I'm about to lose my job

E

El_Guapo

500+ Posts
So, in keeping with the "lost my job"/"leaving my job" posts of late, I submit my situation.

My company is being sold and, while no formal announcment has been made, it is highly unlikely that my department will remain in Austin. I could probably stay on if I was willing to relocate to Omaha, Nebraska, and there's about as much chance of that as there is of me wearing a maroon shirt on T+1. Or ever.

I think it's about to get ugly. We met with some of the new management last week and bottom line is that they're pretty much horse's asses who look down their noses at us and the way we do things. I can understand wanting us to transition over to "their way" - they're the boss now, or will be - but you don't have to denigrate us in the process just because we do things different in Texas.

Oh well, such is life.

Anyway, anybody got any suggestions or words of encouragement? I guess my options are to stick it out until the end and get some severance out of the deal, start looking now (which I have) and bail as soon as I can which would really hurt the new guys as far as the transition goes, or swallow some pride and go back to my old job, which I hated but left on good terms and have already been told I'd be welcome back to.

Also, I've got a daughter on the way this summer and the thought of becoming Macanudo II is increasingly appealing.
 
Don't do anything until you know exactly what your options with your current company will be. Stay for a severance. It has cost me money every time I have been proactive and resigned before I was fired. Especially since you have an old job to fall back on worse case.
 
get your resume out there so that you aren't without a job for long, but do your best to stay on to get your severance. Tell potential new employers your situation and if they want you they may be willing to give you a starting bonus that would equate to severance pay.

One thing I have learned is that if you are in a field where you know you can find a new job, being laid off is not a bad thing
 
Get your resume together and start talking to recruiters. If they get you interviews, take them. Like acworthhorn says, leaving a little too early could cost you money, so don't be desperate in your interviews. If you find the perfect job, then great, leave. If you find a bunch of adequate jobs, gracefully turn them down but stay in contact with the hiring managers and keep looking.

You are in the best possible position to be looking for a job right now. You are presently employed, with a balloon payment in your near future. Take advatage of that, but don't wait to start looking.
 
If your skillset and job description are similar to those of a buch of your co-workers, and you don't want to move, you might want to consider taking another job now before supply exceeds demand.
 
I think it depends on what you think the severene will be worth. If it is just enough to hold you over until you find a new job, I don't see the reason to stay in place yu are not wanted. If you think you can land a new job quickly, wait for the severence.
 
Your situation almost perfectly describes what I went through about a year and a half ago. I went back to the old job a couple of months after the place I was working at was sold. For a little while, it was ok and I was happy. My friends in my old department all left one by one because the new company was run by ********. After a few months, I remembered why I left my new old job. If I was in your shoes, I would find a new job with a different company. Don't stay where you are and don't go back to where you were. I know it's very tempting, but you will regret it in the long run. No matter what they're telling you know, the things that made you leave in the first place are still going to be there.
 
Some good advice here. Thanks guys.

I should be able to get on Mrs. Guapo's health insurance if need be, so no real worries there.

Part of me looks at this as a great opportunity, and part of me is very sad. By and large, I really like this job and it's going to be hard to find another one that pays as well and is as good a fit. With the kiddo on the way, a little stability would be nice.

otoh, the idea of making a completely off-the-wall switch to something totally unrelated sounds really cool. I would have an excuse to totally start over in something totally different. That doesn't happen often to someone my age. Problem is, I don't know what that would be - it's not like I have a burning desire to get into anything other than maybe working at or opening a brewery, and we all know how much money there is in that.

Going back to the old job is almost not an option. I know that I would be terribly unhappy again and would just end up looking around for something else within a year. I guess if I had to I could suck it up and deal with it, but that's an absolute last resort.

The one silver lining is that I won't have to deal with the freak show employee the rest of my life. Damn I'll be glad to get that fruitcake out of my hair.
 
You are in a good position. If they're going to do layoffs, financially it is better for them to lay you off than to fire you, so you can pretty much do nothing (or next to nothing -- whatever your ethics will bear) and you won't get fired. Plus, you will likely get a nice sack of cash at some point to leave the building. I would definitely start looking, but not seriously until you get wind of something impending.

We whacked a bunch of folks at my company on January 3rd. On January 2nd, we had several leave that were about to get nice packages, and they left about $15K on the table each.
 
runner, nice pull. Hope the company stock goes up as well.



To the original poster, what did they mean by "the way you do things in Texas?'' Business is business.
 
Stay as long as you can. When you can't hack the ******** any longer, it will be a very straightforward easy decision to turn in your two weeks. Not comfortable, but man, your sanity comes first. It is not a level playing field. Be sure and get your wife's final approval the morning you turn the letter in.

If you want to take time off before looking for another job and have the eurevos, you know what's best for yourself and family.

Best wishes.
 
Start lookingfor a job asap. If you find one you like, you won't regret not getting the severance as you'll have a steady source of income anyway. If you still haven't found one, you still have the severance to fall back on.
However, people like to hire employed people more than they like to hire unemployed people.

In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
Well, I've been sending out resumes and I had my first interview yesterday. I prepared myself to talk about things I've done that I thought would fit the requirements of the position I was interviewing for. Instead, it turned out that 75% of the questions were variations on "tell me about a situation where you had to resolve a conflict" or "if you had two things that were due at the same time and you could only finish one, how would you decide which one to complete first?". wft?

Also, I got the standard "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" question. How do you guys answer stuff like this? You can't say "I intend to be running this division" because that means you're after the job of the guy who's interviewing you. You don't know the organization well enough to say something like "I would like to work here for 3 years then transfer over to Joe's area because he's a great guy and the stuff they do looks really cool".

Honestly, you give me a sane working environment with a comfortable salary or at least the potential to work into one, with a reasonable balance of work and personal life, and I'm just fine. I don't need nor do I really want to run the show.

What are they looking for when they ask this question?
 
At least try to incorporate what you have done in the past in those situations. Try hard to direct the interview towards your accomplishments and how they relate to the job at hand. Don't be pushy though.
 
Uninformed,

That's pretty much what I tried to do, but they kept firing variations of the same two or three questions at me. They appeared to have a standardized list that I guess they had to ask everybody. I don't know. I f'ing hate interviews.

I finally got a little irritated at one of the "how do you handle multiple deadlines" questions and said "you stay late and work Saturdays". I mean seriously, without knowing the particulars of what the job entails, what are you supposed to say? The bottom line is that if you have two things due at the same time and can only finish one, you're gonna finish the one that will get you in the least amount of trouble.
 
What they are looking for there is for you to think of some example from your work life when you were in such a situation, and for you to relate what you did, or at least what you now think you should have done.

You are trying to tell them about your skillset while you tell these stories, so its your job to tell stories about your past experience couched in such a way to answer their question, while you mention the things that you think its important they know.

Those questions are a giant pain in the ***.
 
Sounds like you did fine. My problem, which hopefully you don't share, is that I show my emotions on my sleeve. It is easy to tell when I am irritated. I would suck at poker.
 
I hate those questions, but they're very very common. I've bombed several interviews because I wanted to be candid and tell the truth. Nope. Tell them what they want to hear.
 
Those questions are called Behavioral Interview Questions and are standard in most experienced hire jobs.

There is a formula for answering them - once you know the formula and prepare for the 5 or so basic types of behavioral questions, they are cake. Not matter what the question and its structure, they tend to focus around a few themes.

You can read about it here. STAR responses: The Link

This siteThe Link breaks down the different types into about 20-30, which is a bit high since you can combine several. Essentially come up with 2 STAR "stories" for each section. Still looking for a more simple breakdown of the types or questions.
 
OK, I cant find a more broad summary so I am going to go by memory and see what I can remember.Practice at least 2 STAR responses to potention questions focusing ont he general themes of:Leadership (you leading a team or group)Internal Team Adversity (when a team/co-worker sucked and what you did)
Teaming (working with/part of a team as a member not a leader)
Initiative (self explanatory). This can be coupled with Self Motivation which would less on finding projects on your own to out nad out success in your position.
customer focus
adaptability this is usually where someone asks you about a time when everything was going "wrong" on a project or a customer requested a last minute change
 
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