The Work Thread

Getting your colleagues involved? No no no no, absolutely not. Tell them strawberry float all, ask for none of their advice, say nothing. Horrific idea.

They were probably the ones who moaned about you in the first place.

I want to provide an impartial view so I hope you don't think I'm just trying to be a dick, but a couple of your posts in here before it all kicked off did suggest a change in your emotional state and potentially in your behaviour.

Try and take an absolutely objective approach to reviewing your actions up to this point and put yourself in their shoes when thinking about things you might have done to give them reason to believe your conduct had taken a turn.

It's very easy to just start brushing everything off as evil robot managers who have it in for you. To be clear, apart from in the immediate aftermath (which is fair enough) I don't believe you're actually doing this as you have had time to calm down and reflect, I just think some of the advice/comments in this thread need a tiny bit of balance.

Applied for two more finance jobs today. The more and more I look though, the less I think I even want to work in finance any more. But I've no idea what kind of job I'd really want to do or if I'd have the skills to do something else. I think I'm just stressing myself out because it's been two months since I left my previous employer and I've not found anything yet. I have been really selective though in jobs I've applied for so I only have myself to blame. But I wanted to find something I really wanted and now it looks like I'm just going to have to apply for anything and everything and likely end up unhappy again. I just hope I can actually get a job offer before my money runs out in another two month's time. I'm sure it's a strain on my wife as well which is why I absolutely have to get a job before it has any effect on her own savings. FML

Buffalo wrote:Getting your colleagues involved? No no no no, absolutely not. Tell them strawberry float all, ask for none of their advice, say nothing. Horrific idea.

gooseberry fool didn't see that bit!

God yeah don't do that! It would basically be you going "why don't you like me!"

Mucked around a bit over Christmas and applied for a new job. (Due to usual end of year blues).
Couple of interviews later and they offered me a job. Much higher salary but would mean I need to move into a more expensive area (I'm never commuting again - it's just not worth it). It didn't make sense financially.

So I sat my current boss down and demanded more money. I didn't even mention the job offer - if you don't think I am worth it then strawberry float you.
Got the 25% pay-rise I wanted, and he didn't even bother to make sure I had more responsibilities or work. No resistance at all.

So glad I put the effort into those interviews - gave me the confidence I needed and a good indication of my market worth.



Reading Staydeads thing - the funny thing in my job is that I am sure my bosses boss doesn't like me. Yet if you just stay out of their way you have no issue.
Managers like that don't last long.
Also office politics is so strawberry floating stupid. It's so hard not to get involved somehow.

Errkal wrote:

Buffalo wrote:Getting your colleagues involved? No no no no, absolutely not. Tell them strawberry float all, ask for none of their advice, say nothing. Horrific idea.

gooseberry fool didn't see that bit!

God yeah don't do that! It would basically be you going "why don't you like me!"

If I can't ask my team leader for advice then what the hell am I meant to do. I can't fix an attitude problem I don't know I have.

Qikz wrote:

Errkal wrote:

Buffalo wrote:Getting your colleagues involved? No no no no, absolutely not. Tell them strawberry float all, ask for none of their advice, say nothing. Horrific idea.

gooseberry fool didn't see that bit!

God yeah don't do that! It would basically be you going "why don't you like me!"

If I can't ask my team leader for advice then what the hell am I meant to do. I can't fix an attitude problem I don't know I have.

Going to your boss and asking for constructive feedback is a different kettle of fish to whining about yourself to your work mates, chief.

Buffalo wrote:

Qikz wrote:

Errkal wrote:

Buffalo wrote:Getting your colleagues involved? No no no no, absolutely not. Tell them strawberry float all, ask for none of their advice, say nothing. Horrific idea.

gooseberry fool didn't see that bit!

God yeah don't do that! It would basically be you going "why don't you like me!"

If I can't ask my team leader for advice then what the hell am I meant to do. I can't fix an attitude problem I don't know I have.

Going to your boss and asking for constructive feedback is a different kettle of fish to whining about yourself to your work mates, chief.

Yeah this, you can go to the boss and say you would some feedback about what could be the cause of the issues, but going to work mates and going "Hi, you don't like me, what can I change about myself to make you like me?" isn't a good idea.

1cmanny1 wrote:Mucked around a bit over Christmas and applied for a new job. (Due to usual end of year blues).
Couple of interviews later and they offered me a job. Much higher salary but would mean I need to move into a more expensive area (I'm never commuting again - it's just not worth it). It didn't make sense financially.

So I sat my current boss down and demanded more money. I didn't even mention the job offer - if you don't think I am worth it then strawberry float you.
Got the 25% pay-rise I wanted, and he didn't even bother to make sure I had more responsibilities or work. No resistance at all.

So glad I put the effort into those interviews - gave me the confidence I needed and a good indication of my market worth.



Reading Staydeads thing - the funny thing in my job is that I am sure my bosses boss doesn't like me. Yet if you just stay out of their way you have no issue.
Managers like that don't last long.
Also office politics is so strawberry floating stupid. It's so hard not to get involved somehow.

Well done Manny on getting the pay rise. The amount of snark I got from my last employer when I asked for more money made my blood boil.

Has anyone considered buying into a franchise? Some of them seem too good to be true so much they might well be Ponzi schemes.

Dual wrote:Has anyone considered buying into a franchise? Some of them seem too good to be true so much they might well be Ponzi schemes.

Yes! This is something I am interested in and look at from time to time. I was interested in buying a CEX franchise but it seemed like it would take 10 years to get back my initial investment so I didn't pursue it any further.

My dad was gonna do a Costa but it didnt pan out for whatever reason. Think its one of those things where you really have to be in the long haul to see nice returns.

Qikz wrote:

Errkal wrote:

Buffalo wrote:Getting your colleagues involved? No no no no, absolutely not. Tell them strawberry float all, ask for none of their advice, say nothing. Horrific idea.

gooseberry fool didn't see that bit!

God yeah don't do that! It would basically be you going "why don't you like me!"

If I can't ask my team leader for advice then what the hell am I meant to do. I can't fix an attitude problem I don't know I have.

Just burn down the office, I recommend an oil based fuel so that a sprinkler system will just make things worse.

That's an option, I mean save it as a last resort like, but don't rule it out.

My company have sent us a work station risk assessment survey to complete. One of the questions is "do you consider the noise level to be acceptable". I want to be truthful but I wonder if it will come across as being a miserable sod. My answer is:

"Most of the time it’s OK but we do get very loud wailing occasionally coming from the other side of the office. Also, people like to walk over to our desk area talking very loudly on the phone which can be distracting."

That wailing is people very loudly laughing in a high pitch right by people who are often on the phone. It's quite annoying. Should I keep it?

Blue Eyes wrote:My company have sent us a work station risk assessment survey to complete. One of the questions is "do you consider the noise level to be acceptable". I want to be truthful but I wonder if it will come across as being a miserable sod. My answer is:

"Most of the time it’s OK but we do get very loud wailing occasionally coming from the other side of the office. Also, people like to walk over to our desk area talking very loudly on the phone which can be distracting."

That wailing is people very loudly laughing in a high pitch right by people who are often on the phone. It's quite annoying. Should I keep it?

If you want it addressed keep it.

I'd probably change the wording from wailing to just noise though.

So the switch for us Cheltenham General Hospital porters to subsidiary company 'SubCo' finally became a reality last week. No real changes as of yet, obviously, but according to the meeting that followed they have one month to get the ball rolling on any and all planned changes.

Tomous wrote:

Blue Eyes wrote:My company have sent us a work station risk assessment survey to complete. One of the questions is "do you consider the noise level to be acceptable". I want to be truthful but I wonder if it will come across as being a miserable sod. My answer is:

"Most of the time it’s OK but we do get very loud wailing occasionally coming from the other side of the office. Also, people like to walk over to our desk area talking very loudly on the phone which can be distracting."

That wailing is people very loudly laughing in a high pitch right by people who are often on the phone. It's quite annoying. Should I keep it?

If you want it addressed keep it.

I'd probably change the wording from wailing to just noise though.

I like the specificity of "wailing", though. It describes the irritating noise well. I do take your point, though.

Applied for a job for the first time in a year, only felt the need to actually start applying elsewhere as there is next to no chance of a meaningful career where I currently work as they recently announced a huge cut and streamlining of the management structure making the few promotions that come up even fewer and further between.

Makes me realise how much of a bore I am though, was stuck on the hobbies and interests section for far too long! Oh well sent off now, should hear a firm no in the next 7 days or so (yes, I'm a bit of a pessimist!). Hopefully finally applying for something else will kick start finding a new job at some point in the next year or so, not going to rush to leave my current job (even though its far from ideal) for something I really don't fancy, plus a lot of the people I work with are a right laugh so I definitely don't want a sideways move.