|
I invited two friends to come visit this weekend. They both work in a very different sort of corporate hell, and I thought their stories would make a fitting addition to the thread. My friends work for a non-governmental organization in DC, doing public relations and awareness work. Their jobs are to find ways to distribute information and make sure that (insert cause here) gets spread far and wide in the DC area, plus fundraising and staying on top of changes in the field of their cause. They both make under $40,000 a year each, plus average benefits. They were invited up this weekend for a little creative retreat. It was supposed to be a 'get away from work and have fun doing things you actually want to do' sort of thing, but instead, they showed up with their work laptops and cell phones, and spent over 10 hours per day Sat/Sun working on reports and taking conference calls for work. On top of that, we had to cancel going out to dinner because they had to save their money to attend a conference for work, because their employer doesn't cover any business-related travel expenses or cost of convention tickets. They each need to save up about $3,000 to attend a conference for work purposes that the employer won't pay for them to attend, but requires they attend. They both work between 60-80 hours a week, sometimes more when you include their weekend work, and definitely more when you include unpaid out-of-work work obligations like attending [their particular cause] networking dinners, seminars, etc (on their own dime of course). I knew they worked an ungodly number of hours for the paychecks they get, but I had no idea about the 'pay all your own costs' thing. One of them had to provide her own laptop for work, and the other had to provide her own ergo setup after she developed tendonitis. No employer assistance there, no equipment paid for, no nothing. The way they accept this as a reasonable way of doing business is just mind-boggling to me. I outright refuse to do anything biz-related that my employer won't pay/reimburse, and here they are spending massive portions of their paychecks so that they can meet their employer's demands? Seriously?
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 15:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 11:57 |
|
|
With very few exceptions, DC NGOs wouldn't be able to exist if they paid their employees reasonably and didn't have unpaid interns. It's a weird system, but tons of people want to work there, so they survive.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 15:19
|
|
|
Did you tell them they are massive idiots or are you content to let them work themselves to poverty/death for the stories they tell?
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 15:23
|
|
|
Pleads posted:Did you tell them they are massive idiots or are you content to let them work themselves to poverty/death for the stories they tell? Given Sundae's track record...
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 15:56
|
|
|
Pleads posted:Did you tell them they are massive idiots or are you content to let them work themselves to poverty/death for the stories they tell? I told them that, in my view, they should absolutely not be paying to do work. They already know my view on long hours and unpaid overtime. Their view was basically that they have to take what they can get and that 'everyone has to make sacrifices' and bullshit like that. I just don't get it. quote:Given Sundae's track record... I may pick godawful companies, but at least I know I'm an idiot for doing it. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 16:02
|
|
|
Sundae posted:I may pick godawful companies, but at least I know I'm an idiot for doing it. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 16:07
|
|
|
Paying to go to a conference is pretty obscene. My (for-profit) company is trying to pull that poo poo (we have to pay ~15%), along with making us share rooms, and I made it pretty clear I would not be going.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 16:18
|
|
|
So my workplace tried to give me a raise by transferring me to a different billing department with salary bands that were wider. The goal was to get me approximately 7k from HR (since I'm combining several defunct positions). Somehow in the process, I managed to receive an offer from the new department for 5k less than what I was making. The complete lack of understanding of how any systems work here is almost magical in it's intricacy.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 16:43
|
|
|
Xandu posted:Paying to go to a conference is pretty obscene. My (for-profit) company is trying to pull that poo poo (we have to pay ~15%), along with making us share rooms, and I made it pretty clear I would not be going. Did you use the phrase 'get hosed' in your response?
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 16:57
|
|
|
I used to work for a DC NGO and yeah, the work hour expectations are across-the-board crazy. No one at my place was ever expected to pay their own way for travel or anything else, though. That's another level of bullshit. I have heard the thing about providing your own laptop -- that's not unheard of. When your friends inevitably sell out and get better jobs they'll have a shitload of cool experience and an incredible work ethic, though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 17:09
|
|
|
There's a flier up at my work that spends a paragraph talking about how they want to have a Christmas luncheon as appreciation for everyone's hard work... ...and at the bottom it goes on to say that attending will cost $14. But it includes a raffle for door prizes! StdNormDist fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Nov 17, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 18:39
|
|
|
I find that people that work at NGO aren't as mercenary as us folks in BFC. They typically work for their cause because of the ideal, or as a means to an end politically. Pay is so they don't die.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 18:59
|
|
|
Good thing I'm a beltway And speaking of banditry, I notice there's this thread for corporate poo poo and a federal jobs thread for their corresponding poo poo but nothing for the in between, i.e. the contractors. IMO federal/government contracting is its own beast (dealing with a clientele that has ABSOLUTE job security, etc.) and probably deserves its own thread, no?
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 19:29
|
|
|
Grover made a contractor thread where he told people he should've been entitled to the same kind of respect as a lt. Col. And he was soundly mocked for it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 19:52
|
|
|
So the PM for a major project I've been working on just scheduled our big review presentation to the C-levels on the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. He's based outside the US and apparently didn't realize this mistake until the meeting was locked in, and just spent a whole meeting bitching my team members and I out for having the audacity to be out of office the Wednesday/Thursday/Friday before the meeting. He tried to get us all to agree to come in that Wednesaday & Friday and/or give him a half day over the weekend, but thankfully the whole team more or less put our collective foot down and told him to get hosed. Now he's thrown out a truckload of meetings on every free slot any of us have from now until next Tuesday for "prep work", and my calendar looks like the Berlin Wall.  I mean gently caress, did he really not take the hint when he was scheduling the thing in the first place, and saw 99% of the participants were listed as OOO those three days the week prior?
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 21:54
|
|
|
The management of my company went and froze the ability to use vacations for thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years weeks so we'll be working on all those days not legally defined as a federal holiday (like New Year's Eve) even if we were planning on using vacation to miss work. So glad I have a bunch of interviews lined up.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 22:52
|
|
|
Sydin posted:Now he's thrown out a truckload of meetings on every free slot any of us have from now until next Tuesday for "prep work", and my calendar looks like the Berlin Wall. That moment when you realize that you are working for a child. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2014 23:37
|
|
|
Sundae posted:
I know someone who works long hours in publishing, with insane credentials, for less than 30k a year. In New York City.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 00:27
|
|
|
DC think tanks are also weird because the salaries at the mid to top level are pretty high. A research assistant might make 40k a year at most, but a fellow is easily making 100k+ (and many of them are working part time at best) and the president of the larger ones can make 500k-1m a year. And there's basically no way for an entry level employee to get to there without getting a PhD and/or working in government. So a lot of these people are toiling for nothing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 00:41
|
|
|
I'm out sick today largely in part because my coworker came in sick on Friday. My other coworker now has a 1 month old baby, so I didn't want to come in and pass on the cold. I get a text at noon from the coworker who got me sick asking if I got a response to an email and that it's urgent. I didn't respond because I've been out cold all day. She took the day off for her birthday and has all the passwords for my desktop/email/etc. Clearly it's not urgent enough for her to check.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 01:57
|
|
|
Peven Stan posted:The management of my company went and froze the ability to use vacations for thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years weeks so we'll be working on all those days not legally defined as a federal holiday (like New Year's Eve) even if we were planning on using vacation to miss work. So glad I have a bunch of interviews lined up. Are they refunding people's plane tickets that they most assuredly have purchased by now? (answer: no, I imagine). At least at my old corporate hellhole job if they decided you were essential and needed to be there over the holidays but had already purchased plane tickets to travel they'd refund your travel expenses.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 01:58
|
|
|
I know that it's totally normal for people to contact you after you've moved on for information, needed passwords, and that kind of thing, but since I moved departments it's been excessive. No true horror stories or anything, but on the first day at my new job I got a call from the guy trying to deliver a pizza to my old office--this, after I gave them multiple contact numbers, told my coworkers to expect it, and had been frequently heard to complain to my friends that "I feel like I can't even take a day off without something going wrong; it's like they can't take delivery of a pizza." I like most of the people I worked with and didn't want to be a stranger, but the requests for stuff they should be able to figure out on their own was to the point that I felt better about cutting off contact than trying to moderate it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 02:14
|
|
|
I was told this morning that I was wrong for using the common name of a compound... The same name that is on the bottle.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 18:22
|
|
|
Xandu posted:Paying to go to a conference is pretty obscene. My (for-profit) company is trying to pull that poo poo (we have to pay ~15%), along with making us share rooms, and I made it pretty clear I would not be going. A friend of mine had to play travel expensive recently but only because we changed travel providers to one that hosed everything up before they even really started. They paided him back out of petty cash. NGO's are basically government work for idiots. If want to save the world go work for the government, become a manager and then work for an NGO so you won't stave to death.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 18:24
|
|
|
Some sales guy got upset because he didn't get an email response quickly enough for his liking, so he tattled to our CEO (who is acting Operations manager). Now the PMs have some stupid new responsiveness policy of responding to every single email in 30-45 minutes during the work day, and 2 hours during evening / weekends. I'd brought up the possibility of some PM software that would help us keep tabs on things during crazy hectic times, because Outlook org sucks and quickly gets overwhelmed, but nope. Of course, I am now on day 8 of chasing sales for an answer about project costs that they hosed up. Time to start tattling, I think.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 18:25
|
|
|
Bleeding Jesus, I already have enough problems where the timesink is 20% fixing the problem, 80% mollifying the person who is freaking about it. I couldn't handle that policy at all.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 19:19
|
|
|
It certainly makes pointless mass emails more fun and productive when everyone feels obligated to reply even if they are not involved in the discussion or were, indeed, added accidentally to the thread.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 19:52
|
|
|
I'm now on the 9th email from this fuckhead from sales that this proposal doesn't look exactly the way she visualized it in her head. The proposal is completely unnecessary and if this was anybody else from sales it would require a quick email saying rates are held. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 20:02
|
|
|
Pleads posted:It certainly makes pointless mass emails more fun and productive when everyone feels obligated to reply even if they are not involved in the discussion or were, indeed, added accidentally to the thread.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 20:57
|
|
|
ladyweapon posted:Oh sweet Mary I think my head would explode. This seems like it'd make it even harder to keep track of emails since you'd have a flood of people responding to the same thing, but not necessarily taking care of anything. My general reaction to policies like this that I will follow them to the extent that they make sense. In this case, I would interpret "every single email" as "every email asking a question of me or containing an issue on which I need or wish to comment." I tend to respond quickly to such things in any case, and if it is going to require research or otherwise a long time, I respond and let them know that that's the case. Good managers will let you go around or ignore bad or overly broad policies when they don't make sense, and those that don't will find themselves losing their best people on a regular basis. As for answering emails on weekends, I'll make any company a deal on this. Hire me to produce a thing or keep a system working on a perpetual basis, and I'll get it done for you. If that requires me to come in on a weekend to meet a deployment deadline, or resuscitate a dying server or something, I'll do it. And then maybe you won't see me the following Monday and Tuesday. Maybe I'll go home on a Friday at 2:00 to take my dog to the park because it's really nice that day. I'll have a doctor's appointment sometimes, and I expect to not need to burn a PTO day to go. That's the deal. If you want me to be dynamic and react quickly to situations, allow me freedom and flexibility with my schedule. If you want me in the office from 8-5 every single weekday without fail, keep your loving hands off my free time. Pick one.
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2014 23:34
|
|
|
"So we have to print out the report from this database, all four hindered pages of them, and manually enter them in excel so we can break them down by class and calculate averages." "Can't you just export the data straight to Excel?" "Can we do that?" Two hours later: "So what are we gonna do for the next two weeks?" Also a reminder that when you find yourself wondering how to nest multiple VLOOKUP, the answer is pivot table, all pivot tables, pivot tables as far as the eye can see.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 05:55
|
|
|
FrozenVent posted:"So we have to print out the report from this database, all four hindered pages of them, and manually enter them in excel so we can break them down by class and calculate averages." Pivot tables. It's like loving magic.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 06:18
|
|
|
Our CEO is asking/forcing us sign an addendum to our original non-compete agreement that sounds like it could be used to keep us from entering entire industries if he wanted it to. Basically it sounds like "You're not allowed to work for a year after your employment ceases at any business that operates in an industry that your CEO has an idea about", and our CEO has ideas all the time. So we're all a bit scared that a year or more down the line there won't be any industry we're not competing with. Right now our non-compete only covers the industry our company currently does business in. Has anyone dealt with this before? I'm reaching out to a lawyer now to see if we're all hopefully misreading it. I haven't signed anything yet.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 06:31
|
|
|
At work we are required to acknowledge receipt of all IMs and emails which results in continuous streams of communication that says only "Ty" I admit I often reply "ty" without actually reading the original message if it's a mass email/IM - I reckon pretty much everyone does.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 06:43
|
|
|
SpartanIV posted:Our CEO is asking/forcing us sign an addendum to our original non-compete agreement that sounds like it could be used to keep us from entering entire industries if he wanted it to. Basically it sounds like "You're not allowed to work for a year after your employment ceases at any business that operates in an industry that your CEO has an idea about", and our CEO has ideas all the time. So we're all a bit scared that a year or more down the line there won't be any industry we're not competing with. Right now our non-compete only covers the industry our company currently does business in. If they ain't paying you, non-competes are hard to enforce.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 07:35
|
|
|
SpartanIV posted:Our CEO is asking/forcing us sign an addendum to our original non-compete agreement that sounds like it could be used to keep us from entering entire industries if he wanted it to. Basically it sounds like "You're not allowed to work for a year after your employment ceases at any business that operates in an industry that your CEO has an idea about", and our CEO has ideas all the time. So we're all a bit scared that a year or more down the line there won't be any industry we're not competing with. Right now our non-compete only covers the industry our company currently does business in. Chances are any court worth its salt would find such a broad agreement unenforceable, but it's still something you might have to go to court to fight if you sign it, which may not be something you can afford. This is something I'd be inclined to outright refuse and call his bluff, but I'm confident that I can find a new job in my industry pretty quick. Not sure if you are in the same boat. It's bullshit anyway; ideas are worth exactly nothing. Edit: I might be inclined to demand a guaranteed year's worth of full severance and benefits in exchange for being asked to essentially be unemployable for a year. That's a fair exchange, if he's that terrified of someone competing with his precious ideas. But again, I can afford to be that demanding. Che Delilas fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Nov 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 13:24
|
|
|
FrozenVent posted:Also a reminder that when you find yourself wondering how to nest multiple VLOOKUP, the answer is ...to remember that Excel is not a database, and that you're probably taking the wrong approach to the problem.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 14:00
|
|
|
Che Delilas posted:Edit: I might be inclined to demand a guaranteed year's worth of full severance and benefits in exchange for being asked to essentially be unemployable for a year. That's a fair exchange, if he's that terrified of someone competing with his precious ideas. But again, I can afford to be that demanding. I know this is not the UK, because in the UK a party that is enforcing a non-competition clause is then liable to continue to pay the employee the salary he can obviously not make. A friend of mine had this happen and he went to court over it. In the end, he was payed an obscene amount of money and, as he put it, his house in France now has a swimming pool. SlapActionJackson posted:...to remember that Excel is not a database, and that you're probably taking the wrong approach to the problem.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 14:24
|
|
|
Because the database system is maintained by a different department and their time is much too precious for that. Also I don't know SQL.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 15:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 11:57 |
|
|
Keetron posted:This is also what I was thinking, why cant you just write the SQL on the original database to begin with and extract the right information straight away? This is what a database is for, you know?
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2014 15:14
|
|
