I've just come to the end of a work situation that I didn't think would happen in real life. I was head hunted to work for a local company developing using a specific language. After the first 6 months I was told (not asked) that I would be trained up on another language and be working on that project for the next 9 months. I said I didn't want to do it for a variety of good reasons including, it not being my job or why I took the position, the role would mean being mentored to understand a bespoke system written by a [b]very[/b] difficult member of staff.
I could also see they wanted me to be maintaining the new system once completed so it would be become my permanent work rather than just a 9 month period.
At the same time due to some colleagues being forced out/constructive dismissal, other staff were put in the same situation to fill the roles of people like myself being forced onto the project. They weren't happy about it either! They are also job hunting!
So I did they best I could, kept at it for 6 more months and then handed in my notice as it was too important for me to have this job on my CV for a year. To be honest it's worked out great for me but the company has lost out big time. They have lost 10 developers/managers from one department in a year. After handing in my resignation, my managers face when she recalled my conversation stating I didn't want to do it 6 months ago was priceless. I estimate the cost in recruitment fees for all the staff would have covered a contractor for the 9 month project!
Man, the shit does really high the fan in the world of IT sometimes.
You've either forgotten to include the paragraph containing all the juicy stuff, or your definition and mine of a crazy situation are somewhat different.
Sounds like just another day in the grown up real world to me. But then I'm a cynic.
I work in a huge global Corp and you'd be amazed how many stupid things like this happen because none has the balls to question it.
It's my job to question this crap and stop it from starting.
I think loosing 10 staff in a year is crazy because:
Force group A developers do group C work
Force group B developers do group A work.
You could have made all of group B redundant, let A carry on happy and recruit people to the new group C work. What's happened is almost all of group A and B have left so you have no staff with business knowledge.
Well I call bullshit. I've read on here that such things never happen in the private sector that, such wastage only happens in the NHS.
I think there's some logic to the way it happened;
No company likes to make people redundant - it unsettles the other staff and makes other co's worry about their viability.
Getting in a contractor requires additional budgetary approval, shuffling staff within a department does not.
Recruiting new staff is 'just one of those things' that happens and won't raise many eyebrows in higher management. Excuses can be found 'he was new and didn't fit into our culture' etc.
It's not a great situation but it's not unprecedented.
Why not get the Bs to do the C work?
Well I call bullshit. I've read on here that such things never happen in the private sector that, such wastage only happens in the NHS.
My previous employer managed to spend the thick end of a billion dollars in the space of five years and got precisely nothing for it at the end.
The CEO is in line for a $90M payout for his excellent work.
To this day I remain completely unsurprised there are so many people out there who think the world owes them a living.
Over the last year my employer has been moving staff from homeworking and small local buildings into large specialist centres across the UK, which has meant disruption to those who have dependents/pets/kids at home, substantially increased commute times, lack of public transport to locations and lack of parking, and empty office space in operational buildings.
The boss has announced he is moving on after a relatively short stint in power, the amount of vitriol from staff comments on the company news site is staggering. Whole teams have been uprooted, swathes of experienced team members with 30-40 years of experience have taken packages to leave, and those that are staying are having to retrain in different roles.
The mind boggles. It looks like a good concept on paper (perhaps) but now we are moving to specialist centres where the staff that have stayed are largely inexperienced, and crucially, moral is low, incentive to make it work is lacking, and all the local knowledge for various functions lost to a building on the other side of the country.
To this day I remain completely unsurprised there are so many people out there who think the world owes them a living.
im almost taking the opposite attitude to this myself. Current "secret" re-org details have my boss alluding to me that I'll be doing a different job in 2016. Despite asking me for, and receving my "ideal" career direction in the form of me writing a job description, the two dont match. In legal terms I understand that if my current job doesnt exist they should formally offer me reduncancy AND the new podsition as an alternative, whereas it seems to have been just assumed ill be doing the new job instead. I'm waiting for someone to sit down and discuss the terms, pay structure and expectations of the new role (mainly becuase its made up of sales comission against a currently unknown target which means itll be far more difficult for me to earn my current OTE) before I agree to do it.
Half of me is shrugging my shoulders in slight resignation and just rolling through the assumption and going with it without making a fuss becuase - do I really want a redundancy offer, and also well, I need a job to pay the bills. I can always resign later if its that bad.
[i]Well I call bullshit. I've read on here that such things never happen in the private sector that, such wastage only happens in the NHS. [/i]
While it happens in both the public and private sectors the difference is that it's the taxpayer who has to pony up for the former.
Having working in IT since I left school (35 y/o) I've seen the OP's situation many times. I've been paid-off, I've resign to go elsewhere and I've resigned myself to get through it. It's one of the reasons I prefer to contract, as I then have no emotional connection with the stupid decisions.
To this day I remain completely unsurprised there are so many people out there who think the world owes them a living.
To be fair, my colleagues and myself who are affected buy this work in a field where competition is very high, several people had new jobs within 2 weeks and I had 4 job offers in the space of a day. We all work hard and provide good value and what is common, is managers who have not been developers themselves don't realise how easy it is to switch jobs when your skillset is in such high demand.
they should make you the boss
I don't want to be boss, I'd have to deal with jumped up developers like me 😉
He'd make a crap boss. I've not seen any management jargon in his posts on this thread.......
managers who have not been developers themselves don't realise how easy it is to switch jobs when your skillset is in such high demand.
By the sounds of it, they do. Which is why they're management and you're staff. They won't be crying at your departure and no doubt will have recruited your replacement already.
It's just work. In your case it didn't work out as you'd have liked, so you've moved on. They won't be giving you a second thought.
By the sounds of it, they do. Which is why they're management and you're staff. They won't be crying at your departure and no doubt will have recruited your replacement already.It's just work. In your case it didn't work out as you'd have liked, so you've moved on. They won't be giving you a second thought.
By the size of the raise I was offered on handing in my notice, I don't think you are entirely correct.
Well I call bullshit. I've read on here that such things never happen in the private sector that, such wastage only happens in the NHS.
It's probably a private sector project for the NHS. It won't take nine months it will take several years, go way over budget and fail to do what it was intended to do. The NHS are hopeless like that 🙂
This thread had potential from the title. I'm disappointed.
While it happens in both the public and private sectors the difference is that it's the taxpayer who has to pony up for the former.
Yes as the Tax Payer has never bailed out a private sector such as a bank.
😀
Well played there Drac well played
This thread had potential from the title. I'm disappointed.
I know, right?! I mean we're in xmas party season!
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Sounds like the developers in our place, you don't work in Glasgow do you 🙂
Yes as the Tax Payer has never bailed out a private sector such as a bank.
Or ever paid redundancy / unemployment benefits for an insolvent company.
[i]Yes as the Tax Payer has never bailed out a private sector such as a bank. [/i]
and made them public sector
FWIW though the banks even though owned by us still think (and act) like they're in the private sector - arrogant ar5es.
I guess it doesn't sound too crazy, partly because there are some other details I'm not going to post in a public forum.
I'm not going to post in a public forum.
Oh go on. You can't tempt us like this then hold stuff back at the last minute.
out of interest, what language do you use now and what was the one they wanted you to learn ?
He's a VBA coder and they wanted him to convert to C++ 😉
He's a VBA coder and they wanted him to convert to C++
I'd consider resigning for the opposite move, definitely.
Delphi? Go on, want to be a Delphi Programmer as we can't find anyone else who wants to be one...
Fortran's where it's at these days. You know it makes sense.
I work developing data warehouse/cubes using the MS BI stack and PL/SQL with abit of C#. They wanted me to become expert in the full SAS stack.
Saturdays _and_ Sundays?The bastards.
Responsible employers would try to redeploy staff before resorting to redundancies. in fact they have a legal obligation to do so.
Nnothing unusual here. All places are like this aren't they? ....... aren't they?
ah well, at least now you are a SAS consultant you can write your own salary
Who wouldn't want to learn some new skills?
I'm a PICK programmer, 15 years ago I got trained on Cognos BI tools then shortly afterwards was made redundant. Next job didn't need the Cognos skills so I've completely forgotten them, which is a shame as they would've been useful when I was again made redundant in March this year. Luckily for me there is still one large PICK user in commutable distance so here I am again doing PICK and nothing else - but contracting now. If I can spin this one out for another ten- fifteen years that'll do for me but if I have to change again I'll be up yon creek sans paddle
Who Dares Wins.
[i]Who wouldn't want to learn some new skills?[/i]
Due to been typecast in a dying language/industry? Especially when you can choose otherwise. Power to the people 🙂
Spending 9 months learning a dying trade and then doing it full time is not a good idea in my book. Also when you're not getting wide enough experience to use it elsewhere.
Saturdays _and_ Sundays?The bastards.
I know, I'd never work somewhere which was so slack as to give you the whole WE off every week....
Spending 9 months learning a dying trade and then doing it full time is not a good idea in my book. Also when you're not getting wide enough experience to use it elsewhere.
I must have missed the bit about the dying trade. My trade is so niche I wasn't even aware that SAS was dying. It's new-fangled to me