Work Situation

T

tOsYZYny

Hopefully this isn't too off topic.

I'm looking for different perspectives or thoughts as this still baffles me.

I work as a software engineer. Regardless of the specifics, I am wondering what to make of ... having no interaction with my manager at all, not being assigned a team, nor having any work.

About a month ago, he held a brief meeting with his larger team, about 30 people, indicating that 12 people have yet to be assigned a POD (team). I didn't know there were 11 others, but I'll take that as a grain of salt, he didn't inform me directly so perhaps this is more smoke and mirrors. The other thing that was telling was that he mentioned that there always has to be under performers on the team.

Prior to this meeting, for the first few months, I took direction from another lead developer to assist with automating the CI/CD pipeline, code refactoring, fixing bugs, writing unit tests, and whatever features needed a POC or were new to him. For the past few months, he indicated that I'm not on his team and to talk with my manager. All in all, I've been at this place 8 months.

As it has been over a month now, I reached out in between then since I haven't heard from either my new manager (supposedly) or my current manager.

The only logic in my mind that makes sense is given the 2 statements he said (amongst the other information which didn't say much of anything) is that perhaps to streamline their process and avoid turnover from onboarding and offboarding personnel is that the core team is already fixed and new people are onboarded and then eventually let go. I work in an environment where layoffs are routine like clockwork (every quarter roughly).

This experience is entirely new to me, I've generally been too busy.

To keep myself busy, I'm busy building tooling around various services so that I can do things with substantially less effort. I've also keep up with the projects I was working on by maintaining tests so that I at least have talking points for a performance review (if I were to have one). Unfortunately, my employer has a strict policy about applying to other roles before 1 year, even managers or recruiters won't talk unofficially.

I finally had some desire to apply to external positions, but I was hoping to stay at this place even with all the quirks and oddities.

What would you make of the situation and how would you handle it? Again, preferably, I'd like to stay with my present employer, perhaps a good deal of that is I feel it would look bad on my resume to have been at a job for a short period of time rather than stick it out.
 
OP, keep this in mind: work is (well, for most people) a place where we spend most of our time. It is better if you enjoy it, feel happy, suitably challenged and suitably rewarded. Part of this reward is feedback from colleagues and managers.
We people are different, but to me, your situation sounds ... not good. Unless there are other rewards (not presented in your post), I would look for another place to make use of my skills. YMMV.
 
fmc000 said:
@OP: how old are you?
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I will answer by saying that I am mid career.

tingo said:
OP, keep this in mind: work is (well, for most people) a place where we spend most of our time. It is better if you enjoy it, feel happy, suitably challenged and suitably rewarded. Part of this reward is feedback from colleagues and managers.
We people are different, but to me, your situation sounds ... not good. Unless there are other rewards (not presented in your post), I would look for another place to make use of my skills. YMMV.
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Yeah, the friction for me is having to go through another probationary period, benefits, etc. If I manage to stick out a year somehow, I have 4 months left. At this rate, it is doable. Again, I am working on interesting stuff to me, I'm building tools that I could use here or elsewhere to make my life easier, better.

The next hurdle is hopefully there are openings at that time that would be relevant for me and it would be another crap shoot if I end up with a bad manager. But, in my experience, I've had about 12+ managers and while I'd say all were looking out for #1, I had 1 that actually was a great mentor, 1 decent mentor once adjusting to his intensity level, and 80% at least provided some feedback.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
It's never a good sign when your managers don't communicate with you for an extended length of time. It's also a sign of bad management.
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Indeed. You need to think of yourself. Don't make the mistake of expecting loyalty or gratitude from the company. Do YOU want to spend much more time there, or not? Go hunt a new job, maybe just for the experience of doing so while still employed. Also doing that while being employed takes a big edge from the stress, makes you more relaxed and who knows? Maybe you will find something better. And don't keep too keen an eye on the money. You are not only payed in money but also in work environment, flexibility and such. I could well make 50% more of what I make now, but there would not be flex time, home office, days off for sick kids, no time to play games with them, picking them up, ...
 
Crivens said:
Indeed. You need to think of yourself. Don't make the mistake of expecting loyalty or gratitude from the company. Do YOU want to spend much more time there, or not? Go hunt a new job, maybe just for the experience of doing so while still employed. Also doing that while being employed takes a big edge from the stress, makes you more relaxed and who knows? Maybe you will find something better. And don't keep too keen an eye on the money. You are not only payed in money but also in work environment, flexibility and such. I could well make 50% more of what I make now, but there would not be flex time, home office, days off for sick kids, no time to play games with them, picking them up, ...
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I want to understand the why, that I think is the main drive at this point, trying to understand someone else. I like being able to predict others or at least identify various behavior patterns. This is a new pattern that is intriguing to me.

Fair points, it would be advantageous to have the benefit of a job while searching than not.

Then, what is loyalty these days, the bare minimum to retain company match, 3 years, perhaps 5 years?
 
tOsYZYny said:
Then, what is loyalty these days
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These days, it's a word in the dictionary. Ask those who are there for longer, maybe there are stories.
Once upon a time, IBM flew one of their engineers home from across the country in the company jet. That would not happen today.
Check how many scruples your management has to knife you in the back, then return the favor. Loyality is a function of trust. Trust needs to be earned, and can be wrecked in seconds.
 
Crivens said:
Once upon a time, IBM flew one of their engineers home from across the country in the company jet. That would not happen today.
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Yep.
Been there, done that.
I made it 25 years until IBM showed me the door, bought out my pension for chicken feed, and replaced me with a new hire for less money, less vacation and 25 years away from the pension they no longer offer.

The good news: IBM was not allowed to steal my vested rights, which were substantial.
When I started, engineers were the top management.
10 years in, they replaced engineers with sales people.
These are the guys with tassels on their shoes, and two interchange parts: mouth and rectum.
 
If it doesn't feel right, it's probably not. It's as simple as that.
Anything else is detail to analyze the whys, hows, and whens.
Also uncommon turnover in staff is always an alarm sign - especially when the heads not change. Possible causes for that may differ, but bottom line it's always a sign for something ain't right.
At the latest if both, or even more points congregate it's time to plan the exit.
 
cy@ said:
Yeah. Check out the Life after Layoff channel on youtube. He frequently discusses this.
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Good points, there is some useful information there.

bgavin said:
I found the first indication of a company in trouble: they lock the supplies cabinet.
Safeguard those pens and pencils first.
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Those are valuable assets!

Yeah, I suppose to summarize, as a 'normal' person, I was raised to do right and expect others to do right by me (separate discussion, what is right). If I work in a smart manner, do good work, I should be rewarded. But, that is a bit naive, and perhaps the wrong perspective.

Perhaps a better summary is that people are greedy, by extension, companies are greedy, if I were in a position to produce a widget for less cost, I would. Perhaps the widget is of lower quality, or has been sitting in the sun and melted, etc., but, it is lower cost. Then, as anything else, anything concerning the allocation of resources is political, even non-profit organizations are subject to politics.
 
Yeah, a lack of communication means you're being organized out of your job.

Bosses have evidently decided that it's easier to hire someone new, rather than have an old dog learn new tricks.

Bosses do know that saying all that to the face of the staff will not turn out well, they'd be facing lawsuits from watchdogs, whistleblowers, labor relations boards, groups that support civil liberties, and the like. So the solution is to keep quiet, keep communications to a minimum (to avoid accidentally saying something that will come back to bite them), and be as vague as possible so that labor laws don't bite too bad. Building a case that labor laws have been violated - the burden is on the plaintiff, ufortunately, at least in the US. And in most cases, that burden is so heavy that frankly employers are favored by the labor law structure.
 
bgavin said:
I found the first indication of a company in trouble: they lock the supplies cabinet.
Safeguard those pens and pencils first.
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I've made the same experience exactly, twice.
Within probation time test how much effort it takes you to get simple, cheap office supplies, and keep an eye open for if there were large amounts of stuff wasted otherwise (printing paper for example.)
 
Good Management is like fresh air. You don't see it, you don't smell it, but you surely recognize it being gone.

Managers don't know how to keep people these days. You should look for some place where the manager is a veteran. That is no guarantee, but they know how to do it, and in a shtf situation your subordinates are around you with loaded guns. They have to know how to lead people, and they know the value of locality. Best time I had was with a manager wo had been a "full bird" before. Operations were running like grease on slick ice.
 
I have been at the same small firm for 35 years with the upbringing that a job is for life, however things change. People get old retire, new management. The thing that killed firm loyalty for me was getting a letter from the pension firm to say the company had been reported for late payments & then age goes against you for to find a new job in present times.
 
ngnicholson What can help in such cases would be to collect information. Know where the dirt is, what accounting is doing, things like that.
This may serve job security, and it surely helps negociating terms when you are "let go".
 
tOsYZYny said:
Again, preferably, I'd like to stay with my present employer, perhaps a good deal of that is I feel it would look bad on my resume to have been at a job for a short period of time rather than stick it out.
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Very little initial data: what is your salary, bonuses, how much debt you yourself have, are there any debts, what kind of financial bondage are you in, how many children, mistresses, wives do you have, how many parasites have gathered around you, who suck money from you, how often and in style do you or your circle like to vacation in Hawaii, etc.
Look at your environment yourself. If you have to pull all these people and you have large expenses
for a house, utilities, car maintenance, then you most likely just need to endure and work hard.
In each country and in each situation, everything can be different.

If you are a maximally free person from circumstances - tell your employer to fuck off.
You will find work for food and rent.
Crivens said:
This may serve job security, and it surely helps negociating terms when you are "let go".
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But here you need to be very careful. Good advice.
 
USerID said:
My God, this legendary American political correctness... :)
At what stage of his career did your Kurt Cobain die then? :)
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The end obviously :).

I don't mean to be obtuse, but one could easily piece disparate information together.

I was chatting with a former co-worker that also joined this team and this person appears to be in the same boat as myself. Now, the interesting thing that this person was assigned a pod or team, but I haven't. I'm even further removed.
 
USerID said:
My God, this legendary American political correctness...
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This is more about privacy than political correctness. Remember KGB and MI5 snooping in 1970s? Now it's Alexa/Walmart smart speakers with mics. your employer is hiding behind a nice-looking commercial facade, buys the data from Amazon, sifts through it, and finds that you've been talking shit behind his back. Why do you think your employer doesn't want to pay you? he needs the money to buy the data that Amazon and Microsoft have on you. Hell, they'd even give you a free copy of Photoshop and Autocad, and not give a beep about licensing! They will even give away network bandwidth and phones away for free, all in the name of collecting data on you instead of paying you.
 
USerID said:
My God, this legendary American political correctness...
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It's more own security.
If his boss finds out he's having such a conversation, he's fired directly. Bonus: It's extremely hard to almost impossible to get another job when you're unemployed + fired. Pension loss is extra, but mostly included.
Individualism, free spirit, criticism, ideas for improvement or even whistleblowers are always very welcome - if it's about somebody else.

Never forget:
All you need to pin down a person is to know three (3) personal things.
Google does the rest.
 
Quote: "I work as a software engineer. Regardless of the specifics, I am wondering what to make of ... having no interaction with my manager at all, not being assigned a team, nor having any work."

My number 1 concern would be "not having any work". I take it they are paying you for your time. In the companies I worked at, both large and small, the only times I ever felt nervous about a job were the very few times when they didn't have any immediate work and we were sitting there twiddling our thumbs.. "oh now I'll catch up on that bit of learning I've been meaning to do for 6 months"... you know the kind of thing. As long as I was head down working against the clock, against pressure, usually in a team but even occasionally by myself, I never felt worried, regardless of whether I saw a manager each week or not.

But having no work assigned to me would definitely concern me, if it goes on for more than a week or so I would start thinking about brushing up the CV and looking around, after all what else are you there for if not to work for them? Even if they are just keeping a headcount open without having any actual work for you to do currently, it's not doing you any good. Of course they might be in a position of waiting till they win a new contract and then suddenly you will be inundated with work...
 
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