I knew it was time to look for a new job when they said....
Submitted by Esther Schindler on Thu, 09/17/2009 - 12:26.
Tags:
Or, Phrase Translation: Get Your Résumé Out
If you've been in the industry for a while, undoubtedly you have had a Bad Work Experience. Whether you left a job on your own determinism or because you were pushed, months later you can look back at one incident that should have been a clue. With the help of several other people (all contributing anonymously), I hereby provide a Translation Machine to help you understand when the manager says one thing but really means, "Perhaps you should explore how best to improve your résumé and brush up on interviewing skills."
For example:
Manager says: "You are not a team player."
Manager means: "Start circulating your résumé, because there is no way you're going to make it past the next layoff."
Lesson: While it's perfectly reasonable for the company to want team members who care about the project's success, this phrase is not actionable and thus you cannot survive it. Especially if you're the programmer who worked through the weekend to make the software work.
Useful feedback is specific, meant to help you improve, with some sort of metric that lets you and your manager measure success. "You are not a team player" is a meaningless expression that means, "I don't like you."
Manager says: "We are reorganizing the department, but your job is safe."
Manager means: "It's very easy to upload your résumé to Monster. You should try it."
Lesson: Maybe they mean it. Today. But how much do you want to trust them?
I could provide several variations on that theme. But the bottom line is, anytime there is a major change in the company, your job is at risk. You might indeed be the safest person there — but how much do you want to count on it?
Here's one of the variations: "Can you come to my office when you get to a good stopping point?" Wrote my developer-friend, "That was my first layoff. I had the misfortune to solve the last major problem for a project the day before the layoff, thereby earning myself the distinction of being the very last name added to the list."
Manager says: Nah, you don't need to go to that trade show. (And it's the primary show on your technology beat, utterly relevant to your job. You've attended every year for five years.)
Manager means: Bye.
Lesson: If they won't invest in you, they don't expect to see any return.
Manager says: Nobody got a raise this year, you shouldn't complain.
Manager means: We don't value your work. Also, no-raises is swiftly followed by pay cuts, which are soon followed by layoffs. Guess who's on the list? (Extra points for, "Yes, those were valuable contributions, but unfortunately they don't count as part of your real job.")
Lesson: The economy is a real issue, and I won't make light of it. But you shouldn't, either. I've known several companies whose idea of deciding, "Which employee is most expendable?" is "Let's sort the employee spreadsheet by salary, and cut from the top." (Never mind that this also likely eliminates the most experienced staff.) If you suspect you're making more than anyone else in the department... Gosh, which buzzwords should you include on your résumé?
Manager says: We need you to volunteer to "help" QA (or documentation, or pre-sales support) for a few months.
Manager means: We are banishing you. Have a nice day.
Lesson: I've known several companies who "kindly" gave staff a graceful exit. At a high enough managerial level, the employee is given a title like Vice President in Charge of Nothing in Particular, an office with a folding chair and no window, and absolutely no job responsibilities. It's an unspoken suggestion that the company will provide a good reference if only the executive will kindly leave soon. People lower on the totem pole don't get such opportunities.
Manager says, "Here is our new employee policy for use of the Internet. Please sign this to indicate you've read it."
Manager means, "We're going to need an excuse to fire people in the not-so-distant future, so we'll forbid you from checking your e-mail or doing any kind of non-work-related surfing, even on your lunch hour — and then catch you when we need to."
Lesson: It's time to polish that résumé. And to get everything personal off your computer.
And a few more, that need no explanation:
"At the first company I ever worked for, I was head of training/tech support/consulting. They announce the sale of the company at the company Christmas party: Our company was sold to our largest competitor, our arch enemy. I introduce myself to the new owner as the head of technical support. He says, 'Oh, tech support. Well we won't be needing you guys any more!' I went home and prepared my résumé MERRY CHRISTMAS!"
In one of my first jobs, wrote one correspondent, "Every so often the chairman would visit the office and during his walking tour would stop and ask various people 'So, exactly what is it that you do?' Translation: Pack up your stuff as the HR director will have you escorted out the door by day's end (no matter what answer they gave)."
Manager asks, "How long have you been working here, not including tomorrow?"
Manager says, "So. I was reading your blog...."
What would you add?
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"In our company, there's an
"In our company, there's an inner circle, and there's an outer circle..."
Thank you for your suggestion
Top leadership/Management says thank you for your suggestion to change our procedures/processes, but we've being doing it this way for 20 years and it has worked just fine so far.
The company had been floundering for the past 5 years. Management/Leadership did want to change procedures and processes because it would mean they have been "wrong".
Six months later the company closed its doors.
Beware of Leadership and Management that has a status quo bias. Dust off you resume, and circulate yourself.
"Our business model is based
"Our business model is based around selling services to the dot-com companies".
Test Lead
"We need someone to be the Test Lead and your name came up."
As much as anyone tries to sugarcoat it, being a Test Lead / Test Manager is a dead end career move.
I want to help you stand out more
The boss comes by and says "I want you to stop what you're working on (putting some thought into the design of a backend thing) and work on this here UI improvement. It'll help make you a little more visible to the executives..."
Adios bud.
A person who is not a team
A person who is not a team player is not a group thinker is a quality person - I would take it as a compliment !
Oh, it's a compliment.
Unfortunately you can end up both complimented and unemployed.
Spoken like a true independent spirit!
People who think being a team player means doing what everyone else is doing don't get it. That goes for managers as well as individuals who resist being a "team player" because they don't want to sell out or lose their independent spirit or whatever it is that they're afraid of.
I've got an uncle who, every where he ever worked, everyone else was a jerk who was trying to make him do things their way. Just on a practical level, he found himself out of work a lot. But also on a personal level, he never stopped to look in the mirror. Maybe he was the stubborn one who wouldn't accept other people's way of doing things? Maybe they weren't "making him do things their way," but he just didn't know how to propose alternatives without being a defensive jerk. In any case, he was not a very happy man.
But he never gave up! He showed them!
"Yeeeahh, I'm gonna be
"Yeeeahh, I'm gonna be needing that red stapler you have..."
Fatal Obsession
"Growth was the fatal obsession of previous management" - New CEO addressing the entire company.
I had been hired six months previously as the Vice President of Business Development.
Efficiency Experts
"We're bringing in Anderson Consulting to help us improve our processes..." (or whoever it is nowadays) - time to get the heck out of Dodge!
Clear Desk Policy
"We're implementing a CLEAR-DESK policy with random audits. Three citations and you're fired." - real morale builder, there. Leave while you can go on your own terms!
Training versus Brainwashing
"We encourage you to take company sponsored diversity and communications training courses (read - learn how not to be an @$$hole and cause some sort of lawsuit for us)." Also, "Whatever you do, don't take anything that's actually work-related or technically benficial - we won't pay for it, because you'll probably just go someplace else and get a better job."
Penalties for Policy Violations
"We could clarify the restrictions that are randomly and inconsistently enforced to write you up, but then we couldn't make you live in fear of losing your job - and we wouldn't have the tools needed to terminate you at any time with prejudice. Besides, if we did fully explain the policy and all of its ramifications to you - you might think we actually value our employees. That would be an unacceptable show of weakness on our part."
Contractor-Specifc
"We needed this application to scale/not error out/work yesterday. If you can help us ASAP then although at this time we can't pay for any time over 50 hours a week."
This generally translates to 70 to 80 hour weeks and almost the same day of completion of the last piece of refactoring the specific part of the application you are done...no big office, no big leather chair, and no IT soup for you. The reward is the accomplishment, itself, and garnering the surprise opportunity to find yet another contract;)
Another very good one usually at Director or VP level: "I don't care what anyone says or who gets in your way we need the database installed and the enterprise monitoring system up and running by next month. If anyone gets in your way or doesn't like it you tell them I (this is always some boss) told you to do it!"
As soon as that task is complete the same boss says "Contrator who? He said I said what?" Then one is asked to leave for upsetting the team and generally the SAME boss has already alerted HR you could be a problem...the problem he ask you to be;)
Finally, I'll close with one that never even leads to initial employment (so keep on circulating the resume even if you think the interview went perfectly): the all-day tech-intensive interview with desperate corporation IT team whereby they ask you everything they THINK they need to know to solve their tech issue-at-hand even showing one source code all as a "clever ruse" to get one to solve their technical problem pro bono...during the interview process. If you haven't experienced that one the first time you do...well, you think that interview was the best one of your life=)
So cynical!
I don't doubt that it has happened in the past, but any time I've interviewed contractors, I've had way more than one technical problem to solve. If you could solve a representative sample, I'd hire you in a minute. Even more likely, I'd ask you to solve a problem that we've already solved (but through great struggle) so I could know if you were BS'ing or not.
Oh, it happens.
With remarkable frequency.
I've got a new opportunity for you...
I actually "ran out of work" and spent a couple of months (!) working with the finance department detailing and inventorying the supplies, equipment and furniture we had. It was actually a nice change of pace and I learned about how other departments (other than app devel) worked. It was necessary work because we'd been bought and moved 3 times in the last 3 years. Afterwards I did not get fired or laid off (others did), surprisingly. This is with 15+ years experience. However my internal warning bells were going off and I wasn't happy with my work situation so when the opportunity arose, I bailed. Not 100% sure it was the right decision. Trust the inner voice. It has kept me out of trouble.
yeeeeeaaaahhhh
Uuuuhhh yeahh, this is uuuh Bob Slidel and uuuuh he'll be helping us make a few changes here and there.
cost cutting
"Tea and Coffee are no longer provided. Either are paper towels or washing-up liquid. In fact, stay the hell out of the tea-room altogether."
Saves the company about 50c / employee / day ... a sure sign that you're circling the drain ...
the writing is on the wall
When your manager WANTS you to learn a new technology fast(for a different,existing project) because there is not enough work for a non-citizen contractor to keep him busy in the project you are currently involved in.
Tenuous Employment
Wow!
I can honestly say that 99% of the situations discussed above are completely foreign to me.
I thank God for my job, where I'm made to feel like a valuable employee.
I think I'll go hug my boss now.
Oops! Not so fast.
Have you taken the "Sexual Harassment Prevention" course yet? Do you still want to hug your boss?
Quality Project Management
Our management was shoddy at best. The lack of real requirements for our project and tight deadlines was semi-suicidal. So, the Director of Software Development shot back at upper management. Forced them to commit to what they wanted, and define clear feature sets for a release. (Feature creep had killed our deadlines before). Sooo... Management's answer to being forced to do their job. Signs were hung around the office. A red circle with a stripe through it, and text that read "No Excuses"
LOL! That puts the K in Kwality
this one
Almost crying. Maybe it´s better to go to the mountains and bite a bear than looking for a job. Anything positive?
"It's very easy to upload
"It's very easy to upload your résumé to Monster. You should try it."That evil ;)
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