This Business and Moment...

Well I have a 5 minute conversation with a COO level individual in the org.. (she's basically the C-level troubleshooter) ... 3 hours later and I seem to have been the detox Friday late Friday afternoon conversation target. Potentially dangerous but it seemed quite open discussion (and provided quite a large amount of info) and certainly provided a great steer for my conversations next week.

I mentioned the problem that the org has is cultural behaviour to the point ai was considering resigning and highlighting the behaviour of certain individuals that would cause a problem with retention of staff. If I resign I would write to the chief of people and the CIO.. some of the stories are shocking and the level of tolerance is, well, unprofessional at best/verging on illegal at worst.

Meanwhile more skeletons have appeared and I have yet more financial mess to sort out that arrived in my email box.
 
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Thought about it for a few days but made my decision.

Just accepted the job offer for the role in Oxford. Not a small payrise (although just worked out that I'll only keep just over half of it after tax) and the role is exciting. I got a good impression from the company and staff too.

The mistake I made last time was rushing into something that sounded too good to be true without even looking at alternatives, so I'm glad I spent the last few weeks getting a few offers on the table to consider and having the actual interviews at a bunch of different companies. Still can't know what it'll be like until I'm actually there but out of the 3 I got offers from, the 3 interviews (two virtual and one in person) definitely felt the most comfortable with this company than the others.
 
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Orangeade said:
In other news I did formal interview at other place. Was quite impressed by them I have to say, they actually seemed quite genuine. They knew me from someone who had talked highly of me which was nice to hear. Scope seems hugely ambitious and I think that whilst I would bite at the bit as it's a slow burner I think the complexity will interest me even if the overall product doesn't.

Actually would like the job so fingers crossed.
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Well, seems like they like me which is good. Got a talk this week about what package would be like in more formal terms. This had already been discussed a bit so won't be anything out of blue hopefully. Curiously relieved to have gotten through. Have a long weekend off for the first time in so long and it was genuinely super nice. I think in the back of my mind I already had this job in mind.

My company are going to be extremely upset at the news. Not going to be pleasant....
 
Orangeade said:
My company are going to be extremely upset at the news. Not going to be pleasant....
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I never advocate for burning bridges, but it can be wise to keep things in perspective. At the end of the day, you have to do what's best for you and your career. It's a job that pays the bills so that you can live your life, and if the company had to downsize, no one in HR would think twice about making you redundant if you were put on a redundancy list by your management. It's just business.

Once you're ready to hand in your notice, give notice, but make it clear that you're ready to move on (I don't think that counteroffers are generally viable or worth it from an employer or employee perspective). I generally adopt a "it's not you, it's me" attitude to these things, even if it is 100% them. Nothing good comes from burning bridges. "Thank you for the opportunity to work at the company, I have enjoyed working here, and it's now time for me to move on. I will do my best to ensure a diligent hand-off of any information that the company may need from me before I leave on [x date]."
 
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jon86 said:
I never advocate for burning bridges, but it can be wise to keep things in perspective. At the end of the day, you have to do what's best for you and your career. It's a job that pays the bills so that you can live your life, and if the company had to downsize, no one in HR would think twice about making you redundant if you were put on a redundancy list by your management. It's just business.
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Unfortunately this is very much the issue. The reason for moving on from my last role was simple - finished the task set (get product off the CEO naughty step) and they wanted me to renew but I knew of budget issues and that meant with all the niceness in the world, I would have been first out of the door. It's the same with FTE too. You can do a great job that blew expectations but if that's side of desk and not your day job.. you're out with ~50,000 redundancies from a large company.
 
Just been contacted by my manager in the middle of my holiday to ask if I can join a planning call for a workshop taking place the day after I get back from holiday.

Part of me thinks it's unreasonable to contact an employee whilst on leave expecting them to join a call.
Another part of me acknowledges I'm the person running the workshop and there's literally no preparation time between my holiday and the workshop.

I've agreed to do the call, but I've made it clear that I don't expect this to be the norm.
 
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Lopéz said:
Just been contacted by my manager in the middle of my holiday to ask if I can join a planning call for a workshop taking place the day after I get back from holiday.

Part of me thinks it's unreasonable to contact an employee whilst on leave expecting them to join a call.
Another part of me acknowledges I'm the person running the workshop Anne there's literally no preparation time between my holiday and the workshop.

I've agreed to do the call, but I've made it clear that I don't expect this to be the norm.
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That sounds like (very) poor planning on your manager's part (and maybe yours, depending on who is responsible for organizing and creating the content for the workshop). I would at least take a requisite amount of time off at another day (even "unofficially") to make up for the time you have to work during your holiday.
 
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Yeah, they knew I was going to be on holiday. I was assigned to the project the Monday before I went on holiday, and asked to prepare the agenda by Wednesday in time for any questions that came before Friday before I went off.

I did everything that was requested ahead of the deadlines, the client never responded to any of the agenda points (as they never do) it's just typical consultancy last-minute-drop-everything stuff to be honest.
That part I am used to (everything last minute, constantly changing timelines, sudden client demands that must be reacted to immediately) it's just the first time it's encroached on my holiday.
 
Lopéz said:
Just been contacted by my manager in the middle of my holiday to ask if I can join a planning call for a workshop taking place the day after I get back from holiday.
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Wow, that's terrible practice from your manager. Illegal in some countries I believe.

You should, at the very least, expect to be credited a full day extra holiday for taking part.
 
Could be worse, the last consultancy I was at would regularly gently encourage employees to cancel upcoming holidays to try and salvage a project that was behind schedule, and then that person would be applauded for dropping their plans and bailing us out.

Never did it. I am an extremely diligent and hard working employee when I'm at work, but my time should be my time and I disagree with work encroaching on that.
 
Lopéz said:
Could be worse, the last consultancy I was at would regularly gently encourage employees to cancel upcoming holidays to try and salvage a project that was behind schedule, and then that person would be applauded for dropping their plans and bailing us out.
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I remember working for games companies who would routinely ring up employees on holiday and at weekends and order them to come into work. Management openly talked about "we can always call them in if we need them" with employees on holiday.
 
Mr Jack said:
I remember working for games companies who would routinely ring up employees on holiday and at weekends and order them to come into work. Management openly talked about "we can always call them in if we need them" with employees on holiday.
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Yep, heard all this sort of thing many times!
 
Lopéz said:
Could be worse, the last consultancy I was at would regularly gently encourage employees to cancel upcoming holidays to try and salvage a project that was behind schedule, and then that person would be applauded for dropping their plans and bailing us out.

Never did it. I am an extremely diligent and hard working employee when I'm at work, but my time should be my time and I disagree with work encroaching on that.
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This is concerning stuff, it happened recently at my company. Traditionally we've always been "Low pressure, hard working" kind of people. But this month it seems more than 50% of critical team members are on 3 or 4 weeks of leave. This is a total pain for those of us left behind, but hey-ho, summer.

However one very niche specialist ended up replying to some messages 10 days into his break. Then he sent some files. Then he was working on some test materials, and by week 3 he was just... Working and responding, while set to Out Of Office.

Someone suggested applauding it in our weekly newsletter and that would have been a dumb thing to do!
 
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Mr Jack said:
I remember working for games companies who would routinely ring up employees on holiday and at weekends and order them to come into work. Management openly talked about "we can always call them in if we need them" with employees on holiday.
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I have known folks to say, "I won't have any access to a phone or any Internet access, so good luck trying to contact me when I am on holiday.", but it turned out that they simply blocked any work phone numbers and didn't look at their work email or Slack.

LuckyBenski said:
... But this month it seems more than 50% of critical team members are on 3 or 4 weeks of leave. This is a total pain for those of us left behind, but hey-ho, summer. ...
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This is just poor planning by your management. As I understand, there's no "right" to take paid holiday when you want - it's always up to the discretion of management to approve it - so if management wants to spread planned absences over the summer, then they do that (and enforce it). If people want to take unplanned, unpaid holiday, they're able to, but I doubt that many would do that (for example, to spite management for not letting them take holiday during their desired time) as they wouldn't want to be without pay during that time.
 
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jon86 said:
I have known folks to say, "I won't have any access to a phone or any Internet access, so good luck trying to contact me when I am on holiday.", but it turned out that they simply blocked any work phone numbers and didn't look at their work email or Slack.


This is just poor planning by your management. As I understand, there's no "right" to take paid holiday when you want - it's always up to the discretion of management to approve it - so if management wants to spread planned absences over the summer, then they do that (and enforce it). If people want to take unplanned, unpaid holiday, they're able to, but I doubt that many would do that (for example, to spite management for not letting them take holiday during their desired time) as they wouldn't want to be without pay during that time.
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What is this unplanned, unpaid holiday? I think you'd get fired if you tried that at any company I've worked for unless there were exceptional circumstances involved.
 
EvilRob said:
What is this unplanned, unpaid holiday? I think you'd get fired if you tried that at any company I've worked for unless there were exceptional circumstances involved.
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People who feign that they are "sick" that have run out of paid sick leave. I've seen it happen more than once in my career.
 
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I can't receive calls or emails when I'm out of the office.

I don't take my work phone/laptop with me. And only a couple of people have my personal phone number - and they'd never contact me about work anyway.
 
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