Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Sharing the pain isn't always the right strategy

Why is it it that you're only a team player if you don't have a life?

The immediate back story - last year the company thought there might be a slowdown and they didn't want to have a bunch of people on overhead for a few months while they found new contracts because that would lower our profit margins and by extension, decrease the executive bonuses. So they laid people off, in weekly rolling waves. Fast forward a few months, and all the contracts we leads said were coming in have arrived. And we are short staffed at least 50 people in one particular area that was hardest hit by the layoffs. And, in an apparent shocker, no one is willing to work uncompensated overtime.

So, a multiple choice quesion. Does our fearless leader:
A. Put pressure on our HR people to speed up the hiring process
B. Allow paid overtime
C. Ask for voluntary transfers
D. Spread the pain around by pulling people off their assigned tasks to backfill the program she didn't think was worth the overhead money

If you chose A, B or C... I would really like to work where you do. But, alas, our brilliant automaton chose option D. Which leaves me in an impossible position - the other program asked for me specifically because of some work I had done for them in the past, but my current job takes up all of my time (including a sickening number of my days off) and Dr. Evil sees no reason why I can't be all things to all people and simply do both jobs. I vetoed that and got the "We need you to be a team player" speech. Shockingly, I remain unpersuaded. Seriously, I don't mind taking one for the team, but this is just too much to ask.

On a happier note - my new favorite cross stitch pattern place just had a big sale. Ok, I have more projects than I can finish in a lifetime - they're still really cool.

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