Career Chat V: the Common Ruin of the Contending Classes

[Isis]

On 2/17/2022 at 9:11 PM, BigFatCoward said:

I think I'm just feeling maudlin because I get my long service medal on Tuesday (20 years). 

That's long? I did 20 years in my current post last October. Literally nobody said a word to me about it at work. Nothing.

[Iskaral Pust]

3 hours ago, Isis said:

That's long? I did 20 years in my current post last October. Literally nobody said a word to me about it at work. Nothing.

One of my team members had her 20th anniversary at the firm at the start of this year.  We spent a few weeks beforehand collecting well-wishes and anecdotes from her past colleagues to use in a company-wide acknowledgment/celebration email, we bought her a very nice gift, and we planned a big party for her and her family and a guest list of 50.  Unfortunately the party got deferred because of Omicron, but it will take place instead in April or May as we return to the office.

There isn’t some magical celebration fairy who arrives at night and delivers all of this.  It takes effort and planning, and most of all it takes a culture where people make that effort for each other and they appreciate when others do it for them too.  We make sure to celebrate birthdays and any big life events too, like champagne and flowers for engagements.

Working twenty years at the same firm with a rotating cast of colleagues and teammates is absolutely a big deal, and it’s a milestone that should be acknowledged.

[Zorral]

On 2/17/2022 at 4:11 PM, BigFatCoward said:

I get my long service medal on Tuesday (20 years). 

Congratulations!

[Whitestripe]

I’m maybe (?) at a career crossroads. Currently 16  months away from being able to retire from my current place of business with a pretty sweet college tuition benefit for the kids intact.  I’ll be 52, so not ready to retire from the workforce.  At that time the youngest will be just starting her senior year of high school. I’m really not interested in staying at current place of business, but jobs in my field aren’t plentiful in the wilds of upstate NY and I wouldn’t make her move at such a critical time.   What do I do? Consult? I’m half tempted to become an Instacart shopper just to get out of the house.  

[Isis]

21 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

There isn’t some magical celebration fairy who arrives at night and delivers all of this.  It takes effort and planning, and most of all it takes a culture where people make that effort for each other and they appreciate when others do it for them too.  We make sure to celebrate birthdays and any big life events too, like champagne and flowers for engagements.

Working twenty years at the same firm with a rotating cast of colleagues and teammates is absolutely a big deal, and it’s a milestone that should be acknowledged.

All the other milestones (birthdays, weddings, moving house, serious illness, leaving*, etc) are acknowledged and collections, parties (if relevant) etc are organised locally. I think that in the past these service milestones were acknowledged centrally too, e.g. traditional golden handshake type of thing (you get a watch or a clock or something similar) coming from HR or the department/faculty head after 25 years. Even within the time I have worked there, people used to get a big voucher for a chain store or something (from HR). 

*when my old manager left after 32 years in November, the group recorded a video of everyone singing a song about them (!), everyone wrote a limerick about them, we had a (zoom) party, people made themed hats etc etc.

[A True Kaniggit]

Ha. I couldn’t sleep after the flight back. So now it looks like I’m stuck with a 30 hour day at the minimum. 
 

Bring it on. 

(Grabs a lot of caffeine)

[Leofric]

My company only been in existence for about 25 years.   At the annual meetings, they announce employees that have reached five-year milestones and have gradually nicer gifts based on that.  I hit 15 years last year and got a watch.   One guy reached 20 years, a Harley rider, and he received a very nice leather motorcycle jacket.  

[MercenaryChef]

i finally had enough.  with the support of my amazing spouse i put in my notice.  

knowing i was going to do it for a week i first pushed through pay increases for my team.  they are in for a rough time with me gone. 

and for added satisfaction i put my notice in right before i left for a 10 day vacation. i return for just four days and that's it. 

a friend has helped me get a position at a cool Malaysian restaurant (a cuisine i know so little about) where i will work only 4 days a week. in addition I'm going to push forward on a small project for myself. 

i feel amazing. 

[Starkess]

So last week I finished my PhD! Well, I mean, I successfully defended my thesis. I have a few corrections to deal with and some admin until my degree is officially conferred (June 4th is convocation). But basically I'm done! And I found out yesterday that I was not accepted to a fellowship that I was hoping to get. So now I'm entering job hunt mode! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to take some time off after finishing, but I know how long the process can be and I'm anxious about finding something I like (so far, grad school has been the only job I've enjoyed and the fact that I worked maybe 30 hours a week on my own schedule contributed a lot to that...). Started up a trusty spreadsheet and so far have submitted 2 applications, guessing only about 200 more to go...

[litechick]

On 4/20/2022 at 4:39 PM, Starkess said:

So last week I finished my PhD!

Wow!  Hot Damn!  Nice Job!

MC, I am not hip to the current parlance but You Go BOI!  (apologies, I am painfully white.)

Lately freelance work has picked back up--yay!  I was serious about joining Uber but recently it seems unnecessary. 

Tonight I am pondering the variations of what is a 'good guy.'  In a number of situations I have been advised by trusted colleagues that some contact is cool, a good guy, he will set me up.  The men who make these recommendations don't necessarily understand that I get treated differently than them--he's cool to you, but he is an asshole to me.

I have been around the block enough to understand that to disillusion these colleagues may work against me. 

Just now, the rational thing to do would be to invest $20k in gear but I can't secure proper financing. Carrying that much credit card debt is stupid.  Maybe I should look into Woman Entrepreneur specific grants and loans but...as a participant in a Male Dominated industry, I shy at anything which smacks of Affirmative Action.  The idea is that if I don't 'qualify' to normal modes of financing, I don't deserve financing.  

I know that is stupid but a lot of people don't know that is stupid. 

Far out drunk trip:

Recently, I saw a colleague on LinkedIn post an opinion.  This guy was instrumental to me achieving something great in my world.  I owe him.  Nevertheless, his posted opinion was directly contrary to my political outlook.   To me he seems like a white supremacist who seriously does not know that he is a white supremacist.  

What do you do?  Congenial, nice guys have no idea that they are fundamentally against you, on any level.

[RhaenysBee]

I had a… well we don’t call it performance appraisal, so I had a bi-annual feedback session the other day. Approximately 3 minutes if it were about actual feedback and maybe another 10 about career/development prospects. Another 5 about my manager trying for methods to facilitate this discussion. The other 50% was hard core work and strategic plans for my field. What does that tell you about me? 

That he doesn’t give a shit and wants to talk work? That he was exhausted because he’s been pretending to have a people focus for some 4 hours that day already? Or that he is generally pretty satisfied with me and values my professional thoughts? Or that he dislikes me as a person but appreciates me as a professional? Other people had pretty detailed and hard pressing sessions and someone even cried.

Anyway… I can’t decide if I feel under appreciated or it’s all in my head and I should just chill out and grow a self-esteem. I’m a weird weird person. But yes, I’m half convinced to stick around and have him give me the project management of the thing we discussed, because the fact that he is considering and suggesting it warms my ego. Maybe I do care about this job after all? Maybe I do have some drop of ambition in me and want to be recognized? Maybe I’m a narcissist. 

(Sorry about the rambling, I haven’t even drunk, I’m just tired) 

[Chataya de Fleury]

My work situation is weird, because we are “externally managed”. Which means that we pay our parent company a flat fee and that covers things like office space and IT, HR, etc.

So, we have office space that is shared by people working for the parent company. 

These people won’t shut the f— up and are annoying af. I want to physically hurt them.

I am going to try to work from home tomorrow so that I can avoid resorting to violence.

[Iskaral Pust]

@RhaenysBee he’s a bad manager and you’re a bad professional.  Neither of you should have left that meeting without checking that you both fully agreed on the conclusion of his feedback (and whether you agreed) and the forward implications for your role and career path, e.g. do you need to target some development gap, or add new experience/exposure, or widen your pool of collaborators, or are you at your ceiling for now, etc.

He has a responsibility as the manager to be clear about the feedback and his  coaching thereon.  You are the owner of your own career progression, so you have a responsibility to hold him accountable and not allow that meeting to end without clarity.  You should not be spinning hypotheticals in your mind afterwards to fill the gap in communication.

The good news is that you can still do that.  Send him a note along the lines of “I appreciated the feedback conversation yesterday but I came away unclear of what is the bottom line conclusion and what you propose I should do next.”

Just from your description above, I could infer any number of possible conversation threads that could have occurred in that framework.  Perhaps the discussion of actual work and strategic plans was his way of coaching you or showing you a career path he pictures for you, or maybe it was his way of retreating to safe generality because he doesn’t want to have a hard conversation with you about your specific prospects.  You don’t need to guess.  Be direct, ask for clarity, and if you disagree then say so.  That doesn’t mean your view is right but you should call attention to disagreement and identify the difference in opinion.

Make that your last bewildering feedback session in your whole career!

BTW even good conversations about feedback and career paths can leave both sides with some perception gaps because people are surprisingly unable (unconsciously) to shift off their initial anchors. It usually takes a few rounds of communication, with explicit emphasis, to shift people off their preconceptions.  I’ve seen underlings remain anxious even after I told them they’re doing great, and I’ve seen bosses think everything should continue as is even after I’ve told them I’m ready for a new challenge.  And I’m sure the others felt I was just as slow to shift my anchor perspective.  So communicate really explicitly, and then ask them what they just heard you say.

Good luck.

[RhaenysBee]

2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

@RhaenysBee he’s a bad manager and you’re a bad professional.  Neither of you should have left that meeting without checking that you both fully agreed on the conclusion of his feedback (and whether you agreed) and the forward implications for your role and career path, e.g. do you need to target some development gap, or add new experience/exposure, or widen your pool of collaborators, or are you at your ceiling for now, etc.

He has a responsibility as the manager to be clear about the feedback and his  coaching thereon.  You are the owner of your own career progression, so you have a responsibility to hold him accountable and not allow that meeting to end without clarity.  You should not be spinning hypotheticals in your mind afterwards to fill the gap in communication.

The good news is that you can still do that.  Send him a note along the lines of “I appreciated the feedback conversation yesterday but I came away unclear of what is the bottom line conclusion and what you propose I should do next.”

Just from your description above, I could infer any number of possible conversation threads that could have occurred in that framework.  Perhaps the discussion of actual work and strategic plans was his way of coaching you or showing you a career path he pictures for you, or maybe it was his way of retreating to safe generality because he doesn’t want to have a hard conversation with you about your specific prospects.  You don’t need to guess.  Be direct, ask for clarity, and if you disagree then say so.  That doesn’t mean your view is right but you should call attention to disagreement and identify the difference in opinion.

Make that your last bewildering feedback session in your whole career!

BTW even good conversations about feedback and career paths can leave both sides with some perception gaps because people are surprisingly unable (unconsciously) to shift off their initial anchors. It usually takes a few rounds of communication, with explicit emphasis, to shift people off their preconceptions.  I’ve seen underlings remain anxious even after I told them they’re doing great, and I’ve seen bosses think everything should continue as is even after I’ve told them I’m ready for a new challenge.  And I’m sure the others felt I was just as slow to shift my anchor perspective.  So communicate really explicitly, and then ask them what they just heard you say.

Good luck.

 Indeed that is how it should be on paper. Practice and reality rarely ever reach up to the textbook version on either side though. I’m the kind of person who is never satisfied enough with the amount of reassurance they get, because I’m a perfectionist with self-esteem issues. So I will overthink everything anybody says to me and then overthink the overthinking. Which is what happened here. 

We did discuss the plans for me and the feedback he did say was clear enough (I can’t claim that upping my grade is a mixed message). I’m dissatisfied only with the amount of time we spent talking about it and unsure of myself because of the above. I’m not going to press that more because it’s something I need to settle in my own head. I said and asked what I wanted to, and there were two topics we both agreed to take to a next conversation which is his intention for me to get bigger responsibilities and my being dissatisfied with the workload. Not even the workload, just the split focus. If any actual question comes to mind other than generic overthinking, I will bring it up. 

As for his manner of conducting these conversations, there’s room for improvement but he’s relatively new to people management and he’s clearly trying. And like you said I’m certainly a bad professional in the sense that I’m guilty of quickly and easily falling into work talk too, we are similar that way and that’s just the right context for losing focus and structure. Even if I also like talking about myself and having my ego fed. But my own feedback session isn’t the right time or place to make him feel that he isn’t yet doing the best job he can. If and when he asks for my feedback I will give him my “notes” on the conversation. 

anyway, thanks for your response and insight and just caring enough to share them!

[Starkess]

I had a recruiter phone screen last week for a job that looks like a dream job for me. I heard back today that they want me to meet with the hiring manager. It's been SO long since I've done interviews, I'm feeling completely at a loss. Also I just graduated last week and this job said they're looking to hire someone quickly so I feel a bit disoriented at how fast this is happening, as I figured I'd have a bit of a break while I slowly applied for jobs. But anyway that's getting way ahead of myself, have to make it through this 30 minute 1-on-1 first...

[Chataya de Fleury]

5 hours ago, Starkess said:

I had a recruiter phone screen last week for a job that looks like a dream job for me. I heard back today that they want me to meet with the hiring manager. It's been SO long since I've done interviews, I'm feeling completely at a loss. Also I just graduated last week and this job said they're looking to hire someone quickly so I feel a bit disoriented at how fast this is happening, as I figured I'd have a bit of a break while I slowly applied for jobs. But anyway that's getting way ahead of myself, have to make it through this 30 minute 1-on-1 first...

Good luck, my dear!!!!

[S John]

7 hours ago, Starkess said:

I had a recruiter phone screen last week for a job that looks like a dream job for me. I heard back today that they want me to meet with the hiring manager. It's been SO long since I've done interviews, I'm feeling completely at a loss. Also I just graduated last week and this job said they're looking to hire someone quickly so I feel a bit disoriented at how fast this is happening, as I figured I'd have a bit of a break while I slowly applied for jobs. But anyway that's getting way ahead of myself, have to make it through this 30 minute 1-on-1 first...

I always imagine that I’m going to have 2-3 offers all come in at the same time and I will get to sit down and mull over the pros and cons of each, but it has literally never happened like that. It always has that disorienting feeling for me as well.

Good luck on the interview! My advice is to prep if you can. I used to think that I was just naturally good at interviewing but, as it turns out, I’m not. I had just not been applying to jobs with supervisory responsibilities over people and / or programs and had a string of early career softball interviews. I blew a couple interviews before I recalibrated.

Last time I googled the kind of questions the employer typically asked and had at least something mentally prepared for the questions I found. It didn’t go exactly as scripted, but there were similarities and I found that I could apply much of the prep work I did to the questions that they did ask.

[Starkess]

Update: the interview went well!

In fact, it went so well that halfway through the interviewer was like "you know, *my* job is about to be listed and you might be a good fit!" So while she said I'll definitely be continued on to the next round for this position (specialist), she would send me the link when the job posting went live for that job (management). She said if I was interested, I could also apply for that one and do the process for both jobs.

I'm feeling pretty torn. I do have some management experience, from my time in the Navy, but management isn't my favorite thing. I also feel like I'm not totally qualified for this position and, given I don't have familiarity yet with this organization, it could be a reallll steep learning curve. So I think on a day-to-day level, I'd rather do the specialist job. That being said, I'm not opposed to getting into management, especially if I like this team, and trying to hop into this role now could be a really good career move. Not to mention the pay would be, I'm sure, much better. And if they're hiring for this role now, it's unlikely to be available again in 1-2 years when I might feel more ready for it. And although I'm kind of career switching, I do have a lot of experience and I'm in my mid-30s (snooping the hiring manager revealed she graduated college 1 year before me), so it would be kind of nice to not go through "entryish level" type job.

She said no pressure either way, just something she wanted me to consider, but now I'm like extra stressed!! My fiance says I should just at least apply for the management job and do an interview to get a better feel for the position and then decide, but I don't want to waste my or their time applying for a job I know I don't want. So I feel like I should have a better idea before I decide to apply or not.

Good problem to have, I suppose! She said I'm the first one they interviewed for this specialist position (I applied right after the listing) and I have at least 2 more interviews to do for that. So it's not even a sure thing I'd get that, and certainly even less sure they would want to hire me on to manage 5-10 people right off the bat.

Update: I decided not to apply for the management role. Just need to take things one step at a time and I'm already anxious enough about returning to the work force (grad school was extremely...flexible...) without taking on a role I'm not sure I even want. Should have my next interview for the specialist role soon!

Edited June 18, 2022 by Starkess

[Chataya de Fleury]

What does one actually say to a male colleague who asks me to make him a copy of a document?

This colleague is at the same level but seems to think he is my boss.

Hopefully, he won’t ever again ask me to make copies, but if he does, I need to be prepared. 

[Tywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

What does one actually say to a male colleague who asks me to make him a copy of a document?

This colleague is at the same level but seems to think he is my boss.

Hopefully, he won’t ever again ask me to make copies, but if he does, I need to be prepared. 

I think a healthy, "Fuck off, make it yourself" would be my incorrect first response. 

But if you're truly on level terms and there won't be any consequences, hit him with a, "Here, let me show you how to do it. My friend's eight year old has mastered the art of using these tricky machines. You can too one day, Champ." Maybe throw in an emasculating slap on the back for good measure. Shame you can't smack him on the ass to let him know his place. 

Seriously, fuck that guy. 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Tywin et al.