Whatever happened to the Personal Mental Health Day?

In my first post-college job, every now and again, we’d call in sick but instead of claiming we were ill, we’d call it a Personal Mental Health Day.  A day to just sleep in, run some errands, or even simply chill out…or maybe you just stayed out too late partying after volleyball.

Hi, I”m not coming in today.   Oh are you sick?  No, just taking a PMH day.

This wasn’t an admission of mental illness nor a slight against it.  This was just a coded way of saying I don’t wanna lie to you and say I’m sick when we both know I’m not.  

But it was also a delightfully ingenious form of empowerment. It’s my personal business what I’m doing and I have the right to take a day off now and again, but instead of saying it that way, I’m framing it more graciously.

I know some companies distinguish between sick days and vacation days. When I started in Corporate America, the term was Bank Time. You banked time off so that you could take a vacation or have a sick day when needed. Of course, caps were put in place for reasons. We could only carry over a certain amount each year and get paid out for the rest. I imagine some crafty person back in the day gamed the system and was able to effectively retire several years early while still earning a paycheck from some company. Thanks a lot, Roger for ruining it for the rest of us.

Later it became PTO or Paid Time Off.  Based on my discussions with other privileged peoples, I believe the benefit was that you could borrow against it.  It’s crazy but some people want to go someplace warm in February but might now have enough time saved because they used it for those annoying obligatory trips to visit family during the holidays last year.  Also, as I understand it, if you have children, you are legally obligated to visit one of the Kingdoms of the Mouse in their lifetime.  It says so in the Constitution.

Now the latest is FTO or Flexible Time Off. When I worked at Top-Five we switched from PTO to FTO. The thing is, they didn’t give us much if any warning about the switch so many people burned through their PTO instead of getting paid out for it. Its moves like these by companies that always make it a little easier to justify the PMH day.

Full Disclosure: I have had this post in my Idea Folder for ages but when I saw Chris O’Brien’s What happened to the good old fashioned sick day over at Medium Rare, it prompted me to get out of my funk and hit publish, after doing my best to make it ready for prime time.

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Emojis in work emails don’t make you look dumb, doing these 7 things do

The other day I was riding the elevator, watching that Captivate board because my cell service craps out inside enclosed spaces like elevators and it was the only way to avoid any interaction with everyone else for those long 60 seconds it takes to get to the fifty something floor I work on.

I cannot find the source because I don’t know how to link back to elevators, but every six months or so, some guru writes a thing about proper email communication.  Yes it’s okay to use the smiley face.  No it’s not.  Whoops, now it’s okay again.  Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Some of these might be a little too informal when asking for time off

Here are some things that really make you look like an idiot and make your coworkers hate you.  Note: there are caveats and exceptions to many of these.

Requesting info previously provided within the same email thread

Nothing says lazy reader than someone not scrolling down to see if the information was already provided.  Obviously if the thread has gone one for weeks, you don’t want to re-read a Lord of the Rings length email just to learn the name of the 6th wraith.  But if you cannot scroll down a few paragraphs to see the relevant information, you really need to get into a different line of work.  You are taking up value dollars from the meager 3% merit increases allocated for the group.

Receive email with multiple questions, only address one

This is really the worst, especially if your job is to answer these questions and you know you are just going to get asked in the next round.  You’re either doing it on purpose or you really aren’t paying attention to life.

(When to) Drop people from email thread

Reply or Reply to All is more art than science.  That said, the number of times this gets messed up is insane.

Copy boss on trivia email

The boss needs to be informed of high level occurrences and the view from 30,000 ft.  She really doesn’t want to read a 20 volley thread about how you decided that Appleby’s is better than Olive Garden for Justin’s going away lunch.  Everyone hates Justin anyway.

Forwarding an email without any additional contextual text

We really cannot read your mind.  Also even if we kinda know where you might be going with the screenshot or the forward, it really won’t kill you to include two sentences to clarify what you expect us to do with this information.

Mix up thread or bring up something unrelated to thread and subject line

It’s hard enough finding information buried in the inbox when someone does use an appropriate description Subject Line.  But when the Subject line is New Hire and you use it to talk about who’s doing what on Project X, it is annoying.  The lone exception is when you are need to relay some info stat from your phone and you honestly don’t have the time to create a new email.

What is the status of ticket 7932139450304943023?

This is a  Corporate America Felony that your Pointy Hair Boss is likely to commit.  He’s usually looking at something, perhaps an SLA report and has the info in front of him but is too lazy to cut and paste so you have a frame of reference.

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What to do when you unexpectedly bump into coworkers outside the office

I’ve written a couple of posts on the subject of Surviving Corporate America and today’s post is inspired by Listing Beyond Forty Kim Z Dale’s post. Kim essentially says that seeing a co-worker outside of work disappoints her because it removes her from her mental happy place and reminds her of work.

“It’s an unfortunate coincidence of time and space that you ended up commuting in the same L car as me, but now that it’s happened let’s set some boundaries.”

I liked her post and agree to some extent; sometimes you just want to be left alone.  But I’m also torn because while I can see Kim’s point, I also think there is something to be said for fostering the Work Friendship.  We are not robots only programmed to interact during office hours at the mother ship. it could be an opportunity to bond with a co-worker on a level that cannot be achieved at the office.

It’s an unfortunate coincidence of time and space that we work for the same employer, at the same office, at the same time in our lives.  If we knew each other from Social Club Volleyball or a photography workshop, would chatting with you on the El be acceptable then?

I said DO NOT SPEAK to me!

I know it can be confusing to try to understand all the unwritten protocols and nuances for what to do when bumping into a coworker.  so I’ll tell you what to do.

First, remember that you are bumping into them in public, i.e. free space.  They didn’t barge into your living room.  They have as much right to be there as you do.

Second, it doesn’t matter where you are on the ladder at work, outside the office we all put our pants on one leg at a time.

Third, situational awareness is key.  If you are waiting in line at the movie theatre (do people do that anymore?) it won’t kill you to be sociable for a few minutes.  On a train ride as Kim mentioned, you are interfering with their Alone Time so do so judiciously.

Fourth, don’t talk about work!  specifically don’t ask if I finished the report you asked for or if i got your email.

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Want to work at my company? Talk to me BEFORE applying

For the 3rd time since I started my not-so-new job, a friend has reached out to me asking if I could help them get into the company.  (4th if you count a douchebag who is not a friend so much as a raging asshole with no soft skills whatsoever).

I’m always willing to help a friend out with the job hunt if I can.  Unfortunately, these people already applied to my company before talking to me.  This move disqualifies me for receiving any referral bonus that I would get if they were hired.  I know that sounds a little a greedy but hey I have small children to feed.  After taxes the referral bonus could cover a month of daycare if not more.

Here’s the thing.  You’re asking me to help you get a six figure job (or high five figure) and you want me to put in the effort for nothing?  Brownie points and good feelings only go so far.  Compared to liking a stupid Facebook page for instance.

You’re asking me to stick my neck out and vouch for you.  Why wouldn’t you want me to get rewarded for that?  I know, you didn’t realize it worked that way.  Considering this is a fairly standard policy that tells me you haven’t tried to help someone get a position recently.   Ahem…with at least one of these people, I did tell explicitly tell them to talk to me before applying because of the referral bonus policy.

What’s that?  You still want me to see if I can reach out to the hiring manager?  Sure, as soon as you send me the equivalent of the lost referral bonus.  Don’t worry, if you don’t get hired I promise I’ll eturn it.

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Job Hunting and the Purple Squirrel

In the not too distant past, I had a job interview.  Even before the Big Announcement — that TopFive was moving to a Managed Service Model — I was quietly looking for a new job because I knew I was on borrowed time.  In Corporate America, we use the terms Capacity and Demand.  For the last few years, I had had much much more Capacity than Demand.

My skillset is kinda niche.  In laymen terms I’m a  Subject Matter Expert for a software system that is used primarily by law firms, but I hadn’t done that since 2011.  Also, working at a law firm, even from the IT side, is not always a pleasant place to be.  If I was going to go back to a law firm environment (Work From Home?  Sure you can work from home all you want after you put in 40+ hours at the office) it had to be a more meaningful position than the one I previously held.

As luck would have it, I applied for a position I had seen posted for over a year.

Bonus Gallery: The Perils of Navigating a Badly Designed Job Application Interface

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The first round was a phone screening with the HR generalist and she asked me why I was looking for a new position and I told her about the move to a Managed Service Model.  That’s about as good of a reason to be looking to leave your company as you can get.  And had we stopped there, I might have been more enthusiastic about the position.  However, there was something annoying about the phone screening.  She  went over my resume line by line and asked me why I left each position, going back the Beginning of Time.

“Well I just got too old to deliver newspapers on my tricycle.”

I know that she has to ask certain questions.  I know that is just how it is.  I know you’re doing your due diligence to screen for any issues or patterns that might show up over time like doesn’t get along with authority.  You’re might get lucky and get someone who says “well I was tired of sleeping with my boss” or “I needed to get out of there before they found out how much I was embezzling”.

Here’s the thing.  No one leaves a job  because they are overpaid or too happy. And no one wants to replay the drama of 4 jobs ago even if they can remember  why they left.  That’s like asking someone why they broke up with the person they were with 3 relationships ago or why you didn’t marry your high school sweetheart?

I did make it to the next round, a phone interview with my potential boss. There is a reason this position has been posted and re-posted for over a year.  Reading the job description, I could tell they were trying to fill at least three distinct positions with one person.  I can tell you that this type of candidate doesn’t occur organically in nature. Iit was like trying to find a Brain Surgeon, who also was a carpenter, and knew how to play the saxophone while also speaking fluent Estonian.

Recruiters call this a Purple Squirrel.  And that’s what they were looking for.  Alas, i didn’t get an offer and am okay with that.

Stay Tuned….

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This post was drafted a year or so ago, as these events were occurring.  I waited to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job hunting efforts or reveal any information about my former company.  The purpose of these posts aren’t to bash my former employer but to share my experience and hopefully educate people on the perils of Corporate America.

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Outsourcing to a Managed Service Model: The Word is Given

So the Discovery Deadline came and went and in typical fashion for TopFive, the Higher_Ups hadn’t made a decision yet.  It came as no surprise because something of this magnitude and natural couldn’t be figured out in six weeks.  And honestly, the six weeks was never about figuring out the logistics of transition and knowledge transfer, it was about money.

For MSM to work, it has to be cheaper than what TopFive was spending now, but the new firm (let’s call them TopperTwins) had to make money too.  And all the people involved in this decision wanted their “I saved the company X dollars” bonuses.

We said keep the lights ON

 

During this time, we were in Keep The Lights On Mode.  No new projects were approved and with people leaving every day, it was like a ghost town at the office.

Eventually that all was hammered out and the word was given that we would move to this model.  No one was surprised by this.  They wouldn’t tell anyone exactly when their last day was but we were told the transition had to be completed by March 1.  They did promise that no one would come back from the holidays and be let go on Jan 1.  (Of course the calendar was such that the first day back was Jan 4.)

No one factored the holidays or vacations or the fact that the firm shuts down for the last two weeks of the year into this transition schedule.

They also announced that some people would be retained in the New World Order and that an additional 30 positions would be available to apply for them.  Translation: you get to apply for the job you are currently doing at the moment.  Finally, if you don’t find anything with the New order, you can apply for any of the open positions TopperTwins has at the weekly job fairs.

I personally knew that I was not to be part of any of that.  My skillset can be summed up as a Subject Matter Expert of a particular software.  It is used primarily by law firms but TopFive was one of the few corporations that utilized it.  But its use had dwindled in the time I was there and most of it had already been Sunsetted.

However, many of my colleges believed that given all the people who had departed, if they just hung around they would be hired on and have nothing to worry about.  Spoiler Alert: it didn’t happen that way.  Those 30 open positions?  25 of them were automatically filed before they were officially announced.  I was already looking for a new job, but this made me ratch it up a notch.

Stay Tuned….

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This post was drafted a year or so ago, as these events were occurring.  I waited to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job hunting efforts or reveal any information about my former company.  The purpose of these posts aren’t to bash my former employer but to share my experience and hopefully educate people on the perils of Corporate America.

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Is your company Outsourcing? Take the money and run

We got the news mid summer that TopFive was exploring moving to a Managed Services Model (MSM) and it was surprisingly, unsurprising.  By that I mean even obtuse moi had noticed the signs:

• Attrition Rate was usually high;
• Empty positions were not being replaced;
• I was on my 4th boss in a year;
• Older Partners and Senior Executives were being “coaxed” to retire;

They told us that the plan was to do Discovery until the end of August and make a yay or nay decision by September 1.  I have never been through anything like this myself, but many of my fellow IT colleagues had so they knew that not only was this an unrealistic timetable but also when the Higher-Ups said Exploring the options, they really meant this move was gonna happen we just need to figure out the money.

When a company laysoff outsources a large portion of their staff, it isn’t unusual to offer an Incentive Bonus to keep people around long enough to transfer their Native Knowledge.  This is supposed to lesson the blow of essentially training your replacement.  You have to really decide if sticking around is the right move for you.  Depending on the terms, you might risk missing out on another opportunity or you might lose out on the bonus due to some technicality that you didn’t realize.

It’s like trying to determine all the cards so that one can make the best choice possible.  Should I go with the safe Full House or do I try and get a Straight Flush?  The thing is, you cannot know that until you make a choice.  If you leave to take another position, it might not suck for six months but after that, you may be longing for the days of TopFive.

The Parking Lot was getting emptier and emptier

TopFive mentioned an Incentive Bonus during Discovery but no details were forthcoming.  All they would tell us on those All-Hands Calls was that the incentive bonus is based on individuals being with TopFive till August 31st and we would get details in the mail.  I believe the sent these priority mail letters out and given that they were delivered via the USPS not everyone got one at the same time.  So imagine walking into the office and finding out that everyone on your team got a letter but you.

This caused rumors to incubate very nicely.

I wish I could share the letter but I can tell you from my former life as a paralegal it looked like someone download Contracts for Dummies from the internet and tried to fill in the blanks.  It was apparent from the wording of the letter that they initially were going to try and give everyone a different amount based on some assessment of ones job function and need to keep them around long enough to transfer knowledge.   My guess is someone started doing it and figured out that 1) it’s too hard to do that with the Loosey-Goosey criteria they were probably given from Mickey Mouse Management and 2) if they didn’t offer enough money everyone who could was gonna walk.

Apparently the magic number, the sum of our worth, was $5000.

$5k is between Nothing-To-Sneeze-At and Not-Game-Changing, especially after taxes.  I started looking for a new job myself but I knew I wasn’t going to find anything immediately.  So I, like many others, wanted the incentive bonus because we were going to be here anyway.

Some people still left which did surprise me.  Why would you pass up $5k when all it would take was sticking around another month?  I get that some people probably started looking the day the news was announced but in Corporate America, they usually take two months to fill a position and want you to start at the beginning of a pay cycle so you’d have to be a really bad negotiator to not be able to say I couldn’t start until after Sept 1.

There was one person who quit on 8/26 which means he either had an offer that he couldn’t refuse or there some something suspicious about the incentive bonus.

 

Stay Tuned….

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This post was drafted a year or so ago, as these events were occurring.  I waited to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job hunting efforts or reveal any information about my former company.  The purpose of these posts aren’t to bash my former employer but to share my experience and hopefully educate people on the perils of Corporate America.

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How years of rejection in the Dating World prepared me for losing my job

So the cat can now be let out of the bag.  My company TopFive has discovered that it is an accounting firm, not an IT firm and as such, it is strongly considering moving to a Managed Services model (read: outsourcing) and my job will soon be gone.

We are of course using the current buzz word “Managed Services” but it really  means TopFive has decided to explore Outsourcing the IT department. Every week we have a pointless all-hands conference call that created more questions than they answered.  And the information they do give us, they refuse to write down in an FAQ or follow up email.  They said it was to foster a discussion but there is only one reason you don’t put something in writing.

No I’m not looking at LinkedIn, why do you ask?

As you can imagine moral around the office is at an all time low.  The big surprise is that everyone has noticed that I am taking the news rather well and appear to be downright optimistic.

No one has ever accused me of being optimistic.  But I have to be honest, I am handling this news much better than many of my peers.

One thing I kinda know about some of my co-workers is they didn’t really date much before they settled down.  Some actually have arranged marriages, some simply married the first person they saw naked and some even went the mail order bride route.  I on the other hand was a regular Ted Mosby only without the sidekicks.  While I was never any Casanova, I did go on my fair share of dates, had a few serious girlfriends and even a fiance before meeting my wife.

What came with all of that, besides the usual roller coaster of good times and bad times, was a lot of rejection.  There were ladies who didn’t give me a chance at all, or one date and done.  A few dates that were obviously merely me underwriting their meal plan and a few short term relationships.

If there is anything good about rejection it is that it does build a sort of mental toughness over time.  If you are lucky and can learn to accept that rejections isn’t always about you as much as it is about the other person too.  I faceplanted a lot back in my dating days.  But it wasn’t always me.  Sometimes, just sometimes it was her.

And in that same manner, the move to outsourcing and eliminating my job has nothing to do with my value.  It’s a small group of Decisionmakers at TopFive who want to increase their already insane profit margin in the short term at the expense of quality service in the long run.  And still using that same analogy, heck let’s be honest, I’m beating that analogy to death, a bad relationship needs to end sooner, not later.  Sure you might be getting wild sex, but at the expense of your car windows getting bashed.  I think not.

Stay Tuned….

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This post was drafted a year or so ago, as these events were occurring.  I waited to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job hunting efforts or reveal any information about my former company.  The purpose of these posts aren’t to bash my former employer but to share my experience and hopefully educate people on the perils of Corporate America.

Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

What happens when your company moves to a Managed Services Model

We got the news at our annual All-Hands Dept Meeting that we had been expecting for some time now.   My company TopFive has discovered that it is an accounting firm, not an IT firm and as such, it has decided to explore Outsourcing the IT Dept.  We are of course using the current buzz word “Managed Services” but it is really the same thing.

Investigating outsourcing is the polite way of saying it’s all but a done deal, and we will be unemployed this fall.  They have framed this period as Due Diligence to determine if it is cost effective but unless someone falls asleep at the wheel, the numbers are going to sound good, at least short term.

Where did everyone go?

If you worked in IT in the last quarter of century, you have a few common experiences no matter what area you specialize in.  You took Fundamentals of Programming Languages at whatever learning institution you got your credentials at; you probably worked for a Dotcom or at least a startup; and you either went through or know someone who went through an outsourcing.

In a little over six weeks, TopFive’s IT will be outsourced.   When this happens you have three options:

Option #1 is you get cut, either right away because they have enough programmers, DBAs, help desk or whatever general IT function you do that is easy to replace or a little later after you agree to offload your knowledge in return for a severance package which usually includes a few paychecks to get you through to your next gig.

Option #2 is you get to stay on as part of the skeleton IT crew of the original company.

Option #3 is you get re-badged by the new company for your Native Knowledge and nothing else really changes other than who signs your paycheck and possibly your desk moves to another location (maybe even home).

I have no reason to believe I’ll be part of Option #2 and only slightly less hope to think I won’t be part of Option #3.  My Native Knowledge is in products TopFive isn’t happy with so it is very unlikely I’ll be asked to stay on in any capacity.

Stay Tuned….

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This post was drafted a year or so ago, as these events were occurring.  I waited to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job hunting efforts or reveal any information about my former company.  The purpose of these posts aren’t to bash my former employer but to share my experience and hopefully educate people on the perils of Corporate America.

Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

Dear Chase Bank: Stop Spamming me

Every month, I get an email from my bank telling me that my statement is available online.  I also get one for my Chase Credit Card telling me that my balance and minimum due can be viewed online.  Finally, every time they tweak their site or terms of service, I get an email telling me to read the changes in their Secure Message Center.

Why the fuck don’t you just email me this information?  Not the bank statements of course.  But changes to Terms of Service?  Who the fuck cares if the Nigerian Princes read that!

I’m really annoyed that your “your payment is due” email doesn’t contain any useful information because Discover Card and Citibank emails do.  And if they have figured out how to safely relay that information to me in an email  — or avoid any liability if the info is breached —  I think you can too.

Here’s the latest thing they sent me:

Are you fucking kidding me!  You couldn’t just send that to me in the original email?  You’re gonna make me log into my account, click over to Secure Message Center, go through two more clicks just to read a form letter with a fucking link to the actual relevant updated privacy statement!

There is a name for Emails that don’t contain any useful information.  We call that spam.  Stop it.

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