Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Maybe this is a little Machiavellian of me, but it’s something I’m churning around in the back of my mind.
I am to the point at my job where I’m considering leaving. I’ve updated my resume and started looking on Indeed. I even applied for one job. But I’m not all in yet on the job hunting.
I’ve always loved my current job and employer. I used to say it’s one of the best I’ve ever had. My boss was great, my coworkers are awesome, and I really like most of the customers on a personal level. I’m in my early 50s and I hoped to stay here until I retired.
But a lot has happened in the past few years. The one good thing that happened, as we all work from home now. But the rest is downhill.
The big one is that we’ve had a raise freeze for three years now. Not even cost of living because, “there’s not enough money.” This despite the staff shrinking over the pandemic and us closing the office to save $8000 a month in rent.
And I won’t get into the politics of it, but the old boss resigned in frustration (with the Board of Directors). His replacement is a nice enough person, but seems to be a weak leader and is almost never there when staff needs guidance. The reason we need guidance is because the Board of Directors is going hog wild with the old boss gone and making a lot of drastic changes without putting much thought into the details. It’s creating all sorts of fires that need putting out and we need the “fire chief” there with us. But we are left on our own. And all these pet changes are costing money… money that could have been raises.
On top of this paychecks and getting messed up (because they keep changing our payroll vendor) and there is talk of cutting our earned PTO. And I just feel burnt out because I do the job of two people— literally. My job used to be a team of two but it’s just me.
I think I want to leave.
But in the past three days, I’ve talked to other coworkers and I found out basically half of the staff are actively looking for new jobs now. There are only 10 of us, so it’s an easy number to calculate.
This is where the Machiavellian, part of my brain kicks in. You can’t have that much brain drain and loss of institutional knowledge without huge problems. And I did have Board members casually ask me to please stick around after the old boss left. They want us to stay, despite everything.
What if, I just wait and see what happens. See if others really do leave. If there is enough loss of staff, they may finally offer incentives to encourage the rest of us to stick around. Maybe they’ll finally give us a cost of living increase, maybe leave the PTO alone, maybe they’ll improve the benefits. It would be really nice to stay in a work from home job that I know well and do well. I would miss anybody who left, but hopefully enough people would stay and they would still be the customers.
In my situation, would you continue with the hunt for a new job or would you play the long game and wait? If I wait, I want to give myself a deadline before I start aggressively start job hunting again. Maybe give it 6 months and see where it all goes? Or, in your experience, do employers not usually recover from a mess like this? I am pinning a lot of hope on a lot of maybes.
Maybe this is a little Machiavellian of me, but it’s something I’m churning around in the back of my mind.
I am to the point at my job where I’m considering leaving. I’ve updated my resume and started looking on Indeed. I even applied for one job. But I’m not all in yet on the job hunting.
I’ve always loved my current job and employer. I used to say it’s one of the best I’ve ever had. My boss was great, my coworkers are awesome, and I really like most of the customers on a personal level. I’m in my early 50s and I hoped to stay here until I retired.
But a lot has happened in the past few years. The one good thing that happened, as we all work from home now. But the rest is downhill.
The big one is that we’ve had a raise freeze for three years now. Not even cost of living because, “there’s not enough money.” This despite the staff shrinking over the pandemic and us closing the office to save $8000 a month in rent.
And I won’t get into the politics of it, but the old boss resigned in frustration (with the Board of Directors). His replacement is a nice enough person, but seems to be a weak leader and is almost never there when staff needs guidance. The reason we need guidance is because the Board of Directors is going hog wild with the old boss gone and making a lot of drastic changes without putting much thought into the details. It’s creating all sorts of fires that need putting out and we need the “fire chief” there with us. But we are left on our own. And all these pet changes are costing money… money that could have been raises.
On top of this paychecks and getting messed up (because they keep changing our payroll vendor) and there is talk of cutting our earned PTO. And I just feel burnt out because I do the job of two people— literally. My job used to be a team of two but it’s just me.
I think I want to leave.
But in the past three days, I’ve talked to other coworkers and I found out basically half of the staff are actively looking for new jobs now. There are only 10 of us, so it’s an easy number to calculate.
This is where the Machiavellian, part of my brain kicks in. You can’t have that much brain drain and loss of institutional knowledge without huge problems. And I did have Board members casually ask me to please stick around after the old boss left. They want us to stay, despite everything.
What if, I just wait and see what happens. See if others really do leave. If there is enough loss of staff, they may finally offer incentives to encourage the rest of us to stick around. Maybe they’ll finally give us a cost of living increase, maybe leave the PTO alone, maybe they’ll improve the benefits. It would be really nice to stay in a work from home job that I know well and do well. I would miss anybody who left, but hopefully enough people would stay and they would still be the customers.
In my situation, would you continue with the hunt for a new job or would you play the long game and wait? If I wait, I want to give myself a deadline before I start aggressively start job hunting again. Maybe give it 6 months and see where it all goes? Or, in your experience, do employers not usually recover from a mess like this? I am pinning a lot of hope on a lot of maybes.
My opinion if it was me, I would not change jobs, especially since you're WFH, they appear to be hard to come by, plus I'm seeing news articles about how the WFH craze may be ending because bosses want everyone back in so that they can see them working. They feel there are advantages to being in office then workers doing it from home.
Start watching news articles about layoffs. More layoffs are coming from a few of the big companies, I think Microsoft was one, maybe Amazon was another.
I would not want to be a new hire if layoffs do hit your new employer if you were to leave. You may be one of the first to go.
I saw an article the other day that there is a website people can look at to check if their employer was planning to do layoffs. According to what the article said, if there are so many being laid off, it has to be registered with some agency, which then lists it on that site.
“So, we’re definitely about to go into a recession,” Emma starts in the clip. “And if you are nervous about getting laid off and you work for a big employer, I just want to let you know that a WARN notice is something that exists in every state and you can look it up by state through the Department of Labor if you just Google it.”
My opinion if it was me, I would not change jobs, especially since you're WFH, they appear to be hard to come by, plus I'm seeing news articles about how the WFH craze may be ending because bosses want everyone back in so that they can see them working. They feel there are advantages to being in office then workers doing it from home.
Start watching news articles about layoffs. More layoffs are coming from a few of the big companies, I think Microsoft was one, maybe Amazon was another.
I would not want to be a new hire if layoffs do hit your new employer if you were to leave. You may be one of the first to go.
I saw an article the other day that there is a website people can look at to check if their employer was planning to do layoffs. According to what the article said, if there are so many being laid off, it has to be registered with some agency, which then lists it on that site.
Work from home is a really nice perk, but it’s not the be all, end all, of benefits. I would say if we didn’t have WFH I would have left last year for certain, But while looking at other jobs, I noticed most others I qualify for pay $10K-$20K more a year and have much better benefits, especially medical benefits (ours stink as all we have is a very limited HMO. Takes me months to get a simple appointment and I have to travel over an hour away).
In short, I would give up WFH for that much more money and better benefits.
Now the idea that there might be layoffs is more concerning than losing WFH. A lot of those big tech companies you mentioned hired a lot of extras for the pandemic and letting them go now. I’m not a tech worker though. I’m a program/project manager, but not in IT. But that doesn’t mean I’m safe where I’m at (or anywhere really).
An economic downturn would be a huge issue and I’m probably safer where I worked for 13 years/where I run one of the only three programs that bring in revenue. But where I work as been slowly losing money since before the pandemic (which is why there have been hiring freezes, wage freezes, and why we downsized right out of the office). We never really recovered from pandemic losses. It could go belly up if things get bad.
Your warning about being laid off is good food for thought. Very good food for thought!
I’ve actually met with a certified financial planner and he’s working on the numbers for me. With what I’ve already saved and invested over my lifetime, I maybe be able to retire (or semi retire) in 7-9 years. It’s a long shot, but I may even be able to semi retire now. Knowing those numbers would have a big impact on how I feel about job security.
The big one is that we’ve had a raise freeze for three years now. Not even cost of living because, “there’s not enough money.”
I'd have been gone long ago.
I bet the people running the company didn't give up any raises.
Keep in mind that your co-workers are competing for the same jobs out there. If you wait, they may all be gone and will have taken all the comparable jobs.
I bet the people running the company didn't give up any raises.
Keep in mind that your co-workers are competing for the same jobs out there. If you wait, they may all be gone and will have taken all the comparable jobs.
Yeah, I am not sure what's going on with the higher ups. I just know they are suddenly spending a lot of money that they claimed we didn't have. So I am suspicious and a little concerned.
Actually, none of us do the same thing so I am not competing against my coworkers. We are a a diverse group. For example, I am a program manager, but the other people talking about leaving include the publications manager, IT manager, the graphic designer, and a customer service rep.
The remaining staff are just as diverse--we have no redundancy in roles, at all. That is kind of a struggle when anyone wants to take some time off. No one has anyone to cover them when they are gone.
We all kind of compliment each other more so than doing the same job. We were a great team. People always assumed we were a staff of 50 or more. The shock people expressed when they found out just 10 of us ran the whole place for more than 10-12K customers was always priceless.
Has there been a lot of turnover over the last three years? If so, is four years of turnover going to make any difference in your pay?
The only time I have seen this work is when the boss presents a proposal to the directors explaining how low pay and turnover is actually costing the business money. If your BoD is pretty far removed from reality, no one on it is going to have an epiphany about handing out pay raises.
Has there been a lot of turnover over the last three years? If so, is four years of turnover going to make any difference in your pay?
The only time I have seen this work is when the boss presents a proposal to the directors explaining how low pay and turnover is actually costing the business money. If your BoD is pretty far removed from reality, no one on it is going to have an epiphany about handing out pay raises.
Except for the boss leaving last year, there has been no turn over in the past three years (the past six years actually). That is what makes so many people looking to leave all at the same time unprecedented.
You have a point about the Board being removed from things. Although several people have made a stink about no pay raises and I know the old boss tried to argue our case. So they know staff is disgruntled.
Who knows, maybe it's part of a plan to turn over all the staff and get new blood in. Maybe they want us all to leave. I can see an argument to be made for getting younger people in the office and getting rid of all us crusty GenXers (all of us on staff are GenX except one woman who is a young Baby Boomer). But I also think a purge of everyone all at once, replaced with inexperienced people could be a huge problem. But maybe it won't be my problem (unless I stick around).
Do you work for a business or some sort of non profit? Is the board paid or volunteer? Reason I ask is a lot of the things you've said so far seem to line up with how small non profits operate. It might change the answer to your question.
Do you work for a business or some sort of non profit? Is the board paid or volunteer? Reason I ask is a lot of the things you've said so far seem to line up with how small non profits operate. It might change the answer to your question.
It's a non-profit. We are a small staff, but an international non-profit that reaches thousands of people. But the board is made up of volunteers who don't really understand how non-profits actually work (that's not their area of expertise. They are small business owners and are trying to run things like we are a small business). In the end, they also aren't really hurt directly if the whole place folds due to bad decisions. That's why it's so important to have a strong executive to guide them.
My two cents - This has the potential of turning into a real sh&t show. Do even more work without compensation and with crappy benefits. If the new boss was more proactive and a true leader my opinion might be different, but this has the potential to leave you extremely burned out and resentful.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
