layoffs, opportunities, uncertainty and anxiety

[Bad324]

Do you work with any actual men?

I'm not sure those exist in unions

[Gixxus Christ!]

Another way of looking at this mess....you posted the negative stuff about the people you work with first,if you didn't there wouldn't be anything to print out and place around your work place.

Lesson learned....a public forum is open to anybody...if you don't want to tell someone face to face,don't post it on a public forum.

Hey dick:

The only actual person I mention having a problem with fucking knows it because I've told him. Yes I understand this is a public forum. What's not clear is this: if whoever found this post was half a man, or at least not a miserable shit-sipper they would have come to me and said something close to "you should probably remove some info from that post so other people don't see it". Instead of take it upon themselves to distribute it through the company in the hopes of getting me in trouble and making my coworkers dislike me.

[Helmutt]

Sucks to hear about all this Sam. I've had issues like this with several past employers.

I was raised to work any job I'm given to the best of my ability, not scantily lull my way through the workdays, giving just enough effort to retain the job. To make myself most valuable. That rumor spreading and gossip at work is a waste of company time. To be on the team, or be gone.

So when I see there are coworkers pulling slacker bullshit, it infuriates me that they dont put forth the effort they're capable of. All their lack of initiative does is load the rest of the team with more work. Most days I can fight off the demons in my head and bite my tongue. But when I'm always busting ass and they're not,

just grinds my gears.

Having issues stifling myself at my current job seeing that my bosses still allow this same shit happen. They simply lean harder on the good workers to take up the slack. This is obviously happening within a non union workplace. Had my bouts with unions back in the 90's at a heavy equipment dealer. Service dept was union, rest of the company wasn't. So, myself and a few others called for a vote. All of a sudden that handful of us were cut "due to downsizing"

Majority of the employees had been bought out to vote it down, and management saw fit to rid the company of us initiaters. I hate people talking shit behind my back, but being all sweet to my face. Bring it to me and let's bury it, or get the fuck over yourselves. Anonymously leaving notes shows absolute zero integrity. Fake fucks cant rent a pair to confront the problem head on, so they handle it like kids? I've been warned a time or two about calling people out on their fuckheadedness. Didn't do anything physical, just invited them to the street after work for a meeting.....yeah, nobody came to my meeting

I dont love my job, but it is satisfying work and our industry definitely has nowhere to go but up. We've grown 35% in just the last 5 years, way more than management dreamed would happen. I take pride in helping that dream mature into a daily reality and I truly hope you can find a position there, or a new company altogether, that can respect the type of valuable worker you appear to be. Good luck

[KZ Kari]

My response prior to all the testosterone setting in: 

 

Find a new job. 

 

I worked for a pretty awesome company years. Stuck with them until the end; we went out of business in 2006. There were only 10 of us. On our last couple days we were paid to write up our resumes, do mock interviews, establish contacts (setup a Linkedin account), ect. The CEO of the company went over our resumes to ensure they were well written. They also setup several interviews for us. We were given 1 month severance and unemployment. 

It took 1.5 months before I landed job in my career. I took a 7k year pay cut. I needed the job and they knew it. Since I had no job, I had little to no negotiating power. My one request was that I got a performance review after 6 months. That didn't happen until after 9 months and after my bi-weekly reminders. 

I busted my ass; went the extra mile. I've never had as hard of time growing within a company as I did at this one. There was a shit ton of negativity between my technical director and our "manufacturing manager", who was also the Chief Financial Officer of the company (<--- yeah, what company that has any chance of success does that? AND that was the guy who signed my paycheck. Bullshit). 

Anyway, after 3 years of nickle/dime raises and broken promises, enough was enough. I had been keeping my eyes open for quite some time for other opportunities and found one. I sent my resume off, and in less than a week got a return call. Within the next week, I was interviewed and given an offer. I even negotiated a better wage (which was already MUCH better than what I was currently making). It was so fast. In less than two weeks of sending out my resume, I had a new job. This is my fifth year there, and I've made great growth since my employment. 

My point is: screw a severance and the risk of having no bartering power. You look more appealing employed. The amount of money I lost in those 3 years was greater than a 6 month severance. Maybe even more if counting loss of growth within a shit company. 

And working in such a negative environment is toxic. There's better out there. 

 

I highly recommend this book, "What Color is Your Parachute". This book was given to me by my first company mentioned above. It's immensely valuable when finding a new job (why and how to network, what to put on your resume, how to conduct a good interview, ect).

 

Good Luck!

 

http://www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2014/dp/1607743620/ref=sr_1_1/189-3817420-9922138?ie=UTF8&qid=1394754623&sr=8-1&keywords=what+color+is+your+parachute%3F

[Gixxus Christ!]

Pretty good advice there, and I get where you're coming from about just finding another job before I get laid off, but a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. It's not a guarantee that I'll get laid off in may, and there are a lot of guys retiring in April so they will probably either call some people back or just absorb those retirements into the layoff. I also have really good benefits here and even tho I work with some dicks, there's also a few good people here and I do enjoy what I do. Not to say I won't keep my eyes open and send some feelers out there...

[jporter12]

A department head that I worked for several years ago once told me to ALWAYS keep your resume updated.  We were talking about something happening in the company, and I jokingly asked if I should update my resume when he told me this.  He was not kidding by any means, and he was not saying that something was going down.  It was a general bit of advice that he was offering.  To this day, I frequently make updates to my resume (probably not as often as I should) and I keep an eye out for new opportunities.  

 

I'm not unhappy at my current job, but then again, I've not been happy with the instability in my line of work, and the toll that it's is taking on me physically.  Therefore, I do keep my eyes peeled for opportunities in other lines of work, or something "better" (straight pay rate, less physical) in my line of work.