Negotiating with my manager

[scott-atkinson]

Has he been on the Forum since, if not then perhaps he is no longer with them

 

[Frothingslosh]

He posted yesterday on the athiest thread, but other than that hasn't really been active that I can find.

 

[Alc]

Sorry, all. I didn't have any new news, so I didn't update this thread.

Current status is that I was asked to put 'a few notes' in writing for my manager, so he could take the case to his boss (who has final say). I submitted the following in writing, a week ago today

I do all development work in isolation and copy the finished products to the shared drive(s) as and when the work is complete. The work needs to be done on the local drives, since Access development over the network can be painfully slow. This work can be carried out anywhere, as no secure servers are involved.

When working remotely, I am able to work under both MS Office 2003 and MS Office 2010. This lets me test reports before they’re published and database upgrades before they go live. I can’t do this in the office, as multiple MS Office licenses on a single laptop are not permitted.

Working remotely allows me to get work done on days when either sickness, family obligations, or transport problems would other wise have prevented it.

Current Routine

• Monday – Office
• Tuesday – Remote
• Wednesday – Office
• Thursday – Off work
• Friday (alternate) – Office/ Remote

This routine has been in place since April 2008.

Proposed Routine

• Monday – Office
• Tuesday – Remote
• Wednesday – Office
• Thursday – Remote
• Friday – Office

• The days I already work in the office would be unaffected
• I would also be in the office every Friday, instead of alternate weeks
• I would never be out of the office for two days in a row
• The day I used to be off work would be replaced by a day of remote work

With this schedule, any work requiring my presence in the office could be completed. Should any work only be possible in-office and need to be finished urgently, I could stay on to complete it. Note: With proper planning, this should be extremely rare.
This routine would also allow me to continue to take advantage of remote working

When the meeting can be scheduled with myself, my manager and his manager, I also plan to bring up something along the following lines:

When someone joins a company - assuming it's not a deliberately short-term role - they look to measure their progress. For some people, it's titles (e.g. sales assistant to asistant manager, assistant manager to manager, and so on). For some, it's money (if they're steadily making more than before, they're happy). For some, it's qualifications/training. With me, it's time. Since starting here, I've measured my progress by how much less time I waste on commuting and so how much more time I can spend with family. If someone were to suggest that one of my colleagues should get a pay cut to put them back six years, or thay they be demoted to where they were back then, purely because someone else wants their pay/rank, it would be viewed as unfair. Since that's the sole reason for proposing I lose the ability to work remotely [I've confirmed this is the case], I don't see that it's fair to set me back to 2008.

 

[spikepl]

He's off praying for a new job

Ops - update - perhaps not?

 

[Alc]

He's off praying for a new job

Ops - update - perhaps not?

Worst case scenario: they refuse point blank to upset anyone else so tell me I can't do any more remote work. It's not sustainable for me, long-term, but I'm realistic enough to know I can't just walk until I have something else lined up. I'd stay on just long enough to find another job.

 

[Rabbie]

Good luck with finding a new job.

 

[Alc]

Good luck with finding a new job.

Thanks. I figure it'll probably come to that. It'll still be a shame if it does.

 

[Brianwarnock]

Sorry that it does not appear to be working out, I thought earlier it had been said that the final decision was your manager's, now it appears that he has to sell it upwards, not good.
Best wishes for the future.

Brian

 

[Bladerunner]

Sorry, all. I didn't have any new news, so I didn't update this thread.


What you have written in the first three paragraphs is good. They give your boss the framework of how you spend your time and what is actually being done while you are on remote. Productivity

The Quote gives him a possible compromise to the present situation.

What you have not done is show him the financials of the compromise schedule vs the present schedule or the present schedule vs the office schedule. Yes, you do know what you make, how long it takes you to write a program, how much longer you project it will take trying to do it in the office ( be very careful here, be sure to give reasons why it would take you longer in the office that are not present in the remote or he could take it that you are purposely going to slow things down if you do not get your way). In other words convert your production to time/money. Rem, Money Talks.

Do away with the last paragraph!. As your boss, I would take it as a threat, an ultimatum that you will be leaving if I go through the change. This gets my bristles up and puts up a wall to the point that any advances you might have made are now null and void. Unless you are ready to quit right then, do not play your cards here. He could just tell you he will find someone else and you could walk out of there without a job.

Good Luck

 

[Alc]

Firstly, a big thanks to everyone who offered advice/suppport.

I bit the bullet and accepted that remote work wasn't going to happen. as a result, I decided to accept the full-time post. That was October 20th. Since then, my manager has been ducking me. October 24th, I sent him an email and was told I'd need to apply via the company website along with any other external applicants. Alarm bells started ringing.

I just got back from a long, cooling-off walk after finding out the whole process was (clearly) bs and they had no intention of keeping me on. I now realise that my manager, a person I felt I could trust (and who I had spoken of in glowing terms to anyone who asked) wants to have this team be 'his' i.e. he wants all of the old guard gone and the team populated entirely with people he's hired himself. Since I've been here 8 1/2 years and he has just over a year under his belt, it was never going to go well for me.

Removing my contractor status, taking away the remote working capability, not giving me feedback on questions I've asked, ducking meetings with me, etc. has all been done in the hope I'd just get sick of it and quit. Hell, if I was single, I probably would have, but the family must eat, and all that, so I stuck it out. Since Friday is the last day of my contract, he had no option but to admit that 'the team is going in a new direction and we just don't feel you fit in'.

He said they're moving away from using Access as it's too technical, yet the job descritpion for my role includes as one of its requirements 'Strong to expert knowledge of MS Access and MS Excel'.

As previously stated, I'll probably have to take the option to extend my contract by a final month, as I (stupidly) slowed down my search in the belief I was staying on, so I should be around for forum for a little while yet.

I leave the floor open to anyone wanting to say something along the lines of 'I told you so'. I was far, far too trusting here, and it's come back to bite me.

 

[Brianwarnock]

I am so sorry to hear this news, it is difficult to work in a place without trust so nobody can blame you for what's happened, the guy is a bastard.
Too many managers hate having staff who know more than them, but perhaps it will all go down the pan when he has a bunch of novices.

I hope that you can soon get a job suitable for your needs.

Brian

 

[Frothingslosh]

Man, that kind of treatment is, as we say in the hellhole that Collin feels America to be, complete bullshit.

Are you, by chance, a goon? That's the kind of story that THIS THREAD was created for - it's pretty much par for the course any more, I'm afraid.

 

[Vassago]

You have to love the corporate world, huh? I'm sorry to see they duped you like that. I wish you well on your future seeking.

 

[Bladerunner]

ALC:

Sorry to hear about the way they treated you.

I too have an experience that shows the ruthlessness of companies when it comes to their employees. I worked for many years as a manager for a large company. During this time, my department was at the top in the company and won many awards that set us apart from the other departments. One day they sold out. Within days of the sales the new owners walked in, looked at me and then told me "you are not needed, you're fired". They then proceeded to dismantle the whole department as well. It took about 6 months to 1 year for me to get over this unexpected treatment.

Moral to the story:

It was not because you did something wrong. It is just the way companies work. Don't take six months to a year to bounce back like I did. You can do it. Good Luck!!!

 

[dan-cat]

I'm sorry to hear this. I remember talking with a business owner over the firing of a colleague who responded to my concern with the phrase: "You shouldn't worry about it, it's nothing personal, just business".

In that moment I realized that he had relinquished all control of his day to day actions to an abstract concept that cared nothing for him. It's probably little comfort now but when I encounter this kind of behavior, I try to make it's abhorrence serve as a reminder of how not to be.

Good luck, I'm sure you'll find something very quickly now that everything is out in the open.

 

[Alc]

Thanks, again, all.

I have every faith I'll find something else soon. I don't have a problem with them not renewing my contract - the risk has been there since I started, after all. I have a BIG problem with the way it was handled.

Incidentally, I was just in the kitchen here at the office and my manager's boss started coming in, saw me, and ducked back out. So I can add cowardice to the list of undesirable personality traits these guys possess.

On a lighter note, when I told my wife on Monday, her reaction was 'What did you do to cause it'. Always nice to have family put you in your place

 

[ConnorGiles]

Simple answer to the wife's question, you did nothing but do good work for the company under the agreement THEY made with YOU and vice versa, As Bladerunner has said - It is just the way the working world works I'm afraid.

Chin up mate, When a door closes another opens or if you prefer the saying - Every Exit is an Entrance to somewhere else (opportunities)

 

[Alc]

I did work at one place that had a massive round of lay-offs (I wasn't affected). In one division of the company, almost every other person was laid off. They had one manager tell everyne who was staying that they were safe, and one got to tell everyone who was going that they were going. After the second poor bastard had finished the most depressing week of his life, they had the first guy sack him. Worst professional behaviour I've seen.

 

[ConnorGiles]

I did work at one place that had a massive round of lay-offs (I wasn't affected). In one division of the company, almost every other person was laid off. They had one manager tell everyne who was staying that they were safe, and one got to tell everyone who was going that they were going. After the second poor bastard had finished the most depressing week of his life, they had the first guy sack him. Worst professional behaviour I've seen.

It really does disgust me - there really isn't a moral code anymore!

 

[Alc]

Just after I started at this place, the team I was in was halved in size. About six or seven people were told they weren't needed any longer, but could stay on for a month to try to find something else within the company. They all went for coffee to discuss it and when they came back, their pass cards wouldn't open the doors and their user ids didn't work on the computers. It was genuine mistake, someone put the wrong date on a request to the relevant people, but it made the affected people feel like crap.