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Executing a Mass Departmental Exodus in the Workplace?
rerunn asks: "The recent story about the consultants from JBOSS walking out couldn't have had better timing. I'll save the drama and cut to the scenario: You and a few close co-workers make up the core grunts of 'the department'. The company relies heavily on your department for many services, some of which, other departments cannot provide. You like your job, it provides great satisfaction. Suddenly, the company realizes its in deep financial shit, and starts making cut backs. This impacts the department. You suddenly find yourself working 50-60 hour weeks, put on call with no compensation, given unreasonable amounts of work and generally treated like dirt. You get the feeling that the company is just going to take advantage of you no matter how and what happens. You get together with the rest of the department for a 'fsck this company' meeting and decide to walk out. Have you ever done this?? (We are so close!) What was the outcome?"
We haven't done that, yet, but our concern right now is like everyone else: unemployment. A few of us are thinking of putting together a business plan to start a new company, but that's going nowhere fast. We don't yet have that one great, unique, amazing software idea to start a company. So we're all stuck waiting it out until the market's better and we can move on or we finally come up with that great idea.
Developers: We can use your help.
A close friend of mine worked for a local ISP. The ISP got bought by a bigger company. The new management decided to replaces all unix mail-systems with MS Exchange.
...
The complete technical department from the "old" left the company within days.
Management will never learn
Had this happen not too long ago. Simple We walked out & formed our own company. The old employer realized that they could not stay afloat without us and contracted us do do the same job as before through our new company. The results - Limited work hours (read 40-50 hours/week instead of the insane bull of 70 to 80), More money (even after we pay taxes, FICA, etc.), our own company (we hold equal shares), and more contracts from other places that needed the same kind of service. The down side - we where living in VERY thin budget for ab out 3 months while it all got setup and settled down.
Gato
Why should you organize yourselves just to quit. A better solution is to quietly agree to stop working so hard. Perhaps you could slowly start leaving earlier and/or coming later until you get back to 40 hrs/week.
Just a thought..
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
That's not an interview I would accept a job offer from anyway - remember I just stormed out because I was sick of being treated like shit, not because I wanted to be someone else's bitch.
Something similar happened to me once. I explained to my next employer that if put in the same position again, I would simply leave again.
They were cool, it was all good.
coldcity
code, life, art
A number of years ago, I was working at a really innovative company. The technical chalenges were great etc... However, I and my fellow engineers began to realize that our immediate manager was a jerk (made false statements to management, political, concerned more with his image than the product).
One of us talked with the manager about these perceived shortcomings, and he reacted _very_ defensively and hostile. We then lost confidence we could improve his management style.
Two of our team quit and returned to their former company.
The rest of us were considering doing the same, but we liked the company. Instead of quitting, we went to our department head. We explained our problem, and why our peers had quit. We said, either the lying fellow goes or we go.
Two weeks later we had a new manager and were from then on as happy as clams.
This was a 'pre dot com boom' time, but I would do the same thing now if the problem reoccured. If your team is _really_ valuable, then the company will do what is necessary to keep you happy. If your team isn't that valuable, improve your skills and contribution until it is valuable.
Sounds kinda like the definition of a strike. Which leads to another thought: unionize? You get to keep your job, and maybe you'll be able to bargain for better working hours as well.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I was in a situation like this a few years ago, only the company wasn't in financial problems at all. We were posting a strong profit and higher-ups were taking nice bonuses. Meanwhile our bonus plan got trashed, we were working 70-80 hour weeks including stat holidays, and getting nothing for it. Also management was accepting contracts with deadlines we could not make without working double-time. After they asked us for the estimates and we gave them the correct amount of work.
We were in a position where our group of 5 developers were working with custom-built software. There was a ramp-up time of several months to get new people to the point where they could be productive developers. And of course no docs :) So if we left they would have forfeited on some large contracts and they had no hope of bringing in replacements.
We did the extra work for about 6 months, including getting screwed two quarters in a row on bonuses, before we took action. Instead of all quitting we simply announced that since the company refused to acknowledge our extra efforts on their behalf they would no longer get extra effort. We worked hard for our regular hours but no late nights, no weekend work, no coming in on holidays. Our lives all got a lot better and we still had jobs.
Of course that was in a market where we all knew that we could walk out the door any morning and have several job offers by the afternoon :)
Everyone is expendable. It is rare that a walk out hurts a company in the long run, especially if you are not part of a union that at least has some legal leg to prevent the hiring of others.
There are three certain outcomes. The first is that you will be out of work. The second is that if for some reason the company agrees with your demands, you will be replaced as soon as possible. The third is that you will never get a positive reference from this organization again, possibly hurting your chances for other work.
You're not too busy if you have time to post on slashdot and spend energy discussing this with your coworkers.
I would caution you against doing anything as a group. It is unlikely that your needs and motivation completely line up with those of the rest of the group.
Remember, all jobs stink. That is why we call this "work", after all.
Ultimately, you need to decide your needs, your career goals, whether you agree with the mission of the organization, and if your position in the organization lines up with what you want to do (or your path to get to what you want to do). If you decide its time to move on, move on. But move on with pride and in a way that respects the feelings of those that want to stay. You want the company to remember you as a good person who would be an asset to any organization, and not a person ranting as they go out the door.
Sleep is for the Weak
It is important to realize that we were effectively irreplacable (unique job-specific skills, nothing to do with computers). Or so we thought...
Three of us (not including myself) went ahead and set up a company, and offered our services to the larger company directly. The smaller company then started on a campaign of threats, allegations, lies, and FUD that would make Microsoft blush. The larger company used us as a lever for negotiating a better contract with the smaller company, then unceremoniously dumped us.
So would I do it again? Hell, yes. In fact I would do it sooner, and with less restraint. This is important to realize: if we had realized what was coming we would have been less galant towards our former boss (not keeping the systems going while we were setting up our new company, for example - the price would have been high, but it would also have put tremendous pressure on our boss). And we wouldn't have believed the (verbal) assurances the larger company gave us regarding our soon-to-be contract with them.
The story is far more complicated than this little message (I could write a book about that period), but the general idea I think is clear: we were in a bad situation, we fought, we lost, and we have no regrets.
Some lessons you may want to remember:
- Your former colleagues may suddenly turn into your worst enemies. They'll lie to you. They'll try to make you fail in all ways that count. And they may pretend they are still your friend while they are at it.
- Individual members of your group may be bribed by your former boss to come back into the fold, thereby bringing back all that irreplacable knowledge.
Are you ready to fight? Can you afford to lose? If so, go for it.
At my current job, when I got fed up, I went to my boss, and said "Look, this is not what I got into this business to do. Either find me some work like you promised me when I signed on, or, with no malice between us, I will seek employment elsewhere." Note, this was at one of the scariest times in the current depression, companies were imploding everywhere you looked, where as the company I am at is a stable, established business that isn't going away for a long time. The safe route would have been, "please sir, may I have another."
I ended up with a job that was more like what I wanted to do, and I got a big increase in salary. It was scary, though, I had made up my mind to leave if I didn't get what I wanted. Things are far from perfect now. (I'm still trapped in a big bureacracy and bored out of my mind most of the time.) However, I can tolerate the situation now where I couldn't before.
So, basically, I think everyone has a breaking point. Everyone has a point where they say, "I've had all I can stands, I can't stands no more," even in a truly frightening economy like this one. Of course, it is easy to end up in a situation where you regret your actions, but I haven't yet.
Or maybe I should have kept my old job, working for stock. I'm sure I'd be a rich man today (snicker.).
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I've seen a variant of this where the company replaces the development team every 12-24 months and each successive team says the "man this is a mess. I can't see why they used this design, we need to start over." At last note, the company still doesn't have a working product or a firm customer...
The company I used to work for was really fucked up. Managed like rubbish by a trio of morons. Full of promises and never delivering.
All of us researchers and technicians were ok, nice to work with, producing very good stuff and feeling utterly exploited. One day the trio of morons that tried to manage the company sacked the only sane person in the company outside of the techs. There was a general walk out of all the employed techies, one by one in the space of 1 month.
Nobody got unemployment benefits (this is in Europe). 1 year later, some people still do odd jobs to survive. The fucked up company has just 3 employees: the trio of morons!
The moral of the story is:
You need to have the proper qualifications.
I could just go to management and say "fuck you". I knew I could start another job one week later. Very comfortable.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
True Story:
:)
In my previous consulting job, I was one of two people who had any knowledge of any *nix flavor (and thus I had one of the only Linux laptops) in the major city where we worked. Most of the issues I delt with were with our server side program, and required something *nix comparable for problem resolution and minor fix authoring (shell scripting, etc.). Everyone else, including area IT staff (cept the one other person) was NT background only.
I had the guts of one major project along with sole copies of other work items including several client's maintenance scripts, the New Hire Setup and Installation Guide, SQL for finding database incosistnecies, the only UNIX installer for our software, etc. on my laptop.
I was called out of the middle of meeting with the major project people to be laid off. My laptop was taken on the spot "to prevent destruction of important data".
The rest of the project people never received the DB design I was going to present with them. As best I heard from other people afterward, no one knew how to recover the data from the laptop but the one remaining person and they nixxed his job ~3 days before the laptop was supposed to get to him (he was at a different office in the same city).
Last time I checked up on my former company (less than 1 year after I was laid off), it was bought out by a competitor
- Sig
As was mentioned before, unemployment only applies if you get fired, or do not leave on your own accord.
Instead of just walking out, and facing almost certain termination, take it a different way. IANAL, but I do not think a company can put you on call 24x7 without compensation. ESPCIALLY if it is not in your job description that you should hav signed when you started (or when it was last updated). Now, as far as the 50-60 hour work weeks, you ARE getting paid overtime for them? If not, I KNOW the law says something about that. But again, IANAL and I dont know if the law says something about the ammount of hour a company and make you work.
But back to the On-call business. You have every right to say "no" to your company if they call you at home. Your personal life is your personal life and they are NOT allowed to ask you why you cannot come into work. You simply have to tell them you are unavailable. Or simply, screen your calls. If the company decides to get stupid and fire you becasue you would not answer their call-ins, you have legal grounds for an unlawful termination suit.
Or, in troll terms...
1. Blow of company call-ins
2. Get fired by company
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
Now, dont quote me on this... becasue laws vary from state to state, and even city to city... CHECK before you decide to do anything. Doing your homework is the best bet for fighting any tyrannic company.
Is this thing on?
I worked for a small company 6 years ago with 3 other IT members. We eventually split into a couple of groups. The people who worked and those who didn't. After a couple of years myself and one one (the workers) decided to approach management about our concerns. The work piled up and we were stressing to keep up with it.
:-)
To make a long story short, after exhausting what we felt was all means available to us we went looking for employment. In a matter of days we both found another job at the same company. We turned in our resignation letters within 20 minutes of each other.
To our surprise our manager didn't understand why we would leave. Unreal.
From what I hear, the manager didn't get his bonus/raise as a result of our leaving. Loosing half your department hurt a great deal and I was sorry but felt we had no choice.
If it's right for you and your co-workers then do it. Walkout but make sure you have the next job ready
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
I missed a similar situation by mere weeks. I left the company for a better job offer, but I was privy to the scheme before I left.
Weeks later, three core people left, started their own consulting firm, and contracted with the employer to do their old jobs on a consulting basis! They somehow sold managment on the idea that it would be cheaper for the company to pay them as consultants than the pay them as employees. The consulting business has blossomed with new clients, and the old employer is in a well-publicized chapter 11.
These guys won, and are still doing well, but this started in late 1998-early 1999 at the height of the bubble. They managed to create solid customer releationships that they have built a solid business on.
Look before you leap, and make sure you know where you are going to land.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Reasonable companies are run by the professionals who make them work:..., hospitals,
Totally OT, but what the hell. Hospitals are not run by the pros who make them work. Ever talk to a nurse? I'm married to one. The patient/RN ratio is insane, and they keep cutting back on staff. Almost the exact situation the article poster described. And their union doesn't seem to be much help...
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
This is very true, and particularly true if you live in a second or third tier city where the community of IT Directors/CIOs and higher-level IT opportunities is limited. If you should *succeed* at crippling a business for a period of time, you could get blacklisted as a troublemaker and have difficulty finding a job or getting promitions if you do find a job.
I also wonder if a particularly successful fscking of an IT infrastructure couldn't put you at some risk for a lawsuit claiming sabotage. Even if it didn't have a chance of success, you're unemployed and having to defend yourself in a civil suit. That $25k in savings will disappear in a blink just getting a bogus suit dismissed, one with a shade of merit? Hello, homelessness!
My personal "extreme quitting" plan would be to submit a letter to my boss outlining my reasons for leaving, as well as outlining my availability on a contract basis to provide continuity on these NON-NEGOTIABLE terms:
1) Work will be billed at a rate of $200 per hour with a four hour per day minimum, including telephone consultation, travel and offsite work.
2) All expenses, including meals, parking, travel, supplies and equipment required will be billed and provided by the vendors of my choosing. I will seek approval for all purchases over $500 and all materials will become the company's property when my consulting term is over.
3) The company will indemnify me against any damage or losses resulting during my contractual employment.
4) An up-front non-refundable retainer of $5000, payable in cashier's check or cash ONLY, is required before any work, including telephone consultation, will take place. The first 25 billable hours will be subtracted from this retainer.
5) Payment for all hours is due via cash or cashier's check on the Friday of each week before any further work will be performed.
This prevents them from saying you fucked them to harm them and won't help, you have a better basis for arguing you didn't like the job/pay/whatever. The frequent cash payment requirements keep them honest and from getting work and just not paying, important if there's financial problems with the company or if they just have no choice.
Of course in my personal fantasy I get a call from my ex-boss 72 hours later saying they agree to all these terms and that if I will come in today that they will have a cashier's check for $5k waiting for me. I work for about 40 hours and make two months salary.
I work at a small company, and we have been hit by the falling economy. We have pulled the office back to four days a week, and four days pay. We have also had to start paying half of our own health insurance. I know it's a MOJOR bonus that we didn't pay anything at all, but now we are paying a hefty amount at the same time that we all get our pay cut.
The problem that is arising with management (Management really consists of one person. It's a small office) is that we are supposed to maintain high levels of work, come in on the week-ends, stay late, even though we are only working 4 days a week. We are all feeling taken advantage of, but the job market is so bad, there is not a lot we can do to at this point.
I swear to GOD I had a point when I started writing this post, but I have no idea what it was now. Maybe I just needed to get that off my chest.
I have to disagree with that statement. I also have to say that I used to agree with that statement. A trade union (electrician, plumber)is very useful, from both sides of the fence.
From the worker, you have a job, get a decent wage, get training, and get placement. Good workers look for good companies. A good company will always have work and treat their employees well. Lazy louts will have a harder go of it, and will wind up on furlough (Laid off) more often.
From the manager (my side) it's good too. If I hire a union electrician, he or she has to come with tools, and prepared and able to do a certain level of work. If this person cannot do that, I send them back. One of the big complaints about non-union work is a lack of training. And I've seen it happen. A guy shows up and says he's an electrician, but he barely knows how to change a light bulb, let alone install electric panels!
And yes, a union electrician costs more, but the odds are you're going to get a better job out of a union shop. That said, there are non-union shops out there (especially away from the east coast, where there is less organized labor) that do great work. But even then a good shop is going to cost more because in the end, you get what you pay for.
One last thing, this all pertains to more physical, blue collar work, construction and maintenance of data centers, not the programming and operation of the equipment in it.
And no, I'm not in a union, but I use them. And I'm good at it!
Heh. We used to say "First we got Les, then we just got Dicked." That, and anytime someone mentioned the word "bonus," we'd reply with "No no no. You mean Bone-Us.
Long gone are the says of "If you work more than 40 hours a week, your manager isn't doing his job" - Ross Perot
"It compiles, SHIP IT!" -Overheard at Microsoft's development lab
- If you haven't yet done so, read your terms and conditions of employment, including the small print. Pay especial attention to procedures laid down for handling employee grievances, and disciplinary issues, and over what activities may constitute grounds for disciplinary actions.
- Give your local managers the chance to recognise that they have a problem and to make a sincere attempt to resolve it before moving to the grievance stage.
- Keep a written record of these discussions - make a summary at the end of meetings and indicate to the people you're talking with what you consider were the important points and what you understand to have been agreed (or not) on each side.
- Don't indulge in wishful thinking on a matter as important as this. As others have already noted, it's easy to believe that you're more vital to the enterprise than you actually are, and there's the unpleasant possibility that even if everyone who's unhappy acts responsibly you'll still be identified as trouble-makers and find yourselves looking for other work. I'm not saying that you should wimp out and let yourselves be shafted because of the current state of the job market, only that you are realistic about the situation.
Good luck, anyway.