Today i had a meeting, it was supposed to be about adding resources to our test department...

[peacebird]

Imagine my shock and horror to learn i had to justify *keeping* two testers instead... We are working on average 60 hours a week since January. There is no way to get all tickets tested - much less regression tested, and they are talking about cutting my staff by 1/3!?!

I said that i willingly worked 70 hour weeks to get us to launch, but I will NOT work 50 or 60 hour weeks as standard operating procedure, and that if they cut these two positions I will find another job. There is no way to get our sites tested even halfway with the severe staff shortage we have.

Arghhhhh...... I am SO freaking p'od.


On edit: and NO, we do not get OT pay. We are salaried employees.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. You absolutely did the right thing!

If more people spoke up the way you did, maybe working conditions wouldn't be so awful for so many.

Good for you!

[Vincardog]

2. Tell the "MBA' bean counters that they can take a 33% cut in pay and let you expand the productive

workforce or they can look for another fool to replace you. Have your next position lined up and take your whole team with you.

[peacebird]

4. I am researching jobs as we speak. One of my guys (whose job is now on the block) told me he has l

Lined up another offer, and we need to let him know by Thursday. He wants to stay, but need security. I told him that I completely understand, it wil be our loss.

I am so sick of workers being beaten up and abused in the name of "teamwork!" and "supporting the company!"

When does the company support the workers? They can only squeeze so much "increased productivity" out of us.....

[smirkymonkey]

7. I completely know what you mean. I had a bombshell dropped on me today. I still have a job, but

will have a new "boss" within a few weeks. I just moved from NY to Boston to work for my current boss whom I like very much and now I will have an unknown quantity. Apparently "she's great" but I don't have such a great history of working for female bosses (I am a woman) and if she doesn't like me she can make life a living hell for me. I thought I was just getting settled in and finallly achieving some measure of security and "boom" - life changes like that.

I am so upset I have been fighting back tears all day. I really like my current boss and that's the reason I took the job. Now he's leaving and I will end up working for someone I don't know at all. If she doesn't like me she could make my life miserable. I have been through so much of this shit in the last 8 years, I'm not sure I can take any more of it.

Whatever happened to the days when you had some kind of f***ing work stability? I'm so sick of having the rug pulled out under me every year or two.

[ljm2002]

8. I hear you but I would like to offer one bit of advice...

...don't dwell on the negative possibilities before they happen. I mean, it's totally reasonable to think about it and consider what you might do, but don't dwell on it. Doing so just makes it more likely to come out that way. And no, I'm not going all "woo" on you here, it's just that if you expect the worst you may react in ways that tend to make it go like that, even if it is unconscious on your part: people pick up on nonverbal cues. So for example, if you pre-dislike her and are pre-suspicious of her, she will sense it and may act defensively which would then reinforce your negative feelings...

You get the idea. Don't stuff your feelings. Do acknowledge that a big part of this is mourning, in a way --saying good-bye to the known quantity who you like. Do keep an open mind with the new person. Just because you had a bad experience with a female boss before, don't let that make you close the door to other possibilities.

And if she does suck, well then yes you will have to consider your options. But at least wait until it becomes reality.

[smirkymonkey]

11. You are absolutely right. I think I am just mourning the loss of my current boss and thinking the

worst. It's a terrible habit of mine. Thank you for the reality check!

[loli phabay]

3. screw that i would walk.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. k&r

[KT2000]

6. good for you

they are practicing a management technique that involves pushing the employees ever harder until there is "push back." You pushed back. How they respond is anyone's guess since their bottom line does not account for things like loyalty and longevity that affect the bottomline but they are unable to quantify so it therefore does not exist for them.
Screw 'em.

[ljm2002]

9. I'd start looking for a new job...

...because you were lied to about the nature of the meeting. It's one thing to meet and discuss unpleasant realities of the workplace, such as the need to cut back. It is quite another thing to say let's meet and discuss increasing your staffing levels, only to have them discuss laying off people on your staff instead.

That is not conducive to a good working relationship. Now you know you cannot trust them -- if you ever did in the first place.

Of course now is a difficult time to be looking for work, so I'd make sure I had something lined up before giving notice.

[CTyankee]

12. Unfortunately, being lied to about "the nature of the meeting" is nothing new...

I was asked to come in on a Saturday morning by a new boss to talk about our "message platform." It was nothing about that at all. I came in with thoughts with ideas about new messages for our organizations platform and it was all about how I wasn't performing in the area of computer proficiency! I was then a Major Gifts Officer at a nonprofit organization, i.e. a fundraiser with people skills. This was beyond crazy. But I was over the age of 60 and so...well, you know the end to that story. I ended up retiring voluntarily about a year and a half later...

[Johonny]

10. no one wants to pay to have things tested until

there is a failure or two. Then after a few successes back on the chopping block goes mission assurance. Even though it is vastly cheaper to do the testing than to have a failure they always try to gut it in the name of cost savings. Total 1990s era cost saving philosophy that didn't work then, doesn't work now, won't work in the future, yet they keep trying it.