Lol I'm pretty sure not being bored to tears with Excel is the weirdo, not you I don't mind it, I quite enjoy figuring these things out and I still don't feel comfortable being involved in anything too important or meetings etc since my illnesss so I'm happy just being left alone to get on with stuff. I wouldn't say I enjoy my job, but equally I'm not looking elsewhere as they've been quite understanding regarding my health issues, I can work from home and I sort of know what I'm doing. Anything new would overwhelm me to be honest. And as you say, right now just having a job is a bonus really!

Yay, 2 years, congrats!

Maybe once we meet in person again. But thanks! Like I said I don't have anything official in my hands yet so for now nothing has changed or will change, but if all goes well it should be done in a couple of months.

Pev, I'd likely have to move back to Belgium again of all places. It's not a problem tho, I didn't leave Belgium because I hated it or anything, it was mostly just a coincidence that I rolled from one job and country into another. But I haven't lived in Belgium in 10+ years so it's gonna be strange being back as someone who actually lives and works there instead of on holiday!

Good to hear you still got your job despite all the changes at the company - must have been a bit dicey there for a moment. Funnily enough, many of my colleagues in my current job are somewhat hoping for a round of layoffs as they have 15 years of seniority and are likely to take home an annual salary or more as a severance fee. I've heard through the grapevine that one of the former managers in my department was let go with 100k (!!) in her pocket not too long ago...she wasn't even that high up and barely competent. So I can't blame my colleagues for hoping for a similar payout. I've only officially got 3 years under my belt so I won't be hitting the jackpot though. So leaving was a better option.

@ Satis I also got some stock which was worth about 5k when they gave it to me and then became even more in the year after that. And then...the tech stock market crashed. My company's stock has lost almost 80% of its value over the past year. And I can't sell it yet (hasn't vested). Some of my colleagues held about 30-40k in company stock because of how long they worked there and saw their rainy day funds mostly wiped out, so I'm the lucky one.

Keep us up to date on your job adventures! Sounds like you're in a good position, even if it means you have to go live in Belgium of all places.

I'm still working at my job. I still haven't been promoted to a senior developer, which is starting to stick in my craw a bit. I was a senior developer in my previous company, so the fact I haven't made that here yet really irritates me. It was a completely different tech stack, so not being hired in as senior was fine by me... but 2 years is a long time and I'm significantly more competent now than I was. Ah well... I'll just be a very squeaky wheel until they give in to my demands.

Still slowly vesting my stuff. My stock options are still not worth it as they're below the actual stock value, but with the industry I'm in I expect I'll be able to weather this economy fairly well. Eventually I suspect (hope) I'll be able to make some bank. We shall see.

Oh... to stay in line with the topic, I do not hate my job yet, just certain parts of it.

Will do! I did a full medical last week and had to send in endless papers and I'm still waiting to hear from them....Christmas vacation didn't help the speed of the process any obviously. But I'm expecting an offer shortly. Fingers crossed!

I also have to go to Madagascar (of all places) for work in about 2 weeks...was hoping I'd get the offer before that and could tell my director that there's no point in wasting money on a trip for me seeing as I might be out soon, but I think it'll be too late for that. It's only a business visit of a week and I will just be in the office and the hotel, but it's a really poor country with active malaria transmission and even outbreaks of the plague (!). Not to mention risks of cyclones etc, and the almost inevitable traveller's diarrhea. So yeah not looking forward to that. Especially since they scrapped business class flights about 6 months ago. Bleh.

I just checked and my company stock was worth 8500k at its peak about a year ago, and is worth 2500k today. Jeez haha. One of my colleagues with more tenure and more stock said his stocks lost about 50k over the same period. Anyway it vests in July and I don't get to cash it in if I leave before that, so in a sense it might be better for my decision if it's in the toilet. Walking away from 2.5 or 8.5k is a big difference!

Sounds like they are 'taking advantage' of you a little Satis...definitely a time to start annoying them until they pay up, I'd say. Your line of work is probably very competitive so I doubt they want to lose you and fit someone else in, they might have more to lose than you if you decide to up and go. But correct me if I'm wrong.

So it's like Arkansas? Well, I hope you enjoy your trip to the apparent hell-hole that is Madagascar. I also hope you get that new job, but in such a way you hold on to your stock options or grant or whatever it is you have.

Haha thanks but the way our company is going I doubt they're gonna cut me slack on the stock grant just because they like me. We can use every last penny. Anyway still waiting on the official offer.

As for Madagascar, I'm sure it won't be so bad but it's the first time I'm going so I don't really know what I'm getting into. So don't want to be too foolhardy. But I've had colleagues go there for years and it's not like they all got malaria or worse haha. But there is a chance of it happening. And seeing as I'm going there for work and may not be working for my current employer for much longer I don't really see the point of doing anything a bit more out there like going for beers with the local staff. I'm gonna be a boring guy and work and then eat and sleep in my fancy pants hotel without taking any risks.

So, I officially resigned from my current job and accepted the offer at the other place. Not a moment to soon it seems, as they just announced that 10% of the personnel at my current job in Paris will be laid off. It wasn't hard to see it coming, since our stock has been horrible for about a year and a half now and every other tech company in the world has been doing the exact same thing lately. All in all it's just a PR exercise as we are still growing and making ridiculous amounts of profits, but gotta do something to get the people to buy our stock again I guess.

It put me a bit in an awkward position as they announced the redundancies around the same time as I got the job offer, so I waited for a few days to see if I was among the 'victims' before actually resigning...in France you can't just fire people if you get rid of a lot of them at the same time, there's a long regulated process and song and dance with the union so most of these people will get a nice severance package (depending on how long they've been with the company). While it was pretty clear I wasn't gonna get fired, I was still trying to see if I could get the severance pay AND have the security of the new job but alas. I guess I shouldn't complain, being pretty lucky in the greater scheme of things...

But just for some perspective: 2 people in my department who left 'voluntarily' (that is, the company wanted to get rid of them so cut a deal) over the past year or two have gotten respectively 40k + an expensive course paid, and 100k. It pays off to stay somewhere for 10+ years, then become so unbearable that they are willing to throw insane amounts of money at you for you to just leave. Sadly, that hasn't happened to me yet. If I go into HR saying 'guys I want to leave, what do you give me if I go' they'll go 'lol we don't want you to leave, you ain't getting jack shit'.

Congrats Ox! Sounds like you timed it perfectly too, redundancy time is always so much fun... Those are some insane redundancy packages, the French do know how to protest until they get something though haha. I think the standard over here is 1 weeks pay for every year you've been with the company provided you've been there more than 2 years. So I'd get about 3 months-worth of pay if I was made redundant now. About £3k for having been there for 12 years!

Speaking of, our company has just been going through redundancies. We seem to every year around this time for the past 8 years (though not during covid thanks to the furloughs). We've had a huge uproar for the last few months due to the cost of living crisis anyway and at every single company-wide call there have been questions about pay review. They keep saying February, as that's when we always have them, and promising everyone will get a pay rise, then two weeks ago we had a sudden invite for a call that day (never a good sign) and now we have around 5% of the company being made redundant. Pay reviews are being postponed until April because it would be insensitive to discuss that while people are being let go. And then to top it off this Friday our CEO announced he's stepping down. 6th one in the 12 years I've been there and this one I'm actually sorry to see go. All of them say the workforce is the most important thing, but this guy is the only one who has actually shown it in any way. We've had so many wellbeing things under his reign, including monthly "desk exercise" sessions with a PT, monthly nutrition calls with the same PT, multiple mental health charities coming in for company wide talks regularly, financial advice helplines set up, all sorts. I'll be sorry to see him go.

Jeez. Severances and such are definitely not a part of the US work culture, unless maybe you're in a union or in a very worker-friendly state (like California or New York). Texas is a "right to work" state, which translates to the fact that business can do whatever they want as far as hiring and firing is concerned. So yea, if I got laid off, I probably wouldn't see a dime. Thankfully layoffs do not appear to be in the future for my company. They still have a huge retention problem, so getting rid of someone that understands at least partially what's going on is unlikely. I still haven't been promoted though. If I got a job offer making an extra $20k I'd leave in a heartbeat.

Congrats Ox... nice to hear you got out to somewhere new. Hope you enjoy the new position. It's unfortunate you couldn't have taken advantage of a little severance as well, but I guess it's unlikely that the competent people get that kind of reward. Incompetence and whining seems to be the way to get more money, I swear.

Thanks guys! And yeah, that's been my experience too Satis (the incompetent, whiney and obnoxious people coming out with more money than the decent employees)

I guess it's a general fact of life and not just limited to corporate culture. Having worked with customers for a very long time I can tell you that you are WAY better off being a completely unreasonable cunt over even the smallest amount of money even when you are completely not in the right, than to try and be polite and understanding even when you are absolutely in the right. Legal just goes "this guy likely won't actually sue us over such a small amount, but since we'd spend even way more time and money dealing with it than by just giving him the money you better just give it to him". meanwhile, a reasonable person nicely asking for a refund for something that was clearly our fault will be told to fuck off. You know what you have to do next time you speak to customer support.

Fun fact about the redundancies: when they were initially announced the management was like 'you'll know by next week if you are affected'. We're now a month in and nobody knows anything yet. The reason? They have to agree on the redundancy packages offered with the employee/union representation before it can be carried out, and even though neither party can say it out loud it's very clear that they are not in agreement at all and that this is what is causing the holdup. So yeah Pev, the French know how to put pressure on their corporate overlords. Even though the company has a history of paying generous severance fees, it's looking like they are trying to lowball this time...we've heard from people in sattelite offices in other European countries that they were only offered the bare legal minimum even with 15 years of seniority. Which is definitely not what happened in the past. So they're gonna try and do the same in France which is why it will likely take months to be resolved...not that it matters for me I guess.

I'm still working until late April, the starting my new job mid May. Will be nice to step away from the office, imagining it blowing up behind me but me not looking back because I'm too cool.

So I did finally get the promotion I was waiting for, plus an unexpectedly large pay raise. My job is still aggravating me quite a bit, but at least now I have the title and am making quite a bit more money, so I guess I'll stick around for a while longer.

Hooray for pay rises! Congrats Satis

Congratulations!! That's amazing news What sort of annual wage rise are we talking about, percentage wise? Are you planning on blowing some money on a trip or something else as a thank you to yourself?

Meanwhile, I'm still working my super long notice period and busting my balls. The restructuring plan has gone atomic and the union and the management are on the warpath and are accusing each other of negotiating in bad faith, while my colleagues are all still in limbo about whether they're gonna lose their job or not, despite the job cuts being announced more than a month ago. Oh and there's a town hall meeting planned for Tuesday. Good times.

Oh man, that sounds like some epic good times. It might be aggravating if you didn't already have another job lined up. But since you do, I imagine it's a bit of fun. Other than the whole "busting your balls" bit.

To answer your questions, my pay raise was about 15%. That includes both a promotion and the yearly raise, but it's still really high. Compare that to my prior job where 3% as considered average and 0% was not uncommon. I don't plan on doing anything with the extra cash except stick it bank accounts or otherwise invest it. I'm getting old and my retirement saving are less than stellar.