Dreaming…about Work

As you can tell my blog has been preoccupied with work the past few weeks. As I think about my next career move, I thought it would be helpful to explain my thoughts on work and how it fits into my life.

I believe that there are 2 ways to think about work. Either you "live to work" or you "work to live". I, for one, subscribe to the latter. I don't spend every waking minute thinking about work. My work does not consume me (probably because I don't have/run my own business). I think of work as something I do so that I can earn enough to live comfortably, to be with my wife and family, to take care of our pets, to pursue hobbies, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some lazy SOB. I AM very ambitious. I work hard to get promoted, to be promoted where I'll run the show one day, to get rewarded and make more money, etc. However, I want balance in my life where I can enjoy the life that work affords me.

One of the things I've told close friends is that when I start dreaming of work, it's time to look for a new job. My thought on this is that once your work seeps into one's sub-conscience, it has consumed you. That's where I am now as I had a dream about work last night.

In my dream, I was actually laid off by the company. My manager and HR rep pulled me into a conference room and gave me the news. However, rather than be shocked and saddened by the news, I got up and started dancing with joy. I know I shouldn't laugh (or make light of this) as many many people are out of work and I should be thankful to have a job. However, I found it funny that I celebrated being laid off in my dream.

How bad must it be for me to start thinking this way? Would it be better off for me to quit and be happy OR should I bear the misery to continue earning the paycheck? If I was single, the answer would be easy as I would have quit months ago. But as I'm married and have more than myself to take care of, I've chosen the latter and praying that a new profitable opportunity comes up within the next few weeks.

Grow the Company by Waiting for the Market to Turnaround

Well, here's another sure sign that I'm working for the wrong company. Rather than try to take market share from our competitors or come up with new products that users would get excited about, we're counting on the market/economy to turn around to drive the company's growth for the next year or two.

I don't know about you, but waiting for the pie to get bigger is not my idea of a successful corporate growth strategy. What makes our executives think that the economy will turn around and drive 20%+ growth next year? Seriously, I need to find out what they're smoking.

If I was running the company, I would never depend on the economy to be the only driver of the company's growth. Why place the company's future on something the company cannot control? How about trying to take market share from competitors? How about improving the current website by optimizing it (to improve conversion and click through rates)? Oh, right....that involves work and sound business fundamentals. Items that are non-existent at the company.

Sigh...I need a new job.

Worst Career Choice...EVER!

As it turns out, my situation at work got worse. I got thrown under the bus and have the tread marks on my back to show for it. A month ago I was told I had the smoothest running project of the 5 projects the company was undertaking in a massive website redesign initiative. Yesterday, I was told I wasn't doing my job and that I would be written up for it during mid-year reviews.

My reaction was WTF! You have got to be kidding me. The reason for the sudden turn? The Dev Director complained that I did not have all the business rules for a particular component thought through. Are you fucking kidding me? We're a fucking agile shop - we do this all the time. It's our fucking process...and he calls me out for this!

I've had it with this place. Accepting the offer to work here is hands down my worst career choice! I should have stuck with my previous job, even though we went through 4 rounds of layoffs in 3 months. I would have been happier there.

I have excellent references from all my previous employers. I know I didn't get stupid overnight nor did I forget how to be a good Product Manager. If you need a reminder of how bad my current company is run, just read this and this.

Maybe I should get myself this for Xmas:

The Dysfunctional Workplace: Part 2

For those of you who read my earlier post, I'm sure you're probably thinking that almost everyone has a few complaints about their workplace. I'm sure you're right, but I honestly feel that my current company (let's call them CDE) is one of the worst.

With Labor Day just a few days away, I thought I would do a more detailed post about CDE. Without further ado...

On the surface, one would assume that CDE would be a fabulous place to work. CDE is located in sunny Southern California, in one of the nicest office complexes around; one gets exposed to the latest and greatest widgets and widget news in the widget obsessed culture that is Southern California; the pay is decent and the benefits are top notch - where else do you get 13 paid holidays a year along with the ability to earn 3 weeks of paid time off (PTO)?

Alas, that is where the positives end and the cons begin. Grab a seat, get your popcorn and soda, and be prepared for the inner workings of the most dysfunctional workplace ever!

Let's begin...in no particular order:

1. Can you say bloated? One of the only straight shooters in the company commented to me once that CDE could fire half it's employees and be no worse for wear. He is absolutely spot on. Seriously! There are people "working" at CDE that I have absolutely no clue as to what they do. These people add absolutely no value. While I admire Senior Management for not wanting to lay off people, CDE is in the business of making money. CDE should not be a charity. Get rid of the dead weight already.
   
   
2. There is absolutely no sense of urgency within the rank and file. Things get done when they get done. Internet companies typically release updates to their website every 3 to 6 weeks. At CDE it takes 3 to 6 months...and we're an agile/scrum shop to boot. There's seriously nothing agile about the company.
   
   
3. No one really cares if they do a good job or not. Since no one ever gets fired or laid off, why bother doing a good job? There are no serious repercussions for a job poorly done. Sure, you may get marginalized, but you are still employed and doing less than before for the same salary. No wonder no one ever leaves! Sometimes I wonder if I'm working in a union for a government agency.
   
   
4. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Everyone has a say at CDE, but no one is truly responsible for anything. Worst yet, you may be given the responsibility to get things done, but you have no authority to get them done. I'm one of these "unlucky" individuals and I'm hating every fucking minute of my job.
   
   
5. Before working here, someone had told me that CDE does a lot of numbers crunching and places a lot of emphasis on the numbers. That's true when it applies to calculating widget prices within a given area or projecting the annual widget sales rate, but CDE has a serious problem with using numbers to run the business. What good is knowing your page views for the previous week when there are no revenue numbers associated with it? How does someone run a business when no one has a clue as to whether the company made any money yesterday or is making any money so far today? If one truly looked at the web statistics, it tells us that CDE's website has a serious abandonment/bounce rate issue, but yet the company doesn't undertake any project to address it. WTF! We spent money to acquire visitors to our website, but we let them go without monetizing them. Can someone please explain that to me?
   
   
6. At CDE, we're paid to take orders...we're not paid to think or be smart business people. You can have real world data and have tested something fabulous, but if a senior exec already has his mind made up on how something should be, get ready to throw out months of work to execute their exact whim.
   
   
7. If you are new to CDE, don't expect your fellow employees to come up with great new ideas to grow the business. Everyone is conditioned to do what they are told...and no more than that. Employees do the bare minimum. Anything that will cause extra work is frowned upon.
   
   
8. Don't even get me started on the number of times that management changes its mind. Management can be involved and have sat through months of meetings, but they'll change their minds at the last minute and we'll be starting all over again.
   
   
9. Politics, politics, politics. CDE is good at politics. Almost everything is politicized. I'd be hard pressed to name one thing that isn't politicized as all the powers that be are building their little fiefdoms and trying to wrest more and more under their control. Back handed slaps and comments to weaken your rivals, saying one thing to your face while doing something completely different to wreck your project are all part of the game here.
   
   
10. Can you say passive aggressive? Almost everyone at CDE is passive aggressive. No one ever says anything negative to your face. It always goes up the chain of command and back down to you in your formal review. I don't know about you, but if someone doesn't like my work or has issues with it, I expect them to come to me so we can address it. Going to my manager and not giving me the opportunity to ask questions to understand what the complaint is does no one any good. Are we still in grade school that you can't tell me what's wrong? I must have been mistaken to think that we're all professional, working adults. My bad!
    
    
11. CDE needs to stop lying to itself by thinking its a technology company. It clearly is not as the company has never learned to use the off-the-shelf technologies it has bought nor has it ever developed anything of value internally. Again, it takes CDE 3-6 months to release anything onto the website. Enough said!
    
    
12. For being an Internet company, CDE is deathly afraid of change. If something isn't final or completed, no one is going to touch it or work on it. Even the smallest changes, such as changing the color of a button or changing the button location, elicits a big groan from the Development organization. Since when does the Internet stand still for us to "perfect" everything? Isn't the whole point of an Internet company or website to change/adapt quickly and iterate over time to get better? I guess no one ever informed CDE of this!

If these cons amount to anything positive, it's that working at CDE allows for great work-life balance. As you can imagine, it's strictly a 9 to 6 job since no one really stays in the office past 6pm.

To recap for you:

CDE Pros: Great benefits, such as 3 weeks of PTO and lots of paid holidays. Good work life balance.

CDE Cons: Too many to list...and trying to call out just one or two would be a disservice. I don't want people to think that CDE is better than it actually is.

My Advice to Management: Run the company like a money making business with headcount that matches the revenue numbers. Stop running the business like a hole-in-the-wall taco stand. (Apologies as I just insulted taco stands!)

The Dysfunctional Workplace

Can I tell you that I honestly hate the company that I work at!?! It has got to be the most dysfunctional company I've had the "pleasure" of working for in my career. This is the one place where shit never gets done and no one seems to care.

Honestly, I've never been at a place with such a lack of urgency, business sense and enthusiasm. Everyone just comes to work, does as little as possible and goes home. (And "NO", I do not work for the government. It's actually a private company...a family owned and family run company.)

What I hate is that I have all the responsibility, but none of the authority. All the authority resides with senior management. The senior execs love throwing their $0.02 in every chance they get and don't mind throwing a monkey wrench into the works even though the monkey wrench flies in the face of logic or a decision they helped make a few weeks earlier.

It's just a fucking nightmare working for these people. If I can just find a new gig, I would thoroughly enjoy resigning from my position!