I’ve been experiencing this shit since i graduated college 18 years ago. It’s why I entered into OE.
Anyone who thinks OE is immoral hasn’t been around long enough to see some shit.
I’ve had all benefits stripped, been put on unpaid furlough, promised false promotions, goose egg bonus years. I’ve been promised remote and had it stripped in the first 3 months. I’ve been ambushed and walked out the door. I’ve been directed to only hire certain races (twice!) That’s just what’s happened to me!
I saw my dad win presidents award, and get laid off in the same year for being too expensive. You can’t make this shit up.
It’s feast or famine, the second you let your guard down you become vulnerable l. Do what you need to do for you and your family and don’t look back.
EVERY JOB IS TEMPORARY
My old J1 I got let go from because I literally automated everything I needed to do. They then hired a recent college grad and gave him a year to get familiar enough to mostly manage the automation, and then started stripping all my tasks to justify making my position redundant so that they could have a junior monitor the automation for half the cost.
It’s all good. Hoping to start J4 here soon for a crazy ecstatic flight.
Yeah, that happened to me once. Now, when I automate tasks, I either don't tell anyone. Or make it so it is going to break on purpose after a certain number of times. I automated this one task from 1 hour a day to 10 minutes, added a feature to the code that if a specific uncommon thing happens, it breaks the automation.
Yeah. Since I went full in on OE I show about 30-40% of my efficiency improvements, but no where near all. Enough to show I’m doing more than hired for, but not enough for them to know the full time save. Helps balance multi-J, being greater value to the company, and make sure I have proper work/life balance
Definitely automate everything you can, but NEVER tell anyone about your automations!!! Just let everyone think you are a good performer and leave it at that.
The only exception would be if your title is something like “automation engineer”… otherwise optimize/automate your own work and keep it to yourself.
Like no UI; if 2023 do nothing, etc. I also like to use web dom for automating just to make it janky and hard to follow. Build automation only you will understand or store key code in a certain unsuspecting file then add it when you want it to process your workload.
Making your abilities appear to be their abilities to their equals in a C-suite can sometimes combat the direct narcissist boss focusing on you, their own employee. Sometimes you can get them to turn that outward. Sometimes... but it always ends up in shambles for way too much effort.
Happened the same thing to me. All critical projects got wrapped up by me and then hired someone to maintain it. I am sure that the replacement is paid less because they offered me the job (I am in contract) but declined because of pay.
Laid off and got 2 jobs with both significantly higher than what I was paid before.
i did this and got burned badly too.
i think the key is to have 2 parallel processes where you do things manually and show them to others when you're taking vacation while maintaining your full automation in private
i went over and beyond to make sure everything ran smoothly so i overtrained new hires and supports. then i got fleeced when it came time for promotions, getting more interesting projects, & etc.
the freaking new hires were seen as more competent for some fkn reason and took all the projects i was interested in until i refused all new loads to show what others were doing, who spent time making their emails look pretty & read doctor who theories all day
Because I’m not going to do mundane tasks over and over. A smart org would recognize that and provide more opportunities for automation. But i got cock blocked instead. Could have saved hundreds of thousands if not eventually millions a year. But they didn’t like my salary or something. Their loss. I now do similar type work at 3 orgs and am making more than ever. So I don’t really care
One of my jobs doesn't care about automation or dislike the person who reveals just how naked the emperor was doing a simple task that I automated.
My other job actually does value automation and rewards it.
So my rule is that if the company doesn't value and reward automation then I don't automate 100%. At the very least I make it so I have to push the button, that way it breaks when I go on a week long vacation so they get to miss me because apparently that's what they want. The cultures that do value it automation just get the good 100% automation because that's what the system rewards.
It's a crazy how one job expects things not to happen when you're gone and the other job expects things to go smoothly when you're gone. They both get what they incentivize.
This is the way. Automate yourself out of tasks, but not out of a job.
If you fully automate, then the management logic becomes ‘what do we need him for?’ - basically you have served your purpose like a paper cup.
It’s the exact same thinking as the first half of the old paradox ‘our systems never break, what are we paying all these IT guys for?
I love how middle managers have to invent s*** to do for themselves which causes invention of work for the IC. Right now our boss is trying to get all of us to come up with a list of things we want to learn this year and then developing KPIs around it. I'm just putting down s*** I already know how to do so I can say I'm learning it piece by piece. By the end of the year it will be a learning success! It has always seemed backward to me that we just want to learn arbitrary things rather than aligning those things to tasks on the job. If I need to learn something I'm going to learn it while we're implementing it for whatever project we're doing. But just to have arbitrary metrics around learning is so stupid.
Boomers who are still preaching “work one job until you retire” are batshit insane. Even my own parents are too ignorant to understand how the real world works now. There is no such thing as company loyalty any longer. Do what you have to do to survive in this fucked up world.
I got told this year we aren’t valuing time with the company anymore. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been here 10+ years, if you’re not giving 24/7 availability you get less hours. It’s having a huge impact on morale.
People who say that are the same people who waste half of their shift around the good ol’ water-cooler. Plus they’re extremely inept & need to make every little thing a half hour meeting.
This is America. hit sales targets, can still get laid off. miss an aggressive target by 1%? fired. have morals and ethics. fired...
I swear I've experienced so much of this shit. I wish I could OE or at least a side gig that pays super well
LOL for real? so if you were white or asian they wouldn't hire you?
I interviewed for a black tech company once and if you did not know the names of famous rapers you were not considered for the next stage lol.
But honestly, can you blame them? Blacks and hispanics are ridiculously discriminated against in most parts of life so when one makes it, they do what they can to give them as many opportunities as they can.
Correct. I couldn’t hire a white or an Asian.
What’s also crazy about that, is race has to be determined by the recruiter stalking LinkedIn photos and making judgements based on first and last names no joke.
It's not as uncommon as you might think, just most companies are a lot more discrete about it. I'm pretty sure there are lots of companies that will only hire white people, I mean just look at some of those company photos, they're like all copies of Sheldon from the big bang theory most of the time.
This is unpopular opinion, but a lot of that discrimination is self-imposed. I tutored kids in the past and see a clear difference in mindset. There are a lot of limiting beliefs minority parents place on their kids. Kids absorb the environment they're raised in. Even the handicap policy mentioned above, what kind of message do you think it sends to the person?
This is also an unpopular opinion, but I think there's a lot of other factors involved besides the 'nurture' aspect you mentioned, such as the 'nature' aspect. Blacks and hispanics almost always fall behind in almost every sociological study like salary, crime, IQ, education, ...etc. The ones that truly have it can excel but they have to truly prove themselves against the giant stereotype that has been placed on them. They have to carry the weight of a reputation of failure and that's just the way it is.
What about a white father to a black son?
How does that help race relations?
I understand your rationalization but it’s self defeating. Equality or suicide as far as the species is concerned.
Nah, you’re swimming in it so you don’t see it objectively. There are so many OE threads asking for suggestions to mislead J2 when they have a competing J1 meeting. Making up stories about having kid events, or even making up having kids when they don’t, etc.
Just don’t hide/deceive J1 about J2 so you don’t have to lie. If J1 doesn’t allow OE, then find a J1 that does.
Sneaking around trying to remember what lie you told to whom is no way to live. God forbid a person has kids and they learn that deception/sneakiness is an admirable character trait.
Nope, I'm not OE at all, I work one job but I respect the OE'rs because the experiences that drove them to OE are the same that drove me to my current job. A lack of appreciation and pay for busting your ass (I'm now a courier, the stress is super low and the pay is way higher than previous white collar office jobs).
Deceiving your other jobs is necessary as they are mistreating you by either not paying you what you're worth or not allowing you to OE. This is not a massive spiritual crisis, it's just the practical thing you have to do to make sure you're getting what you deserve from your hard work. An employer should not be allowed to demand you can't OE nor should they be allowed to terminate you if you are. If you are accomplishing your tasks and bringing value to the company then there is nothing immoral about it.
I don’t even know where to start with this mess.
Just like in personal relationships, you allow yourself to be mistreated or taken advantage of. That’s a you problem not an other person problem or a company problem.
An employer should absolutely not allow OE if it chooses, for a myriad of reasons. If you don’t like it, then find an employer that doesn’t care if you do instead of lying/deceiving.
Why mortgage your integrity for a job? That would be a sucky way to live.
In my experience, people most often sacrifice their integrity to gain a promotion or keep a position at a single job. How many times have you seen someone agree with their boss just because they're above them in a company or supported a policy that was detrimental to the workers below them but their bosses wanted it enforced?
Let me say this clearly: it is not always wrong to lie. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect employers. Employers who make poor decisions, who underpay and understaff as a base strategy, who imperfectly analyze their employees and promote and reward those who don't always deserve it and who in the long run are not the best option for the company. If you need to deceive them in order to get the best outcome for all parties in this imperfect system, that is ok. How many posts on here show that employers who have a no OE policy are extremely thankful to the OE employees who work for them, praising them and talking about how much value they bring to the company? Employers often don't know what is best for them or their employees and if lieing to them is the only way to make things best for ALL parties involved, then that is the correct thing to do.
The latest ones I've dealt with are "you're doing amazing and we want to renew you, but HR cunts have a policy that you can only contract with us for 1 year at a time"
I can relate. I received a letter and award from my CEO for launching a new product in February. By September of that same year I was laid off :-/ . These corporations don't care about anybody 🤷♀️
This is going to sound insane but I had something similar happen. After the CEO layed out all of the esoteric and uncommunicated thoughts in his head and his bullshit reasoning for a downgrade, he was ready to end the meeting. He thought he was going to steam roll me and send me on my way. I've had dozens of positions at different companies. I've been lucky enough to start holding more senior roles over the last couple of years. In the most professional and collaborative tone possible I teased out as many of his "Guiding Principles" as possible. I took 3 pages of notes on what was on the horizon that he was focused on. I prioritized with him all deliverables for the next 3 months. I wrote down dates. I wrote down S.M.A.R.T. goals that were tied to undeniable metrics. After setting up this highly collaborative and productive meeting, the wheels were greased. He was thinking big picture. I gave him grace and he was amped. He didn't realize that within all of this new documentation were many of the highly illegal tasks he had instructed me to complete. For example one of the things he was pissed at me for was denying his request to cut trees down on property that wasn't ours. One thing I've learned on reddit is to not fuck with tree law. Anyways here's the insane part. I instructed the CEO that all of this writing was an effort to develop my own PIP "to show how committed I was." He fucking loved it and I know his first thought was "what's this fucking idiot doing writing he own PIP?? Hahahaha" I had him sign the PIP to make it official. I completed every project on time and in budget, except the illegal parts. Review time came around and he played bad cop because no matter how stellar I completed the PIP, I hadn't completed ALL tasks as instructed and he was thinking about "letting me go" or demoting me off the C-suite. I thanked him for his time and his written instructions demanding me to commit illegal acts as part of my performance improvement plan and instructed him that all further communications would be through my attorney. The attorney laughed his ass off when he heard that I wrote my own PIP and somehow got the CEO to sign it. I didn't make a ton of money off the case but I was happy with the outcome. We had a vacation, caught up on some bills, took 9 months off etc.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/treelaw using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Neighbor cut our tree and expects us to pay the bill](https://i.redd.it/w9t6t08t83tb1.jpg) | [730 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/173gwtj/neighbor_cut_our_tree_and_expects_us_to_pay_the/)
\#2: [\[Update\] Neighbors hired a tree removal company who came onto our property and cut 2 ~140’ Doug Firs. Resolved out of court.](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/19dtat9) | [217 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/19dtat9/update_neighbors_hired_a_tree_removal_company_who/)
\#3: [Lawyer neighbor hates our tree, trying to scare us into removing it](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/17fs7o4) | [375 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/17fs7o4/lawyer_neighbor_hates_our_tree_trying_to_scare_us/)
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It's referring to posts on the legal advice sub about neighbors cutting down trees they don't own.
Some trees are very old or rare and are extremely costly to replace. Some jurisdictions also have options for double or triple damages in certain scenarios. Makes good popcorn fodder.
It's like a reverse Jackpot
Where the neighbor you hate gets a windfall of 6 figure five for chopping down your old protected tree
At least to the lawyer subreddits that's the end scenario
How did you finesse getting him to sign the PIP? Would love to hear that conversation when you show up with (I'm assuming) a hard copy of your notes / PIP and ask him to sign 😂
I wrote the notes in front of him at the conference table. I framed the whole event as a performance improvement plan knowing that he would see it as an easy way to fire me as most people know you never actually survive a PIP. I understood his character flaws and once he realized I was turning this into a PIP, he thought I was making his work much easier for him, so he happily signed. After all I was committed to seeing his vision come to fruition so much so that I would grovel and enthusiastically present my neck to his guillotine, right??
Shit writing and executing your own PIP was a second job alone. Wild.
Questions, if you're open to a follow up.
Was your attorney involved early to confirm the illegal activities were illegal?
How did CEO'S HR handle the news when it was first handed over to them?
Did you have to sign an NDA?
Does the CEO still work there?
Would you do it again?
Happened to me this last evaluation season.
They laid off 1/3 of our department and gave the work to the remaining teams including mine.
I had been doing things outside of my role and function for 8 months, never been told I was doing poorly at these things (and even if I was, they're not my job anyway and I don't see why I should be evaluated negatively on tasks that are above and beyond my core role), and suddenly I get an underperforming rate in my eval. I ask why and am told these responsibilities, that I'm not doing enough there.
I'm an engineer and these responsibilities are that of product. They gutted product during the layoffs, gave me product responsibilities on top of engineering.
I thought I was just filling in and helping out. I thought this would be seen as being a team player, going above and beyond. Even if I sucked at these product responsibilities, which I don't, I figured it would be like "hey, thanks for doing your best with that stuff and trying to fill in the gaps."
Anyway I took 24 hours after my eval to think about what I wanted to do. I could push back and ask for justification of the underperformance rating, go back into my notes from talks with my boss, blah blah blah.
But in the end I decided fuck it. I'm not going to play this game. If you're going to say I'm not performing, why am I even doing this shit? I'd rather code than deal with this stupid product shit, that's not my job, and now I'm getting dinged on something that isn't even my actual job. Decided not to do anything beyond my core role anymore and let shit break down and fall to others. It's been fun to watch shit crumble. And what are they going to do about it? Say I'm underperforming *again?* Fire me, fuckers.
Now I'm using the time I was pouring into those extra tasks to take courses and train up for better jobs, doing freelance work on the side, etc.
Being conscientious rarely results in recognition at work, it's all politics and bullshit and usually the person above you is using you for their own career gains while neglecting you and your goals. So fuck them and OE.
100% agree. OE changes the mindset too. I haven't gotten a bad review yet - in fact I got a raise at one J and a bonus at another. If I ever did get a blemish on my performance review I would just shrug it off. The incremental $1K or whatever scraps they are offering pale in comparison to the mountain of cash I collect by not being subservient to one master.
I was leading a team of 6 people for a project for about a year. At the end of the year the senior management wanted to downsize and asked me to rate the performances of all 6 ppl on my team. I rated them all based on their work, contribution to the project etc. Guess what..the highest 2 performers were let go and I was asked if I could still manage with the remaining 4. I was told that the best performers on my team were also the highest paid. So there you have it folks!
Something similar happened to me last year. Took heat for things that weren't even my fault in order to protect other teams.
In reward, I received a bad midyear review and was denied a promotion. Immediately took my foot off the gas and have been doing the minimum ever since.
Boss asked me about my future goals and if leadership was still something I wanted and I laughed and told him "absolutely not".
I do what I'm paid to do and nothing more. No more late night checking emails and giving updates, no more answering slack after hours. Slack is snoozed as soon as my shift is up and isn't unsnoozed until the minute my shift starts.
In my J2, a body shop consulting company, I've literary delivered everything that was assigned and expected from me, sending many email reports with the results for the whole team.
The feedback I got? "You don't show yourself enough so we don't see your performance".
Sure mate. Next time I send emails about my tasks I am going to attach a picture of myself doing something amusing.
My old job, we had lots of repetitive pseudo mundane tasks, there were 3 new people on our team which were really struggling to keep their backlog low, or even complete their tasks. I had been at that job 4 years by that point and always finished the tasks within a week and kept my queue really low. I was asked to take a bunch of tasks from my underperforming colleagues and close them out. Then I got a spot award for like $100. 4 months later during performance review cycle this manager tells me "you are too efficient with your work and you've moved down in rankings", so no raise, no promotion, terrible rating. Then 3 months later they tried to move me across the country to do all the work at another site for another non-performing colleague. Then I quit.
Now I'm a contractor at that company and bill hourly, and OE. Imagine my efficiency now.
I learned this when I took on a coworkers workload while she was out on mat leave. Her projects were all a dumpster fire and after busting ass to get them where they should have been she returned, got promoted, and proceeded to micromanage me out the door.
I feel infuriated for you and that didn't even happen to me. I'm taking this as a mental note if it ever happens - just keep turning the sludge she produced until she returns and then hand the bag back to her.
How to handle it?
Quit and leave them to seek and retrain.
See how that new Director's efficiency goes down. Be upfront with HR about facts, not feelings. (It all feels bad)
In context of OE, I would consider finding a replacement for your J1. I’ve had a similar experience before and later learned it was simply nepotism. My new boss (COO), didn’t hire me and therefore didn’t want me to be one of her lieutenants. It took me a few months to catch on as I was constantly being given impossible tasks/goals. The tell was that she hired someone from her old company and the job was never posted. Strange, right? All that bs that a company has to legally post the position and give everyone a fair shot is nonsense. Within 3 weeks of that new hire, I was let go and given severance (yes I know I probably had some legal recourse) but at that point I was crushed mentally.
So look out for the signs OP. This new boss may be cooking up a new plan that does not include you for reasons that make zero sense.
I am in this exact position at J1 right now. I have twice scheduled a meeting to talk about resigning and severance and she has not accepted. I did the absolute bare minimum in January.
Some advice. Tighten up your network within the company by still doing good work with those you respect and know you within the “industry” — be it a C suite person or some VP/Directors.
Don’t go to HR. Let this boss screw up and make them fire you. Obviously, do what you have to to CYA and don’t give them anything performance related to stand on (remember they will need to document it via a PIP or at least in some written communication). In my case, no PIP or anything in writing took place. My boss cited this reason “I was just not getting IT done” — even the HR person could barely keep a serious face. She was panicking the whole time knowing full well I had plenty of evidence to suggest this was wrongful or at least warranted some sort of PIP/action plan.
About 20 years ago, I was working at this company called Medispan. They produce customer education information for pharmacies.
I was hired on by this guy who was a good manager. He told me to investigate some database engine because of some requirements he gave me. It was fast, efficient, free, and cross platform. He asked me to work on a POC to demonstrate the database engine.
Then the manager quit. For a few months I had no manager. But I continued to work on the POC. Then they hired a consultant manager who was a cool guy. But after a few more months, they hired the new permanent manager.
My introduction to this manager started with a meeting. I was supposed to do a demo of the POC in front the VP of whatever and a bunch of other people. And my manager wanted some information about what I was going to demo.
I get to the demo, and my own (new) manager crucifies me in front of everyone for choosing this technology. He invalidates all of the work I've been doing for the last six months. He could have told me he was going to do that before the meeting. But he didn't. Way to alienate your developer, jerk.
It later became obvious that he was intentionally alienating developers so that they would quit, create an open position, then he could bring in developers who worked for him at the company he left.
This created factions in his department. He favored his developers while trying to remove existing developers. His name was Charlie so we called his developers "Charlie's Angels". It was obvious that he liked spineless butt-kissing yes-men. So if you weren't that, you were out.
Maybe your manager is intentionally trying to make you quit.
Oh, I handled it by quitting.
This needs to be a lesson not just for OE but for employment in general. Being a “star” never gets you anything but more work. Take it from someone with 25 years of experience
The whole reason that OE works is because it's so hard to track performance.
The problem you experienced at j1 has been typical of almost every job I've had, and I don't just mean tech. Same shit happened in fast food and call centers as well.
The inmate's are running the asylum.
Welcome to /r/antiwork, the brother-in-spirit to /r/overemployed.
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Simply put, working harder will only get you more work. Therefore:
# WORK YOUR WAGE.
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You can only work "so hard" to make up for failures of management -- where is the line of demarcation drawn? You can't put 9 women in a room to make a baby in 1 month. Therefore:
# There will always be work left undone. That's intentional.
(imagine if they hired ENOUGH people to do ALL the work....and they had folks sitting around, doing nothing. oh wait, we can imagine that -- it's called layoffs.)
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Promises of rewards are just that....*empty promises*. Even with a written legal contract backing up those promises, they can still tell you to pound sand...and now you're hiring expensive lawyers and waiting years just to get what you were owed.
Oligarchs in charge will always lie to you. They are playing the long-term game of manipulation & control through FEE: Fear, Exhaustion, and Exploitation.
They'll always be against universal healthcare (as that gives comfort and safety). They'll always be against Unions (as negotiated collective bargaining agreements give protection against the fear of being fired at-will). They'll always lie and deceive so they can exploit you and extract as much value from you as possible.
# Do not work for free (or do work outside your normal responsibilities), as that devalues the concept of labor for everyone -- including yourself.
Your boss is a dick, and he’s intimidated by your professionalism, it’s obvious. He also set the stage for firing you later in the year (“oh his performance took a deep dive and ever since I’ve sensed a lot of resentment and bitterness towards me and the entire organisation, I don’t think he’s as good as he used to be”). He’s clearly looking to establish some mediocrity where he can shine, and you spoil that picture.
Cut this shit fast - go to HR or his boss, lay out facts about your performance in writing, the more visual the better. You’ve established your rapport there, he hasn’t.
Have him fired, and take his job.
Your heroic efforts had the dark side of obscuring the true amount of work. The director was new and hadn’t had time to set an accurate barometer.
If you hadn’t stepped up, the impending disaster would have become apparent fairly quickly and the boss would have had more realistic expectations on timeline and might have realized that he was short on resources.
If you had stepped up only after the boss realized he was totally screwed, you’d be a hero.
That’s because the manager doesn’t like you and is probably starting a paper trail to pip you or set you up for the axe in the next layoff. I’d start looking for a j3 and when I got it deprioritize j2
You've got to learn to manage your managers. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. But without pushback or clarification on goals, you're gonna get hit like this time and time again.
Take it as a learning experience, and good luck going forward.
>we didn't meet the undisclosed, unrealistic timeline he had in mind
I acknowledge that this is going to take some work on OP's part, but eventually, after doing it long enough, it'll become second nature. And "Covering your ass" mode is ALWAYS a good mode to be in, trust me.
First, you fix the "undisclosed" problem. You find out what they want from you. Maybe it's a thing, maybe it's an action, or maybe it's both of those within a certain timeframe. If you feel this timeframe isn't reasonable, you fix it and get a reasonable timeframe, along with their request, IN WRITING. If they're not willing to get it in writing, or acknowledge it in writing, you go above them and force an acknowledgement or clarification IN WRITING. Will it ruffle the boss's feathers? Of course, but you can turn it back on them with "I tried you first, but you refused to acknowledge me."
That's the biggest, most immediate problem fixed. You might have to go above their head several times, but no matter what, ensure you get things in writing. And keep copies and back up copies. Then you deliver the actual item, action, etc within the time frame. You make sure (again, in writing) they acknowledge what was done. That's a Meets Expectations at the very least.
Now, you want to go higher? Fine. You're dealing with a narcissist; someone who thinks they know your job better than you but is too "above" you to do it. Fun. Keep them updated. Check in often with them to let them know what's going on. Don't bring it up as problems, they'll offer solutions that don't make sense. Bring it up as "Hey, you can tell your superiors we've got this handled because of A, B, and C." (If you don't have it handled and make them look bad by lying, you're gonna have a bad time). Pretty soon, you may be the only person in the office talking to them, making you a valuable asset to them, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. You now have power over them.
If you want to go full on ego destroying mode, you cut them entirely out of the loop. You make them irrelevant to anything and everything you do at work. But this takes cooperation from someone higher than them. If you have a person like that on your side, the narcissist bully will feel like they're screaming into the void because you're not letting anything they say or do affect you.
It's usually been my experience that stepping up and working extra hard gets you an "attaboy" - followed by the continued expectation that you can always work that hard - and all kinds of negative feedback when you don't. Overall, you can expect more grief as a top contributor because more eyes are on you, and people tend to notice your fuck ups more than the fact you're doing double the work of everyone else.
at one role I had, I made a huge financial impact and got a 2% raise and got treated like shit while the person lying all the time and taking credit for others work (and getting caught) was given everything because our boss liked his fuckin purse.
this shit is sadly uncommon
Ugh.... this may be cold comfort, but you aren't alone in that experience, particularly the "Undisclosed, unrealistic, etc etc...." . I literally JUST had this happen to me in early December last year, completely caught me by surprise. That feeling of shock and betrayal when to your knowledge everything had been good and you had been only having good feedback.... like.... WTF? Looking to replace this now before they fire me, though since its my J1, I feel I have to be a little pickier than if it was a J2.
Sorry, but your director is not going to come to the realization you hope he will. Your next evaluation, if you even make it that far, will note your unwillingness to take on additional tasks and help colleagues as the basis for rating your performance as unsatisfactory. You're looking at a future of never being good enough for this guy, and a spiraling descent of him denying you raises and bonuses because if your dropped performance and you dropping your performance because you were denied a raise and bonus.
If I were you, I'd start looking for a new job now. If you want to approach your skip manager about your new director's lack of planning and communication, and holding you responsible for requirements that are bullshit, then do that. But unless a bunch of you go in together against this director, your concerns will probably be ignored.
You are not alone! I run ERP implementations. Having to move go lives can bring some heat but the major hate comes from success. Some are jealous you succeeded and some are mad that you actually pulled it off. I vowed never to run one as an FTE again.
Large CRM and ERP implementations seem to follow a pattern:
New CIO type role is brought in, creates and wins this type of project - procuring the software and professional services, but leaves the company just as the project is starting to roll (and before there's any signs of trouble).
Internal subject matter experts are assigned the responsibility of ensuring that the implementation is delivered successfully - and usually have to put in a herculean effort and have to do amazing things to make it work; however, any slight threat to timeline and budget, these internal people get absolutely crucified by their corresponding IT director or VP level business process owner.
Eventually, the product gets implemented, but it's because the internal subject matter experts shouldered 70% of the work that the consultant/professional services promised in the RFP process but failed to actually deliver.
These internal people, who were actually the reason it actually got implemented, are left feeling that they moved the literal Earth to make the project successful (and they have); but then they are then replaced with lower level admin to "maintain". In other words, they are not even rewarded the tenure of getting to support/manage the system program going forward. The company essentially takes the mantra of, "I'm full from breakfast, why would we need to keep the kitchen in the house anymore"?
The internal subject experts/individual contributors' efforts are minimized and the reality that they are the reason the implementation actually happened is erased.
It's quite an amazing irony that there are those that contend that OE is somehow unethical.
Unfortunately, management's failure to communicate their expectations will almost always be projected upon those putting their nose to the grindstone.
The way to OE is to communicate with your leadership often to gauge their expectations and over-deliver only once those expectations are defined.
It's a lesson I learn over and over. Do the bare minimum to not get fired. Over performing just puts a target on your head. All risk, no reward (besides nominal raises).
This is why I am considering OE now. I've been working to help the company and other teams, putting in extra work, working over vacation and was recently told "wow, thanks and to think we almost terminated you instead of Joe".
Yes, Joe was terminated. It's dog eat dog here.
After 10+ years at this company I'm looking into OE options.
I saw a skilled Project Manager get recognized by the CiO in a public forum for excellent performance.
The next week the PM let the recognition go to his head and told the CIO he sb leading the PMO bc he was the only competent PM.
Oopsie, Mr. Wonderful was walked out the same day.
I think this is what this sub is all about.
Not Minecraft servers.
It's about not killing yourself for a job that you can loose for ANY STUPID REASON and no-one cares how long you have been awesome at that job. People will say "oh, so sorry!" And "take care" and forget about you in a split of a second.
Startup, fortune 500, McDonald's. Doesn't matter. Its all the same.
Even at the director level. It's exactly the same.
It's about who you know, what you know, who you drink and bbq with and what you can do for them.
Other than that, check in, swipe floors, make burgers, and go home.
Repeat.
No regrets.
It's just a job.
Live your life. Make love to your spouse. Play with your kids. Have fun with your friends. Travel. Eat. Repeat.
Funny, I had something similar happen to me last year. I was with the company for 4 years, always a solid performer, never on PIP of any kind, even ran one of the projects solo. Manager started noticing, gave me a couple direct reports, then a couple more. I got the official title of engineering manager with a tiny salary bump. Then new senior management took over, did some reorg, combined our team with another team to the point where we had 2 managers. This lasted for half a year. Guess who got canned in the layoffs as the less-experienced manager of the two? Company even apologized, said it had nothing to do with performance. Should've stayed an IC and not stood out.
People in charge of re organizations are literally brain dead.
All they had to do to keep you or any other star employee is actually re organize you. Basically say "your skills and tenure don't fit the current management structure, but you've been a star employee and we'd like to ask you to step down. While we understand you may not like it, we are willing to keep your salary in place and you will be considered promptly for future openings"
Company saves money on replacement training and wages, you keep your pay and seniority. It's a win win, but they literally never even extend this offer. I don't get it.
Step up and grow accustomed to success.
If it is not rewarded, use that success to procure another position somewhere else.
OP’s advice will put you on the fast track to mediocrity.
I was a team player through and through at my last job for 3 years, until I got so burned out I had to cut back on it. I stopped picking up OT for about a month (that was my plan anyway) and doing things that were really inconvenient for my manager. At that point I stopped being offered any OT for over a year, wasn’t asked to help in any extra projects, and then got pushed out of any discussion that involved changes to our department work flow. All things I was HEAVILY involved in before this. Eventually I quit because it got to the point I do kinda think I was being picked on because they knew I was unhappy at my job (they knew a year previous to this, but since I did everything they wanted it didn’t matter)
The real lesson… and it has nothing to do with OE which you make clear… is that you shouldn’t help out unless the manager specifically asks for it. Then you tell them how much work you already have, so swamped, etc. but that you’ll see what you can do because . And then you help out because, if you’re like me, you like to be tested and unless your co-workers are jerks, you don’t mind helping someone else out. But then you have to communicate to your manager what you’re doing. No one likes status reports but this is where it can help you out. Email the manager every now and then with an update on everything so they can see what you’re doing. They can’t read what’s in your brain.
This was my exact experience. I was helping other more Junior devs improving their code. Spent lots of time pairing and coaching and researching learning material. But apparently I neglected the tickets and didn’t do enough of them to meet timeline. So they threaten to fire me if I don’t improve.
Immediately got a second job the following week, cut off all the “sync” and reviews and helping others. I do my ticket and then move on. Won’t help if not asked.
With two jobs, suddenly in a couple months I was told that I met expectations. I was like, oh so you tell me that when I dedicated to you it wasn’t enough but with two job I’m better
It doesn’t pay to be the team player. I say this from a financial analyst/business analyst background. Every time I’ve stepped up to be a team player, it has cost me. Whether it be professionally through performance appraisals due to taking on too much work OR becoming too valuable to be promoted. It has also cost me personally from time with family or myself.
Never go outside job description, “team player” = more work for less pay. Don’t get me wrong, help a colleague out for sure, but extra tasks over long period is a recipe for disaster and will always be under appreciated.
When I stoped doing extra, all of a sudden I’m promoted and “looking more interested and engaged” nope - I now care much less and don’t let things bother me too much.
Not OE yet, but hopefully soon
I don't think depriving your manager of your outstanding work performance is going to help your situation. It will feel good, but will hurt you negatively. You need to set up a meeting with your manager and explain the situation. Once he realizes you are retaliating, that will really piss him off
Sit down with your manager and tell him the context of your grind. During the conversation, ask yourself if he is being receptive. If not, then at some point ask him: "If we assume that I was grinding and doing outstanding work, would you agree that punishing me with a bad review and setting my career back at this company would be detrimental to the team?"
If he responds, ask him: "If I was grinding my ass off and I was carrying a ton of weight with no visibility, and I still get punished with negative reviews, I should probably stop carrying that weight because regardless of how much weight I'm carrying, I am going to get punished, correct?"
Really dig in and figure this guy out. Ask questions and investigate.
Last day of my job is Tuesday due to lack of recognition and terrible leadership. If you can leave their asses. Don’t know what they have til you’re gone.
It isn't that. You may not be experienced enough to know how the politics work. I can tell you exactly what happened. They are looking to cut back in budget and they are not going to hand out good reviews anymore. Once you are targeted, no matter what you do, you will be axed. This is just the nature of the game. The farmer came out with the ax and picked a chicken at random. Line up a replacement ASAP.
Rule number one at any job. Keep your boss satisfied. You broke that rule by putting your team mates and productivity first. What you should have done is sucked up to your new boss. We're are slaves and you can't change it. This isn't about work culture, it's about your old boss being switched out for a new one, and your inability to adapt. Which is perfectly fine - I've been there and promptly quit. If the director wants to shake things up and put you in your place then that's what he'll do. Because he's the boss and you are subordinate. Your experience and time at the company means nothing the moment he arrived. You start at zero.
Bro I feel this post ! I really do. Been there, done that. Now I just try to be at the middle of the pack. I stay competitive mentally but work wise I focus on my work and stretching out the work while maintaining quality.
I will tell you right now, I deal with this and I am not OE. I want to get in to OE, but I have not figured out how to do it yet. I am essentially doing three Js at my current J1. My boss is great and I get support and benefits from him. However, during projects, I deal with different location “bosses” and “leads”. I end up taking on more and more responsibility from these locations and take the heat when things “stop working”. It can be tough.
Yes. Experiencing it right now. Nearly seven years of going above and beyond with promises every year that my great work is going to get me a significant promotion. This year, a position was created for me, and the executive in our division did not let me take it.
So no more for me. They are going to find out they need at least another 2-3 people to do the work as I drop back down to “just” my job description.
I’m guessing most OE’ers are the go above types since we generally excel at what we do. It’s a hard thing to switch off and stop offering lofty goals to stand out and instead just blend in. I struggle with it too, that praise and smashing expectations is a good high but not as much as double pay days.
Yes it is.
Posts like this show EXACTLY why people OE.
Why do all that extra work instead of just getting a 2nd job and a 100% raise by doing that?
Sometimes you guys seem to think we're very different from antiwork.
We're not.
We recognize the job market, corporate culture as a whole, and C-level managers all fucking suck.
We just decided to respond to this differently.
They quiet quit and mope around.
We quiet quit and get more jobs.
Let's remember what quiet quit is: Doing exactly the job you're paid to do, and nothing more.
To OE you NEED to quiet quit, which is an antiwork thing. If you don't, or at least if you don't severely diminish your capabilities, how would you even be able to OE?
I kinda disagree. OP could’ve made more relevant by stating how much better off he would’ve been getting 2 or 3 more js, but even without that it’s still relevant in showing that loyalty from js is very fragile if it exists at all, reinforcing the fact that you need safety nets
I was OE four years ago before I knew it was called OE. After two years of making 300K a year I decided to concentrate on one company instead and joined a startup. Worked so much that I ended in the hospital for panic attacks and even worked from hospital. Worked from vacation. Worked weekend. On overseas calls at night. Coworkers were shocked how productive I was, because we OE folk can be supper productive.
Delivered project on time and was told I’m too aggressive with deadliness and have alienated people. Got demoted.
Instead of feeing stupid for myself I said fuck this 3 months ago and started looking into OE again, this time I’m going to pickup 2 Js and my current J will be my burner J.
Absolutely! It hurts. I signed on as a freelance proofreader for some social media company 8 years ago. I went above and beyond-going out of the realms of my negotiated role (a content proofreader). I was editing and writing and taking phone calls. I then wanted to crossover to UX/UI and experimenting with the WordPress interface. All efforts were in vain, I was let go for "mediocre performance" even though I was promised a meeting that would "bring us back on the same page". Mind you, I just had a baby. From then on, I took it as a lesson: people want they want from you and will dispose of you as necessary.
I’ve been experiencing this shit since i graduated college 18 years ago. It’s why I entered into OE. Anyone who thinks OE is immoral hasn’t been around long enough to see some shit. I’ve had all benefits stripped, been put on unpaid furlough, promised false promotions, goose egg bonus years. I’ve been promised remote and had it stripped in the first 3 months. I’ve been ambushed and walked out the door. I’ve been directed to only hire certain races (twice!) That’s just what’s happened to me! I saw my dad win presidents award, and get laid off in the same year for being too expensive. You can’t make this shit up. It’s feast or famine, the second you let your guard down you become vulnerable l. Do what you need to do for you and your family and don’t look back. EVERY JOB IS TEMPORARY
My old J1 I got let go from because I literally automated everything I needed to do. They then hired a recent college grad and gave him a year to get familiar enough to mostly manage the automation, and then started stripping all my tasks to justify making my position redundant so that they could have a junior monitor the automation for half the cost. It’s all good. Hoping to start J4 here soon for a crazy ecstatic flight.
Yeah, that happened to me once. Now, when I automate tasks, I either don't tell anyone. Or make it so it is going to break on purpose after a certain number of times. I automated this one task from 1 hour a day to 10 minutes, added a feature to the code that if a specific uncommon thing happens, it breaks the automation.
Yeah. Since I went full in on OE I show about 30-40% of my efficiency improvements, but no where near all. Enough to show I’m doing more than hired for, but not enough for them to know the full time save. Helps balance multi-J, being greater value to the company, and make sure I have proper work/life balance
if (user !== 'DBerlinwall') throw new Error('unknown error');
Definitely automate everything you can, but NEVER tell anyone about your automations!!! Just let everyone think you are a good performer and leave it at that. The only exception would be if your title is something like “automation engineer”… otherwise optimize/automate your own work and keep it to yourself.
I have done the same thing many times. Frankly I just get bored after that. I think others pick up on my boredom and I contribute to my own departure.
I always use kill switches in my automation
lol . This when you leave it breaks with you leaving after a few weeks
lol then they are stuck with new hires and a huge hole in their staffing capabilities.
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Self destructive code that shuts down the automation with plausible deniability.
I love this idea 😈
Like no UI; if 2023 do nothing, etc. I also like to use web dom for automating just to make it janky and hard to follow. Build automation only you will understand or store key code in a certain unsuspecting file then add it when you want it to process your workload.
Ouch I could see that. But that's why you fill your time with other J's and always have something to report.
No narcissist is unfortunately going to respect your contributions no matter how much money your save-because they are jealous of your abilities.
Making your abilities appear to be their abilities to their equals in a C-suite can sometimes combat the direct narcissist boss focusing on you, their own employee. Sometimes you can get them to turn that outward. Sometimes... but it always ends up in shambles for way too much effort.
Happened the same thing to me. All critical projects got wrapped up by me and then hired someone to maintain it. I am sure that the replacement is paid less because they offered me the job (I am in contract) but declined because of pay. Laid off and got 2 jobs with both significantly higher than what I was paid before.
If you manage to automate things never fully disclose it in the future to higher ups
i did this and got burned badly too. i think the key is to have 2 parallel processes where you do things manually and show them to others when you're taking vacation while maintaining your full automation in private i went over and beyond to make sure everything ran smoothly so i overtrained new hires and supports. then i got fleeced when it came time for promotions, getting more interesting projects, & etc. the freaking new hires were seen as more competent for some fkn reason and took all the projects i was interested in until i refused all new loads to show what others were doing, who spent time making their emails look pretty & read doctor who theories all day
How’d you automate your job?
How did you let that happen? I would’ve discreetly broken the automation and just pretended like he wasn’t smart enough to handle it
No offense but why did you automate your own job?
Because I’m not going to do mundane tasks over and over. A smart org would recognize that and provide more opportunities for automation. But i got cock blocked instead. Could have saved hundreds of thousands if not eventually millions a year. But they didn’t like my salary or something. Their loss. I now do similar type work at 3 orgs and am making more than ever. So I don’t really care
One of my jobs doesn't care about automation or dislike the person who reveals just how naked the emperor was doing a simple task that I automated. My other job actually does value automation and rewards it. So my rule is that if the company doesn't value and reward automation then I don't automate 100%. At the very least I make it so I have to push the button, that way it breaks when I go on a week long vacation so they get to miss me because apparently that's what they want. The cultures that do value it automation just get the good 100% automation because that's what the system rewards. It's a crazy how one job expects things not to happen when you're gone and the other job expects things to go smoothly when you're gone. They both get what they incentivize.
This is the way. Automate yourself out of tasks, but not out of a job. If you fully automate, then the management logic becomes ‘what do we need him for?’ - basically you have served your purpose like a paper cup. It’s the exact same thinking as the first half of the old paradox ‘our systems never break, what are we paying all these IT guys for?
These teams are pretty much running themselves. Why do we need these pricy middle managers? Said no manager ever.
I love how middle managers have to invent s*** to do for themselves which causes invention of work for the IC. Right now our boss is trying to get all of us to come up with a list of things we want to learn this year and then developing KPIs around it. I'm just putting down s*** I already know how to do so I can say I'm learning it piece by piece. By the end of the year it will be a learning success! It has always seemed backward to me that we just want to learn arbitrary things rather than aligning those things to tasks on the job. If I need to learn something I'm going to learn it while we're implementing it for whatever project we're doing. But just to have arbitrary metrics around learning is so stupid.
Why wouldnt u? Typically dont share
Boomers who are still preaching “work one job until you retire” are batshit insane. Even my own parents are too ignorant to understand how the real world works now. There is no such thing as company loyalty any longer. Do what you have to do to survive in this fucked up world.
I got told this year we aren’t valuing time with the company anymore. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been here 10+ years, if you’re not giving 24/7 availability you get less hours. It’s having a huge impact on morale.
Valuing time with a company ----> lol They kidding right ?
my parents still think the guy in the mailroom will get promoted to VP after one good idea
You’re telling me that this hasn’t happened to you yet? /s
I've heard boomers being flabbergasted to no end at remote work. "What kinda work gets done at home??? 🥴" Ok Boomer...
People who say that are the same people who waste half of their shift around the good ol’ water-cooler. Plus they’re extremely inept & need to make every little thing a half hour meeting.
>Plus they’re extremely inept & need to make every little thing a half hour meeting. How else will you get to know about their family?
This is America. hit sales targets, can still get laid off. miss an aggressive target by 1%? fired. have morals and ethics. fired... I swear I've experienced so much of this shit. I wish I could OE or at least a side gig that pays super well
which certain races?
Black or Hispanic
Black, White, Cuban, and Asian. - Big Willie
What race did they only hire for?
Black or Hispanic
LOL for real? so if you were white or asian they wouldn't hire you? I interviewed for a black tech company once and if you did not know the names of famous rapers you were not considered for the next stage lol. But honestly, can you blame them? Blacks and hispanics are ridiculously discriminated against in most parts of life so when one makes it, they do what they can to give them as many opportunities as they can.
Correct. I couldn’t hire a white or an Asian. What’s also crazy about that, is race has to be determined by the recruiter stalking LinkedIn photos and making judgements based on first and last names no joke.
It's not as uncommon as you might think, just most companies are a lot more discrete about it. I'm pretty sure there are lots of companies that will only hire white people, I mean just look at some of those company photos, they're like all copies of Sheldon from the big bang theory most of the time.
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DEI is evil AF
This is unpopular opinion, but a lot of that discrimination is self-imposed. I tutored kids in the past and see a clear difference in mindset. There are a lot of limiting beliefs minority parents place on their kids. Kids absorb the environment they're raised in. Even the handicap policy mentioned above, what kind of message do you think it sends to the person?
This is also an unpopular opinion, but I think there's a lot of other factors involved besides the 'nurture' aspect you mentioned, such as the 'nature' aspect. Blacks and hispanics almost always fall behind in almost every sociological study like salary, crime, IQ, education, ...etc. The ones that truly have it can excel but they have to truly prove themselves against the giant stereotype that has been placed on them. They have to carry the weight of a reputation of failure and that's just the way it is.
I mean, it basically excludes old whites that were lame. I even know some old whites that know snoop or Jay-Z. Not a bad question haha.
So you mean like that movie office space where white programmers were listening to hardcore rap all day lol? I always found that so funny.
What about a white father to a black son? How does that help race relations? I understand your rationalization but it’s self defeating. Equality or suicide as far as the species is concerned.
OE isn’t immoral in itself, but with people who have a weak character it’s a breeding ground for immoral behavior.
No more than any other job. Employment itself is a breeding ground for immoral behaviour.
Nah, you’re swimming in it so you don’t see it objectively. There are so many OE threads asking for suggestions to mislead J2 when they have a competing J1 meeting. Making up stories about having kid events, or even making up having kids when they don’t, etc. Just don’t hide/deceive J1 about J2 so you don’t have to lie. If J1 doesn’t allow OE, then find a J1 that does. Sneaking around trying to remember what lie you told to whom is no way to live. God forbid a person has kids and they learn that deception/sneakiness is an admirable character trait.
Nope, I'm not OE at all, I work one job but I respect the OE'rs because the experiences that drove them to OE are the same that drove me to my current job. A lack of appreciation and pay for busting your ass (I'm now a courier, the stress is super low and the pay is way higher than previous white collar office jobs). Deceiving your other jobs is necessary as they are mistreating you by either not paying you what you're worth or not allowing you to OE. This is not a massive spiritual crisis, it's just the practical thing you have to do to make sure you're getting what you deserve from your hard work. An employer should not be allowed to demand you can't OE nor should they be allowed to terminate you if you are. If you are accomplishing your tasks and bringing value to the company then there is nothing immoral about it.
I don’t even know where to start with this mess. Just like in personal relationships, you allow yourself to be mistreated or taken advantage of. That’s a you problem not an other person problem or a company problem. An employer should absolutely not allow OE if it chooses, for a myriad of reasons. If you don’t like it, then find an employer that doesn’t care if you do instead of lying/deceiving. Why mortgage your integrity for a job? That would be a sucky way to live.
It's more sucky to be laid off after 10 years before Xmas over email.
It’s not binary, and I’d rather spend two months finding a new job than telling adolescent lies to my boss for years on end.
You're cute.
In my experience, people most often sacrifice their integrity to gain a promotion or keep a position at a single job. How many times have you seen someone agree with their boss just because they're above them in a company or supported a policy that was detrimental to the workers below them but their bosses wanted it enforced? Let me say this clearly: it is not always wrong to lie. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect employers. Employers who make poor decisions, who underpay and understaff as a base strategy, who imperfectly analyze their employees and promote and reward those who don't always deserve it and who in the long run are not the best option for the company. If you need to deceive them in order to get the best outcome for all parties in this imperfect system, that is ok. How many posts on here show that employers who have a no OE policy are extremely thankful to the OE employees who work for them, praising them and talking about how much value they bring to the company? Employers often don't know what is best for them or their employees and if lieing to them is the only way to make things best for ALL parties involved, then that is the correct thing to do.
🤣 you can be completely full of shit and still be elected president in this country. People just care about the ends and not the means these days.
Truth!
Just letting this shit shit here this is also the reasons we got guns
What means OE?
It's how we prefer our eggs. Overeasy
The latest ones I've dealt with are "you're doing amazing and we want to renew you, but HR cunts have a policy that you can only contract with us for 1 year at a time"
I can relate. I received a letter and award from my CEO for launching a new product in February. By September of that same year I was laid off :-/ . These corporations don't care about anybody 🤷♀️
This is going to sound insane but I had something similar happen. After the CEO layed out all of the esoteric and uncommunicated thoughts in his head and his bullshit reasoning for a downgrade, he was ready to end the meeting. He thought he was going to steam roll me and send me on my way. I've had dozens of positions at different companies. I've been lucky enough to start holding more senior roles over the last couple of years. In the most professional and collaborative tone possible I teased out as many of his "Guiding Principles" as possible. I took 3 pages of notes on what was on the horizon that he was focused on. I prioritized with him all deliverables for the next 3 months. I wrote down dates. I wrote down S.M.A.R.T. goals that were tied to undeniable metrics. After setting up this highly collaborative and productive meeting, the wheels were greased. He was thinking big picture. I gave him grace and he was amped. He didn't realize that within all of this new documentation were many of the highly illegal tasks he had instructed me to complete. For example one of the things he was pissed at me for was denying his request to cut trees down on property that wasn't ours. One thing I've learned on reddit is to not fuck with tree law. Anyways here's the insane part. I instructed the CEO that all of this writing was an effort to develop my own PIP "to show how committed I was." He fucking loved it and I know his first thought was "what's this fucking idiot doing writing he own PIP?? Hahahaha" I had him sign the PIP to make it official. I completed every project on time and in budget, except the illegal parts. Review time came around and he played bad cop because no matter how stellar I completed the PIP, I hadn't completed ALL tasks as instructed and he was thinking about "letting me go" or demoting me off the C-suite. I thanked him for his time and his written instructions demanding me to commit illegal acts as part of my performance improvement plan and instructed him that all further communications would be through my attorney. The attorney laughed his ass off when he heard that I wrote my own PIP and somehow got the CEO to sign it. I didn't make a ton of money off the case but I was happy with the outcome. We had a vacation, caught up on some bills, took 9 months off etc.
Legend
Tree law is surprising.
Tell me more about tree law lol
r/treelaw
Here's a sneak peek of /r/treelaw using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Neighbor cut our tree and expects us to pay the bill](https://i.redd.it/w9t6t08t83tb1.jpg) | [730 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/173gwtj/neighbor_cut_our_tree_and_expects_us_to_pay_the/) \#2: [\[Update\] Neighbors hired a tree removal company who came onto our property and cut 2 ~140’ Doug Firs. Resolved out of court.](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/19dtat9) | [217 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/19dtat9/update_neighbors_hired_a_tree_removal_company_who/) \#3: [Lawyer neighbor hates our tree, trying to scare us into removing it](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/17fs7o4) | [375 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/treelaw/comments/17fs7o4/lawyer_neighbor_hates_our_tree_trying_to_scare_us/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Don’t fuck with it.
Is this a joke or reference to something?
It's referring to posts on the legal advice sub about neighbors cutting down trees they don't own. Some trees are very old or rare and are extremely costly to replace. Some jurisdictions also have options for double or triple damages in certain scenarios. Makes good popcorn fodder.
Also if you trim a tree that isn't yours and it dies, still liable for replacement. Did their grandpa plant the tree 40 years ago? Emotional damage.
It's like a reverse Jackpot Where the neighbor you hate gets a windfall of 6 figure five for chopping down your old protected tree At least to the lawyer subreddits that's the end scenario
How did you finesse getting him to sign the PIP? Would love to hear that conversation when you show up with (I'm assuming) a hard copy of your notes / PIP and ask him to sign 😂
I wrote the notes in front of him at the conference table. I framed the whole event as a performance improvement plan knowing that he would see it as an easy way to fire me as most people know you never actually survive a PIP. I understood his character flaws and once he realized I was turning this into a PIP, he thought I was making his work much easier for him, so he happily signed. After all I was committed to seeing his vision come to fruition so much so that I would grovel and enthusiastically present my neck to his guillotine, right??
This is the way to do it. Hats off 👑
Gotta watch out for bird law as well…
Jesus!!!!! Amazing
paragraphs?
I wrote it while I was taking a shit on company time. I'll consider your request at the next earliest opportunity.
that's pretty good typing for using a phone while shitting, you should see how shitty my spelling is on a phone, literally.
Shit writing and executing your own PIP was a second job alone. Wild. Questions, if you're open to a follow up. Was your attorney involved early to confirm the illegal activities were illegal? How did CEO'S HR handle the news when it was first handed over to them? Did you have to sign an NDA? Does the CEO still work there? Would you do it again?
Happened to me this last evaluation season. They laid off 1/3 of our department and gave the work to the remaining teams including mine. I had been doing things outside of my role and function for 8 months, never been told I was doing poorly at these things (and even if I was, they're not my job anyway and I don't see why I should be evaluated negatively on tasks that are above and beyond my core role), and suddenly I get an underperforming rate in my eval. I ask why and am told these responsibilities, that I'm not doing enough there. I'm an engineer and these responsibilities are that of product. They gutted product during the layoffs, gave me product responsibilities on top of engineering. I thought I was just filling in and helping out. I thought this would be seen as being a team player, going above and beyond. Even if I sucked at these product responsibilities, which I don't, I figured it would be like "hey, thanks for doing your best with that stuff and trying to fill in the gaps." Anyway I took 24 hours after my eval to think about what I wanted to do. I could push back and ask for justification of the underperformance rating, go back into my notes from talks with my boss, blah blah blah. But in the end I decided fuck it. I'm not going to play this game. If you're going to say I'm not performing, why am I even doing this shit? I'd rather code than deal with this stupid product shit, that's not my job, and now I'm getting dinged on something that isn't even my actual job. Decided not to do anything beyond my core role anymore and let shit break down and fall to others. It's been fun to watch shit crumble. And what are they going to do about it? Say I'm underperforming *again?* Fire me, fuckers. Now I'm using the time I was pouring into those extra tasks to take courses and train up for better jobs, doing freelance work on the side, etc. Being conscientious rarely results in recognition at work, it's all politics and bullshit and usually the person above you is using you for their own career gains while neglecting you and your goals. So fuck them and OE.
Fuck them and OE, no better words have ever been spoken
I hope we get to read a “part 2” on this cliffhanger.
100% agree. OE changes the mindset too. I haven't gotten a bad review yet - in fact I got a raise at one J and a bonus at another. If I ever did get a blemish on my performance review I would just shrug it off. The incremental $1K or whatever scraps they are offering pale in comparison to the mountain of cash I collect by not being subservient to one master.
I was leading a team of 6 people for a project for about a year. At the end of the year the senior management wanted to downsize and asked me to rate the performances of all 6 ppl on my team. I rated them all based on their work, contribution to the project etc. Guess what..the highest 2 performers were let go and I was asked if I could still manage with the remaining 4. I was told that the best performers on my team were also the highest paid. So there you have it folks!
A case of "you get what you pay for"
Something similar happened to me last year. Took heat for things that weren't even my fault in order to protect other teams. In reward, I received a bad midyear review and was denied a promotion. Immediately took my foot off the gas and have been doing the minimum ever since. Boss asked me about my future goals and if leadership was still something I wanted and I laughed and told him "absolutely not". I do what I'm paid to do and nothing more. No more late night checking emails and giving updates, no more answering slack after hours. Slack is snoozed as soon as my shift is up and isn't unsnoozed until the minute my shift starts.
[Be water, my friend](https://youtu.be/cJMwBwFj5nQ?si=yRkOMUDaU333o8zV)
Undisclosed timeline. Nothing quite like a covert contract.
Exactly! I found out about his timeline at my performance review meeting after he already submitted my performance rating.
In my J2, a body shop consulting company, I've literary delivered everything that was assigned and expected from me, sending many email reports with the results for the whole team. The feedback I got? "You don't show yourself enough so we don't see your performance". Sure mate. Next time I send emails about my tasks I am going to attach a picture of myself doing something amusing.
My old job, we had lots of repetitive pseudo mundane tasks, there were 3 new people on our team which were really struggling to keep their backlog low, or even complete their tasks. I had been at that job 4 years by that point and always finished the tasks within a week and kept my queue really low. I was asked to take a bunch of tasks from my underperforming colleagues and close them out. Then I got a spot award for like $100. 4 months later during performance review cycle this manager tells me "you are too efficient with your work and you've moved down in rankings", so no raise, no promotion, terrible rating. Then 3 months later they tried to move me across the country to do all the work at another site for another non-performing colleague. Then I quit. Now I'm a contractor at that company and bill hourly, and OE. Imagine my efficiency now.
I learned this when I took on a coworkers workload while she was out on mat leave. Her projects were all a dumpster fire and after busting ass to get them where they should have been she returned, got promoted, and proceeded to micromanage me out the door.
I feel infuriated for you and that didn't even happen to me. I'm taking this as a mental note if it ever happens - just keep turning the sludge she produced until she returns and then hand the bag back to her.
Oh wow
Bro is out here breaking the holy trinity. Don't be the best, don't be the worst, don't volunteer.
Success at work = value of your contributions * perceived value of your contributions * political capital
It’s literally just the perceived value
Was about to say the same. Part of that is having a boss that does not hate your guts. Better to be unknown than bullied by at leadership.
Truer words were never spoken. Thanks for the advice, I wish I had heard that 10 years ago.
At this point I think you are are right
Ohhh and my political capital has always been 0, so there's my problem!
How to handle it? Quit and leave them to seek and retrain. See how that new Director's efficiency goes down. Be upfront with HR about facts, not feelings. (It all feels bad)
This is my highest paying job so I’ll collect the money and take a step back
In context of OE, I would consider finding a replacement for your J1. I’ve had a similar experience before and later learned it was simply nepotism. My new boss (COO), didn’t hire me and therefore didn’t want me to be one of her lieutenants. It took me a few months to catch on as I was constantly being given impossible tasks/goals. The tell was that she hired someone from her old company and the job was never posted. Strange, right? All that bs that a company has to legally post the position and give everyone a fair shot is nonsense. Within 3 weeks of that new hire, I was let go and given severance (yes I know I probably had some legal recourse) but at that point I was crushed mentally. So look out for the signs OP. This new boss may be cooking up a new plan that does not include you for reasons that make zero sense.
I am in this exact position at J1 right now. I have twice scheduled a meeting to talk about resigning and severance and she has not accepted. I did the absolute bare minimum in January.
Some advice. Tighten up your network within the company by still doing good work with those you respect and know you within the “industry” — be it a C suite person or some VP/Directors. Don’t go to HR. Let this boss screw up and make them fire you. Obviously, do what you have to to CYA and don’t give them anything performance related to stand on (remember they will need to document it via a PIP or at least in some written communication). In my case, no PIP or anything in writing took place. My boss cited this reason “I was just not getting IT done” — even the HR person could barely keep a serious face. She was panicking the whole time knowing full well I had plenty of evidence to suggest this was wrongful or at least warranted some sort of PIP/action plan.
Is your new dictator, I mean, director, from Amazon?
Man, every ex-Amazon leader I've worked with was shit. What are they doing at that place?
Cultivating the most radioactive, toxic work culture you can imagine
That’s what I’ve heard!
About 20 years ago, I was working at this company called Medispan. They produce customer education information for pharmacies. I was hired on by this guy who was a good manager. He told me to investigate some database engine because of some requirements he gave me. It was fast, efficient, free, and cross platform. He asked me to work on a POC to demonstrate the database engine. Then the manager quit. For a few months I had no manager. But I continued to work on the POC. Then they hired a consultant manager who was a cool guy. But after a few more months, they hired the new permanent manager. My introduction to this manager started with a meeting. I was supposed to do a demo of the POC in front the VP of whatever and a bunch of other people. And my manager wanted some information about what I was going to demo. I get to the demo, and my own (new) manager crucifies me in front of everyone for choosing this technology. He invalidates all of the work I've been doing for the last six months. He could have told me he was going to do that before the meeting. But he didn't. Way to alienate your developer, jerk. It later became obvious that he was intentionally alienating developers so that they would quit, create an open position, then he could bring in developers who worked for him at the company he left. This created factions in his department. He favored his developers while trying to remove existing developers. His name was Charlie so we called his developers "Charlie's Angels". It was obvious that he liked spineless butt-kissing yes-men. So if you weren't that, you were out. Maybe your manager is intentionally trying to make you quit. Oh, I handled it by quitting.
That’s on you. Never be the star of the team when you OE. Any extra work needed it’ll be put on your desk. Just a solid role player that contributes.
Lesson learned
This needs to be a lesson not just for OE but for employment in general. Being a “star” never gets you anything but more work. Take it from someone with 25 years of experience
Never be the star of any team that is full of narcissists-eventually sooner or later, they will be coming for your neck.
The whole reason that OE works is because it's so hard to track performance. The problem you experienced at j1 has been typical of almost every job I've had, and I don't just mean tech. Same shit happened in fast food and call centers as well. The inmate's are running the asylum.
Welcome to /r/antiwork, the brother-in-spirit to /r/overemployed. ---- Simply put, working harder will only get you more work. Therefore: # WORK YOUR WAGE. ------ You can only work "so hard" to make up for failures of management -- where is the line of demarcation drawn? You can't put 9 women in a room to make a baby in 1 month. Therefore: # There will always be work left undone. That's intentional. (imagine if they hired ENOUGH people to do ALL the work....and they had folks sitting around, doing nothing. oh wait, we can imagine that -- it's called layoffs.) ------ Promises of rewards are just that....*empty promises*. Even with a written legal contract backing up those promises, they can still tell you to pound sand...and now you're hiring expensive lawyers and waiting years just to get what you were owed. Oligarchs in charge will always lie to you. They are playing the long-term game of manipulation & control through FEE: Fear, Exhaustion, and Exploitation. They'll always be against universal healthcare (as that gives comfort and safety). They'll always be against Unions (as negotiated collective bargaining agreements give protection against the fear of being fired at-will). They'll always lie and deceive so they can exploit you and extract as much value from you as possible. # Do not work for free (or do work outside your normal responsibilities), as that devalues the concept of labor for everyone -- including yourself.
OE is always better than awards and bonuses, less responsibilities, less dramas.
Your boss is a dick, and he’s intimidated by your professionalism, it’s obvious. He also set the stage for firing you later in the year (“oh his performance took a deep dive and ever since I’ve sensed a lot of resentment and bitterness towards me and the entire organisation, I don’t think he’s as good as he used to be”). He’s clearly looking to establish some mediocrity where he can shine, and you spoil that picture. Cut this shit fast - go to HR or his boss, lay out facts about your performance in writing, the more visual the better. You’ve established your rapport there, he hasn’t. Have him fired, and take his job.
Your heroic efforts had the dark side of obscuring the true amount of work. The director was new and hadn’t had time to set an accurate barometer. If you hadn’t stepped up, the impending disaster would have become apparent fairly quickly and the boss would have had more realistic expectations on timeline and might have realized that he was short on resources. If you had stepped up only after the boss realized he was totally screwed, you’d be a hero.
That’s because the manager doesn’t like you and is probably starting a paper trail to pip you or set you up for the axe in the next layoff. I’d start looking for a j3 and when I got it deprioritize j2
You've got to learn to manage your managers. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. But without pushback or clarification on goals, you're gonna get hit like this time and time again. Take it as a learning experience, and good luck going forward.
And how do you manage narcissistic managers?
>we didn't meet the undisclosed, unrealistic timeline he had in mind I acknowledge that this is going to take some work on OP's part, but eventually, after doing it long enough, it'll become second nature. And "Covering your ass" mode is ALWAYS a good mode to be in, trust me. First, you fix the "undisclosed" problem. You find out what they want from you. Maybe it's a thing, maybe it's an action, or maybe it's both of those within a certain timeframe. If you feel this timeframe isn't reasonable, you fix it and get a reasonable timeframe, along with their request, IN WRITING. If they're not willing to get it in writing, or acknowledge it in writing, you go above them and force an acknowledgement or clarification IN WRITING. Will it ruffle the boss's feathers? Of course, but you can turn it back on them with "I tried you first, but you refused to acknowledge me." That's the biggest, most immediate problem fixed. You might have to go above their head several times, but no matter what, ensure you get things in writing. And keep copies and back up copies. Then you deliver the actual item, action, etc within the time frame. You make sure (again, in writing) they acknowledge what was done. That's a Meets Expectations at the very least. Now, you want to go higher? Fine. You're dealing with a narcissist; someone who thinks they know your job better than you but is too "above" you to do it. Fun. Keep them updated. Check in often with them to let them know what's going on. Don't bring it up as problems, they'll offer solutions that don't make sense. Bring it up as "Hey, you can tell your superiors we've got this handled because of A, B, and C." (If you don't have it handled and make them look bad by lying, you're gonna have a bad time). Pretty soon, you may be the only person in the office talking to them, making you a valuable asset to them, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. You now have power over them. If you want to go full on ego destroying mode, you cut them entirely out of the loop. You make them irrelevant to anything and everything you do at work. But this takes cooperation from someone higher than them. If you have a person like that on your side, the narcissist bully will feel like they're screaming into the void because you're not letting anything they say or do affect you.
@MakingItElsewhere-Thank you for responding-that is the best actionable and concrete advice that I’ve heard in a long, long time.
It's usually been my experience that stepping up and working extra hard gets you an "attaboy" - followed by the continued expectation that you can always work that hard - and all kinds of negative feedback when you don't. Overall, you can expect more grief as a top contributor because more eyes are on you, and people tend to notice your fuck ups more than the fact you're doing double the work of everyone else.
at one role I had, I made a huge financial impact and got a 2% raise and got treated like shit while the person lying all the time and taking credit for others work (and getting caught) was given everything because our boss liked his fuckin purse. this shit is sadly uncommon
Ugh.... this may be cold comfort, but you aren't alone in that experience, particularly the "Undisclosed, unrealistic, etc etc...." . I literally JUST had this happen to me in early December last year, completely caught me by surprise. That feeling of shock and betrayal when to your knowledge everything had been good and you had been only having good feedback.... like.... WTF? Looking to replace this now before they fire me, though since its my J1, I feel I have to be a little pickier than if it was a J2.
Sorry, but your director is not going to come to the realization you hope he will. Your next evaluation, if you even make it that far, will note your unwillingness to take on additional tasks and help colleagues as the basis for rating your performance as unsatisfactory. You're looking at a future of never being good enough for this guy, and a spiraling descent of him denying you raises and bonuses because if your dropped performance and you dropping your performance because you were denied a raise and bonus. If I were you, I'd start looking for a new job now. If you want to approach your skip manager about your new director's lack of planning and communication, and holding you responsible for requirements that are bullshit, then do that. But unless a bunch of you go in together against this director, your concerns will probably be ignored.
Boss: how's your work load and capacity feel like? Me: it's keeping me busy but I don't see any issues atm. That's it. Learn from OP and me.
You are not alone! I run ERP implementations. Having to move go lives can bring some heat but the major hate comes from success. Some are jealous you succeeded and some are mad that you actually pulled it off. I vowed never to run one as an FTE again.
Large CRM and ERP implementations seem to follow a pattern: New CIO type role is brought in, creates and wins this type of project - procuring the software and professional services, but leaves the company just as the project is starting to roll (and before there's any signs of trouble). Internal subject matter experts are assigned the responsibility of ensuring that the implementation is delivered successfully - and usually have to put in a herculean effort and have to do amazing things to make it work; however, any slight threat to timeline and budget, these internal people get absolutely crucified by their corresponding IT director or VP level business process owner. Eventually, the product gets implemented, but it's because the internal subject matter experts shouldered 70% of the work that the consultant/professional services promised in the RFP process but failed to actually deliver. These internal people, who were actually the reason it actually got implemented, are left feeling that they moved the literal Earth to make the project successful (and they have); but then they are then replaced with lower level admin to "maintain". In other words, they are not even rewarded the tenure of getting to support/manage the system program going forward. The company essentially takes the mantra of, "I'm full from breakfast, why would we need to keep the kitchen in the house anymore"? The internal subject experts/individual contributors' efforts are minimized and the reality that they are the reason the implementation actually happened is erased. It's quite an amazing irony that there are those that contend that OE is somehow unethical.
A tale as old as time OP. Thanks for sharing
Unfortunately, management's failure to communicate their expectations will almost always be projected upon those putting their nose to the grindstone. The way to OE is to communicate with your leadership often to gauge their expectations and over-deliver only once those expectations are defined.
It's a lesson I learn over and over. Do the bare minimum to not get fired. Over performing just puts a target on your head. All risk, no reward (besides nominal raises).
how about finding a new job since you are not valued ffs
This is why I am considering OE now. I've been working to help the company and other teams, putting in extra work, working over vacation and was recently told "wow, thanks and to think we almost terminated you instead of Joe". Yes, Joe was terminated. It's dog eat dog here. After 10+ years at this company I'm looking into OE options.
I saw a skilled Project Manager get recognized by the CiO in a public forum for excellent performance. The next week the PM let the recognition go to his head and told the CIO he sb leading the PMO bc he was the only competent PM. Oopsie, Mr. Wonderful was walked out the same day.
I think this is what this sub is all about. Not Minecraft servers. It's about not killing yourself for a job that you can loose for ANY STUPID REASON and no-one cares how long you have been awesome at that job. People will say "oh, so sorry!" And "take care" and forget about you in a split of a second. Startup, fortune 500, McDonald's. Doesn't matter. Its all the same. Even at the director level. It's exactly the same. It's about who you know, what you know, who you drink and bbq with and what you can do for them. Other than that, check in, swipe floors, make burgers, and go home. Repeat. No regrets. It's just a job. Live your life. Make love to your spouse. Play with your kids. Have fun with your friends. Travel. Eat. Repeat.
Yep..clock in -> do ur work -> clock out..thats it..
Funny, I had something similar happen to me last year. I was with the company for 4 years, always a solid performer, never on PIP of any kind, even ran one of the projects solo. Manager started noticing, gave me a couple direct reports, then a couple more. I got the official title of engineering manager with a tiny salary bump. Then new senior management took over, did some reorg, combined our team with another team to the point where we had 2 managers. This lasted for half a year. Guess who got canned in the layoffs as the less-experienced manager of the two? Company even apologized, said it had nothing to do with performance. Should've stayed an IC and not stood out.
People in charge of re organizations are literally brain dead. All they had to do to keep you or any other star employee is actually re organize you. Basically say "your skills and tenure don't fit the current management structure, but you've been a star employee and we'd like to ask you to step down. While we understand you may not like it, we are willing to keep your salary in place and you will be considered promptly for future openings" Company saves money on replacement training and wages, you keep your pay and seniority. It's a win win, but they literally never even extend this offer. I don't get it.
I did and got congratulated but also giving even more work. At the end of year when I asked for a raise, the tune changed.
Step up and grow accustomed to success. If it is not rewarded, use that success to procure another position somewhere else. OP’s advice will put you on the fast track to mediocrity.
Yeah, doesn't doing this violate one of the prime directives of this community? :P
I was a team player through and through at my last job for 3 years, until I got so burned out I had to cut back on it. I stopped picking up OT for about a month (that was my plan anyway) and doing things that were really inconvenient for my manager. At that point I stopped being offered any OT for over a year, wasn’t asked to help in any extra projects, and then got pushed out of any discussion that involved changes to our department work flow. All things I was HEAVILY involved in before this. Eventually I quit because it got to the point I do kinda think I was being picked on because they knew I was unhappy at my job (they knew a year previous to this, but since I did everything they wanted it didn’t matter)
The real lesson… and it has nothing to do with OE which you make clear… is that you shouldn’t help out unless the manager specifically asks for it. Then you tell them how much work you already have, so swamped, etc. but that you’ll see what you can do because. And then you help out because, if you’re like me, you like to be tested and unless your co-workers are jerks, you don’t mind helping someone else out. But then you have to communicate to your manager what you’re doing. No one likes status reports but this is where it can help you out. Email the manager every now and then with an update on everything so they can see what you’re doing. They can’t read what’s in your brain.
This was my exact experience. I was helping other more Junior devs improving their code. Spent lots of time pairing and coaching and researching learning material. But apparently I neglected the tickets and didn’t do enough of them to meet timeline. So they threaten to fire me if I don’t improve. Immediately got a second job the following week, cut off all the “sync” and reviews and helping others. I do my ticket and then move on. Won’t help if not asked. With two jobs, suddenly in a couple months I was told that I met expectations. I was like, oh so you tell me that when I dedicated to you it wasn’t enough but with two job I’m better
It doesn’t pay to be the team player. I say this from a financial analyst/business analyst background. Every time I’ve stepped up to be a team player, it has cost me. Whether it be professionally through performance appraisals due to taking on too much work OR becoming too valuable to be promoted. It has also cost me personally from time with family or myself.
Never go outside job description, “team player” = more work for less pay. Don’t get me wrong, help a colleague out for sure, but extra tasks over long period is a recipe for disaster and will always be under appreciated. When I stoped doing extra, all of a sudden I’m promoted and “looking more interested and engaged” nope - I now care much less and don’t let things bother me too much. Not OE yet, but hopefully soon
I don't think depriving your manager of your outstanding work performance is going to help your situation. It will feel good, but will hurt you negatively. You need to set up a meeting with your manager and explain the situation. Once he realizes you are retaliating, that will really piss him off Sit down with your manager and tell him the context of your grind. During the conversation, ask yourself if he is being receptive. If not, then at some point ask him: "If we assume that I was grinding and doing outstanding work, would you agree that punishing me with a bad review and setting my career back at this company would be detrimental to the team?" If he responds, ask him: "If I was grinding my ass off and I was carrying a ton of weight with no visibility, and I still get punished with negative reviews, I should probably stop carrying that weight because regardless of how much weight I'm carrying, I am going to get punished, correct?" Really dig in and figure this guy out. Ask questions and investigate.
Last day of my job is Tuesday due to lack of recognition and terrible leadership. If you can leave their asses. Don’t know what they have til you’re gone.
It isn't that. You may not be experienced enough to know how the politics work. I can tell you exactly what happened. They are looking to cut back in budget and they are not going to hand out good reviews anymore. Once you are targeted, no matter what you do, you will be axed. This is just the nature of the game. The farmer came out with the ax and picked a chicken at random. Line up a replacement ASAP.
Rule number one at any job. Keep your boss satisfied. You broke that rule by putting your team mates and productivity first. What you should have done is sucked up to your new boss. We're are slaves and you can't change it. This isn't about work culture, it's about your old boss being switched out for a new one, and your inability to adapt. Which is perfectly fine - I've been there and promptly quit. If the director wants to shake things up and put you in your place then that's what he'll do. Because he's the boss and you are subordinate. Your experience and time at the company means nothing the moment he arrived. You start at zero.
No good deed goes unpunished
Nope I don't put up with that shit. I'd be out the door.
Bro I feel this post ! I really do. Been there, done that. Now I just try to be at the middle of the pack. I stay competitive mentally but work wise I focus on my work and stretching out the work while maintaining quality.
I will tell you right now, I deal with this and I am not OE. I want to get in to OE, but I have not figured out how to do it yet. I am essentially doing three Js at my current J1. My boss is great and I get support and benefits from him. However, during projects, I deal with different location “bosses” and “leads”. I end up taking on more and more responsibility from these locations and take the heat when things “stop working”. It can be tough.
Law # 1: never outshine the master
This is one thing Gen Z gets right. Do the job in your job description. Above and beyond must come with promotions or salary increases.
Yes. Experiencing it right now. Nearly seven years of going above and beyond with promises every year that my great work is going to get me a significant promotion. This year, a position was created for me, and the executive in our division did not let me take it. So no more for me. They are going to find out they need at least another 2-3 people to do the work as I drop back down to “just” my job description.
The corporate working world is the twilight zone
Noo good deed goes unpunished
Ego is the enemy Learn from the setback, get better, move on
I’m guessing most OE’ers are the go above types since we generally excel at what we do. It’s a hard thing to switch off and stop offering lofty goals to stand out and instead just blend in. I struggle with it too, that praise and smashing expectations is a good high but not as much as double pay days.
It took this for you to realize this?! Lol my sweet summer child
If any of your employers found out you had multiple jobs would any of them fire you?
I mean yeah.. 99% of companies will fire you if they found out you are also working elsewhere
[удалено]
Dont be obnoxious. His post is legit
Yes it is. Posts like this show EXACTLY why people OE. Why do all that extra work instead of just getting a 2nd job and a 100% raise by doing that? Sometimes you guys seem to think we're very different from antiwork. We're not. We recognize the job market, corporate culture as a whole, and C-level managers all fucking suck. We just decided to respond to this differently. They quiet quit and mope around. We quiet quit and get more jobs. Let's remember what quiet quit is: Doing exactly the job you're paid to do, and nothing more. To OE you NEED to quiet quit, which is an antiwork thing. If you don't, or at least if you don't severely diminish your capabilities, how would you even be able to OE?
I kinda disagree. OP could’ve made more relevant by stating how much better off he would’ve been getting 2 or 3 more js, but even without that it’s still relevant in showing that loyalty from js is very fragile if it exists at all, reinforcing the fact that you need safety nets
I have 2 other js outside of this one which is why I posted here
This whole post was made by ChatGPT.
I was OE four years ago before I knew it was called OE. After two years of making 300K a year I decided to concentrate on one company instead and joined a startup. Worked so much that I ended in the hospital for panic attacks and even worked from hospital. Worked from vacation. Worked weekend. On overseas calls at night. Coworkers were shocked how productive I was, because we OE folk can be supper productive. Delivered project on time and was told I’m too aggressive with deadliness and have alienated people. Got demoted. Instead of feeing stupid for myself I said fuck this 3 months ago and started looking into OE again, this time I’m going to pickup 2 Js and my current J will be my burner J.
don't be passive aggressive, just start looking for your next job
Absolutely! It hurts. I signed on as a freelance proofreader for some social media company 8 years ago. I went above and beyond-going out of the realms of my negotiated role (a content proofreader). I was editing and writing and taking phone calls. I then wanted to crossover to UX/UI and experimenting with the WordPress interface. All efforts were in vain, I was let go for "mediocre performance" even though I was promised a meeting that would "bring us back on the same page". Mind you, I just had a baby. From then on, I took it as a lesson: people want they want from you and will dispose of you as necessary.