very different views on what they were looking for from a Capital function. I made it clear that while the intent may not have been there, the end result is that I have significantly lost out as a result and my expectation is that the company does something to bridge the gap between the two roles if they intend on retaining me.

I then flagged my concerns about development, the promises that were made to me that have now evaporated with a change of leadership. Once again they reassured me that I'm one of the highest performing members of the team and on the fast track to big things, but I've pushed for a definite plan and timetable for how we're going to get me there. The new role I've moved into is a sideways move (before old role was re-graded), but it has the potential to be incredibly expansive and engaging if we do things right. I'm chatting with the CUO in a few days to spell out a plan of action to take things to the next level. I've also taken away an action to gather 360 degree feedback to help me identify where people perceive my weaknesses are so we can best build the action plan.

We spoke about the big upcoming project, I can't say too much because of NDA's, but they recognise that they'll be pretty stuffed without me and reiterated their desire for me to be heavily involved and lead various aspects of this in the coming 12 months.

Finally we spoke at length about the demands on my time, and the ongoing requirement to handhold various teams on a daily basis. The new CFO has a very interested take on this... let things break. Because I've been papering over the cracks for so long I don't think many people appreciate just how bad a state certain areas are in, and with year out of the way we can afford for things to fall apart to best identify how we need to rebuild. As such I'm only to offer high level guidance, and teams will either figure it out on their own or things will fall apart, and both are acceptable outcomes.

It may not have been the smartest conservation to have, but I feel like I have nothing to lose at this point, either we reach an agreement on progression / remuneration or there is no future for me here. I'm confident I could land a role externally that gives me what I want and if is that is what it comes to then I can leave here head held high, with some great references and a new challenge.

 

[Martynt74]

Sounds like a productive conversation and refreshing to be told to just let things break so at least that's some pressure off from your side. Hopefully the new CFO can back that conversation up with some tangible rewards and as you say if that's not forthcoming at least you've given them the opportunity to make amends before leaving.

 

[randomshenans]

It may not have been the smartest conservation to have, but I feel like I have nothing to lose at this point, either we reach an agreement on progression / remuneration or there is no future for me here. I'm confident I could land a role externally that gives me what I want and if is that is what it comes to then I can leave here head held high, with some great references and a new challenge.

Sounds like it was worth it and at the end of the day, you had to really do it and like you said, nothing to lose. You can't keep going on like this for your sake. It sounds like it was productive and hopefully some action comes from this. I believe he's actually right on the let things break. No one has tried to fix the issue of you being the SPF on these things because they haven't had to. As soon as they have to (if you left anyway, they'd have to) they'll find a way to sort it. It's just easier going to you.

As for me, i'm getting more and more relieved to be moving.

I bet you are! It's a nice feeling when you are in this position!


I received another bunch of completely conflicting demands and emails on Friday. Then the head of product putting things in bold in an email to me saying "I don’t consider this an issue between you and I, Ross, not at all. It’s the NOE (and former P&O) approach, and I’ve reached out to Z to share this directly, I believe it’s a mindset shift needed with Z and the approach taken to engage with NX."
Yea, but as much as that's nice and all, I don't really like being the **** in the middle getting pushed about like a political pawn.

While I'm trying to keep doing my best here, I feel it's futile and I'm losing the will. I do not like this as I always approach things to do my very best for the outcomes and business, it's just such a pain of a place. At the same time, I am going to keep my focus on delivering more value on Cheezus, which means planning as well as I can, so I can still work on Cheezus stuff. At the moment, the last 2-3 weeks I've been emotionally drained after work so found it really hard to push myself to work on side project stuff. Basically, plan better, solve problems, better use my time, **** people.

 

[Amplus]

Been in my job for 9 years. Its easy, secure, stress-free, and I can work from home 3 days a week. However I've not progressed at all in those 9 years. Started off as one of the 'young' ones in my role but as everyone started to leave or progress I'm no longer the youngest. Younger and fresher people come in whilst I'm doing the same old admin type job. Not had a pay rise either in those 9 years other then the usual 2%. I have pushed for new opportunities but they never seem to happen for me and say I need to improve on this and that, which I do but nothing despite being a big company I work for. Tbh as time as gone on found myself to become more and more bitter that I haven't progressed. There was a sales role I possibly could have got but not sure sales is for me.

However as soon as I apply for other jobs and get interviews I panic and suddenly the job I want to leave become amazing. 'it's secure', 'I can work from home 3 days a week', etc.

Potentially being offered a new job for £4-5k a year more. However it's in a different industry that is new to me, its office based with some travel involved so a car is provided . So now of course I'm panicking 'am I making the right decision' 'leaving a secure job for the unknown', etc?

How does anybody get over the anxiety of moving jobs? Am I making the right decision to move jobs?

 

[Rids]

Been in my job for 9 years. Its easy, secure, stress-free, and I can work from home 3 days a week. However I've not progressed at all in those 9 years. Started off as one of the 'young' ones in my role but as everyone started to leave or progress I'm no longer the youngest. Younger and fresher people come in whilst I'm doing the same old admin type job. Not had a pay rise either in those 9 years other then the usual 2%. I have pushed for new opportunities but they never seem to happen for me and say I need to improve on this and that, which I do but nothing despite being a big company I work for. Tbh as time as gone on found myself to become more and more bitter that I haven't progressed. There was a sales role I possibly could have got but not sure sales is for me.

However as soon as I apply for other jobs and get interviews I panic and suddenly the job I want to leave become amazing. 'it's secure', 'I can work from home 3 days a week', etc.

Potentially being offered a new job for £4-5k a year more. However it's in a different industry that is new to me, its office based with some travel involved so a car is provided . So now of course I'm panicking 'am I making the right decision' 'leaving a secure job for the unknown', etc?

How does anybody get over the anxiety of moving jobs? Am I making the right decision to move jobs?

If you've been doing the same job on effectively the same pay for 9 years... its time to move on. From what you've said it sounds like there is no future in this job, its already stale... how much worse is that going to feel 5 years from now if you're still doing the same thing.

Its easy to get stuck with what you know, and changing jobs is always a risk, but in my experience it works out far more often than it doesn't. Thats not just personally, but I'd say 80% of people I've hired over the years have been a success and moved on to bigger and better things.

I think its important to understand a few things, your new job will have a honeymoon period where you wonder 'Why didn't I do this years ago?' and then you'll have the doubts, something will go wrong, you'll be asked something you're struggling to understand and then you'll think you've made a mistake. This has happened to me every single time I've changed job, but you'll come through the other side of it. Once you've been through the cycle a few times you'll start to appreciate the value you bring - I don't have any fears about moving to a new role / business, I know the value that I bring, I know there will be bumps, but I'm also confident enough in myself that even if it turns out to be a massive mistake I'll find something else in 3 months.

 

[Martynt74]

I think its important to understand a few things, your new job will have a honeymoon period where you wonder 'Why didn't I do this years ago?' and then you'll have the doubts, something will go wrong, you'll be asked something you're struggling to understand and then you'll think you've made a mistake. This has happened to me every single time I've changed job, but you'll come through the other side of it. Once you've been through the cycle a few times you'll start to appreciate the value you bring - I don't have any fears about moving to a new role / business, I know the value that I bring, I know there will be bumps, but I'm also confident enough in myself that even if it turns out to be a massive mistake I'll find something else in 3 months.

I agree with that, the longer you spend at a company the harder it can feel sometimes to leave. I was in my first job from the age of 19 and then left at 28. That's a time when most people get lots of experience but i only had experience of one team/company. I was fortunate in that i'd progressed and done a few different roles but it was still scary when i made the move.

There are many people who are happy to stay in the same role for life and as long as the current salary is market rate for the role you're doing then there's probably not much to complain about. It sounds like you want to try other things though from what you've said. Could you try speaking to your manager to make a real plan for progession? I know you've said you get told to improve on things and believe you have done so, have you then approached them to ask why you've not progressed?

You may also be in that difficult situation where because of your history, you're more valuable to the company in your current lower role because of your knowledge. It's a rubbish place to be if thats the case and it could be leaving is the only other option.

The other option could be to be offered another job, go to hand your notice in and it might give your boss a push to actually make changes in order to keep you. No harm in trying that if you do get anxious about leaving.

 

[Amplus]

If you've been doing the same job on effectively the same pay for 9 years... its time to move on. From what you've said it sounds like there is no future in this job, its already stale... how much worse is that going to feel 5 years from now if you're still doing the same thing.

Its easy to get stuck with what you know, and changing jobs is always a risk, but in my experience it works out far more often than it doesn't. Thats not just personally, but I'd say 80% of people I've hired over the years have been a success and moved on to bigger and better things.

I think its important to understand a few things, your new job will have a honeymoon period where you wonder 'Why didn't I do this years ago?' and then you'll have the doubts, something will go wrong, you'll be asked something you're struggling to understand and then you'll think you've made a mistake. This has happened to me every single time I've changed job, but you'll come through the other side of it. Once you've been through the cycle a few times you'll start to appreciate the value you bring - I don't have any fears about moving to a new role / business, I know the value that I bring, I know there will be bumps, but I'm also confident enough in myself that even if it turns out to be a massive mistake I'll find something else in 3 months.

Appreciate the feedback.

I've applied for jobs internally and always seems to be the way that the person who gets it was told to apply anyway as they were lined up. I did have a call from a manager encouraging me to apply for an internal role last year as an account manager but a lot of business to business telesales calls were involved which is not something I think I would be good at. Its a tough one leaving something I'm comfortable in but as you say if I'm bitter now I'd be even more bitter come 5 years.

 

[randomshenans]

Yea, I agree with these too.

 

[Martynt74]

Hmm ethical dilemma for you all.

We don't have a proper HR department, our HR is just done by the local office accountant. I had to submit my holiday form and i've only take 1 day so far this year (runs Jan to Dec).

I've no idea how he's worked this out as i only get 25 days entitlement, so having worked ~6 months, my calculation would be i get 12 days accrued. Minus the day i've taken and i was expecting a little bonus of 11 days holiday pay. However his message said i'm owed 19 days.

I now have a few options

1 - Say nothing now, assuming they'll work it out properly before payday. Pray for free money.
2 - Say something now to point this out
3 - Wait until payday to see the outcome. If i get extra then go nuts
4 - Wait until payday to see the outcome. If i get extra then stick to one side just in case
5 - Wait until payday to see the outcome. If i get extra then tell them and get them to recalculate it

 

[Rids]

Could it be related to carry forward of previous years holiday you've failed to take or something?

Either way, no dilemma at all for me, say nothing, pray for free money, assuming free money arrives stick the extra aside for a couple of months, after a couple of months, party.

 

[Martynt74]

No. We’re not allowed to roll anything over.

All I’m wondering is if he’s got some weird thing in his head and somehow based it on 33 days including bank holidays.

Or even something like with there being ~20 working days in a month. He’s worked out I get 19/30ths of a monthly salary?

Next Friday will be interesting!