Working From Home

so far, haven't heard anything back yet. but they said 'within the next week', rather than "by the end of the week".

I was towards the early wave of interviews though so I'm not too worried - i'm going to log on and peak later to see if my application status has changed.

I will say, at this company, you usually get ghosted if you didn't get the position, or told like a month later

ok, application status is still "reviewing application" so that's good, selection hasn't been made yet

fingers crossed for you Neando, hope you get good news soon!

lord. one of the last classes I supervised, after a few months of a more hands-off approach, turned out to be a disaster that created a lot of noise, so I decided to fight through my burnout this week and keep a closer eye on this class. i figured it'd go fine as both instructors were experienced, but they committed every rookie mistake possible today and fell 2+ hours behind (which pretty much means we're fucked and will have to make cuts now).

so I gave a ton of feedback and I guess one of the instructors is 'bummed' about it (even though I did highlight what they did well). ffs, if I'm not allowed to shut down when I get feedback at work, you aren't either.

this was after rewriting the feedback 70 or 80 times to remove any harsh edges. i see that was pointless.

May I recommend a move into marketing? Not *writing ad copy*, but proofreading/copy-editing/etc. I make a substantial portion of my income that way and it's not that hard to break in; in fact, with your combined background you'll probably wind up making more than me because you can get in on the tech side (I don't have the vocab to work on SaaS marketing shit, but you probably do).

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, May 2, 2023 8:08 PM (two days ago)

Shifting this from another thread so as not to derail it, I could use some leads and pointers on how to pursue this. "Not that hard to break in" especially caught my attention, since I had been under the impression that copy editing was a dying field due to cost savings, but maybe that's just in newspapers. I'm currently very underemployed at three bar shifts per week and proofreading/copy editing seems like something I can succeed at.

hi dere, I do technical writing and editing for a living.

You could start with some staffing agencies / temp agencies; some used to specialize in editorial workers (Like Editorial Experts Inc., now sadly defunct) but maybe find out what's local to you. Say no to anything administrative or clerical, specify that you will only do editing/proofreading.

I did a bunch of consulting and freelancing and temping, but it was years ago. A smidgen of medical/health, PR/marketing occasionally. But currently I'm mostly in proposal development, which is a very specific niche but not impossible to start in. The biggest placement agencies are https://www.shipleywins.com/careers/ and https://smawins.com/jobs/. Boring but lucrative. A lot is attached to government contracting, because that's where the money is, but there is plenty of other work out there.

YMP, thank you!

I got a new laptop a month ago. they gave me a prepaid UPS box to send it back in, and I made a mental note that I'd go out to a drop box and send it back that Friday.

that mental note congealed into a false memory that I'd actually sent it back, so it sat in my closet untouched until I finally noticed it this week, screaming "send me back!" in a blithe voice. interestingly, nobody on IT side asked about the missing equipment until yesterday, lol.

finally sent it back. we'll always have Paris, Dell

*send the old one back in

proposal development, which is a very specific niche but not impossible to start in.

i feel like i do this as part of my non-lucrative non-profit job, but maybe I am not entirely clear on what it is? like, is this basically the equivalent of applying for grants but for for-profit businesses? ... i don't even want to know what these people make in compensation. ... me & my co-worker both regularly experience people doing work along the lines of what we do, who get paid way more than we do, and who know far less useful background that would make them much more effective at their jobs ... okay, this is my "small vs. big" rant of the month

I return to a daily in-office schedule this Monday, but with reduced hours from 10 am to 2 pm, which always matched what was the busiest time (in relative terms) at the library location. This allows me to take care of a lot of things in the early morning at home, from laundry to local errands, while keeping an eye on immediate work tasks/email before I head out. A good balance, I won't say no (as the job was always public-facing to start with, a return was going to be on the cards at some point, so a three-year break as such to get adjusted to a better balance like I have has been a treat, much as I will miss having lunches at home).

Sarahell: you are right. You don't want to know.

looking at one of those websites you linked, YMP, it did make me think about how both me and my coworker have educational backgrounds related to semantics & semiotics (we jave had conversations that apply Barthesian concepts to occupancy load factors) and how language is used to create the illusion of specialized skill and technical knowledge that is generally just, basic common sense (meaning -- things people know/learn just by observing the world around them and going about their day-to-day) or an application thereof.

Yes, lots of methodologies are formalizations of common sense.

Business schools and books are always coming up with frameworks (TQM, Six Sigma, PMBOK, Agile, ITIL, Shipley, CMMI, ISO, etc.) and then pretending that it's knowledge in the same way as knowing the lengths of rivers in Africa is.

It's absurd but a necessary absurdity in certain contexts. It's hard to work with people who follow a five-step methodology with three core principles when you follow a four-step with six core principles.

(I should note that I claim exactly _no_ specialized expertise, and frequently say so. I just put words and pictures on pieces of paper. The same thing I have been doing professionally since I was 15.)

Application status: No longer being considered

(not that they actually told me or anything - I just looked this afternoon and they'd surreptitiously updated it).

aww that sucks man

back to drawing board. gotta see what feedback they have for me first.

always get the feedback even though you don't want to

Yeah I'll make them tell me. Whether it's something in the interview or if they didn't think my skills mapped to it.

maybe they just couldn't manage without you in your current position? or do they not communicate or take that into account?

that would be a terrible reason not to hire someone!

it's probably not that - my boss supported the move.

if I had to guess it's that my experience is all in customer care and this is a different wing and when you're trying to jump departments they have to clearly see how your current skills map over there. i probably didn't do a good enough job proving that.

during the interview, I was asked a question about what I currently did after I went through my 'career summary' and it felt to see like they were trying to see how I could take what I do now and apply it to the new job.

that's why I never quite understood why my friend thought I was a 'shoo-in'. he didn't just leave customer care for this job, he left it for a lower level position in the same department, then got promoted into this role. I'm betting they promoted someone who was already in that department.

it's ok though. other things will pop up!

you should totally get this job, but otoh there are a lot of stupid people in positions of power, so if you don't get it ... it's not you, it's them

― sarahell, Sunday, April 30, 2023 10:46 AM (one week ago)

very true. in this case - I'll recharge and try again.

I have vacation coming up anyway.

How huge is this company? You had to get that news via the application website? Lame. Sorry.

xp But yeah that's the attitude to take if you are carrying on in the company.

we're pretty big and global. and to be fair, it must have JUST updated because in the morning I checked and it said "application under review". and I was out for a while yesterday as we were taking dad home from the hospital, so maybe they tried to contact me.

but i will say this company has always been bad at telling the people that didn't get the job that they didn't get the job. the recruiters are tasked with doing all of the communication, of the result, of taking the feedback and giving it to you, and sometimes the people who actually did the interviewing and made the decision have had applicants reach out asking them for the status a long time after they'd closed the process with the recruiter. the recruiters are contractors and always complain they're overworked (though why that's the applicant's problem...idk)

bad at telling the people that didn't get the job that they didn't get the job.

ime, increasingly every organization other than some governments ghosts everyone but the winner, and will decreasingly provide any feedback. I really only found this weird because you've been there so long. Not sure what to make of the general trend, but I guess it helps me not care much and keep rolling on. It's been a long time since I bothered to write a letter rather than just bang my resume in.

yeah i'm not surprised this is the M.O.

back to phoning it in! found it hilarious this year that I said to myself "wow, this was my worst year in this dept, I def was checked out the whole year, I'm sure that's going to factor into my yearly review" only to have my boss say what an amazing job I did and that he tried to get me a raise even though I'm not eligible for one.

boss has no poker face. he also forgot to send me the actual review w/ feedback on it but he's new to the job. and I honestly dont' care to read it.

fuck, i thought you had this.

still a chance the lead candidate gets sucked into Narnia

Damn, I'm sorry Neando. I was pulling for you!

Best of luck to you Mr. Thal.

Whether you keep kicking ass in your current role or move on, I hope you get to a place that works for you.

update - the reason I didn't get the job is because...they cancelled the posting. LOL

one of my friends never even got to interview. so I got further than he did.

update - the reason I didn't get the job is because...they cancelled the posting. LOL

That sucks. I had two potential jobs fade on me like that last week, fortunately before it got to the interview stage. On the other hand, I got two job offers today. One pays literally twice what the other pays and is intended to go contract-to-hire after a year, while the other is a temporary gig good for no more than five months and they're gonna want evenings and weekends as it gets closer to the end of the project. Gee, what choice should I make?

lol. a real poison pill there

update - the reason I didn't get the job is because...they cancelled the posting. LOL

― the manwich horror (Neanderthal), Monday, May 15, 2023 8:48 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

LOL. nice of them to tell you

the friend that told me about the posting is mad because he was counting on the hires to help reduce his client load, lol. he msged his boss pissed today

i would hope they'd reconsider but it doesn't sound like that kind of place.

can reconsider my balls

excellent dn btw

I don't know anything about your industry in your area, N.

Is it the only game in town?

Seems like if there are other companies out there you could parlay your "passed up for promotion" tale into a salary bump with a competitor.

i have a vague understanding of what Neando does for a living and who he works for ... and from my understanding, the competitors are just as awful, if not worse? ... or, the alternative would be working for a smaller company/firm where is likely less flexibility because there are fewer people in the department. However, Neando's skills and knowledge would definitely qualify him for a bunch of other types of jobs imo ...

sarahell otm. part of the challenge is my salary is high for what I'm doing now. my current salary has nothing to do w/ what I'm doing now, but is mostly what it is because of being here 18 years and earning top tier annual reviews almost every year of it, with corresponding pay bumps. I'm at the very top of the pay band for my current job, so if I wanted to do THIS work elsewhere (I don't, tbh), I'd get significantly less.

However, I have thought about doing my OLD job (implementations) at other companies before. 2017 was a rather humbling experience. I was angry and ready to leave altogether, I had told my boss I was done, and I paid an agency and also put my resumes on every site, touting my experience. I was expecting to get a huge offer and peace the fuck out with my middle fingers out.

The agency was useless and found me nothing. From my posted resumes, I did get responses - but comical ones. I was an implementation requirements analyst at the time, and I got an offer to do the same thing at a competitor. for $14/hour. less than half my salary, in fact, only $2/hour more than what they paid entry level customer care agents at my company.

in the end, I had to move for my mental health - I wound up taking a $6k paycut to move to the department I'm in now. I might just test the waters a little because my best friend's mother used to work at our main competitor and could put in a good word for me there (I didn't know her back in 2017).

it feels ridiculous that I am having financial issues given how good my salary is but I got heavily in debt, somewhat to help the folks out, somewhat due to poor decision making between 2020-this year, some due to gambling addiction resulting in a big loss last year. but the debt relief program should help me get out of it. and there's always bankruptcy if things got worse (wouldn't be a Neanderthal if I didn't file for bankruptcy, it's a thing we do)

tbh I wish someone would just pay me to ride around in a van with Mercyful Fate all day

(also don't get it twisted, I don't make six figures or anything...lol...i wish)