Boss puts development team on Craigslist Call it compassionate capitalism or a desire to do good in these darkening times, but one US manager has placed a "for hire" ad online touting his developers' skills just one day after being forced to axe them. The ex-boss of three PHP, MySQL and Perl programmers has turned to Craigslist touting the "amazing" trio's skills …
Stefan, my team leader did the same thing when Cray wiped out the remainder of the EU software development base.
He contacted many of Cray's competitors offering our entire team in the chance we could still keep working together. A couple of nibbles but we all had jobs before folks like IBM woke up to the opportunity :-)
Of course, in thise days we had no problem finding jobs and out of ~30devs and ~8 management in the UK, I don't think anyone did not have a job before the notice period was up.
The funniest bit was the managers (mostly developers or ex-dev themselves) were sent to an 'executive retraining camp' to network with other ex-mungers. A bunch of "over the hill"[0] (>40) MBA's all being told they were effectively unemployable by the consulatncy hired to retrain them. When half of our management told then 'network' they had new job offers in the first two weekly meetings I think the cionsultancy (and the rest of the network) knew they were not dealing with the normal MBA crud...
Also some of the "crusties" there began to realise that everything the retrainers were saying may not have been in ex-managers best interest.
Jacqui
[0] The retrainers had a pretty graph and losts of 'facts's showing that an MBA over 40 was unemployable and they should retrain for a new job.
p.s. I still have a photo collage of the old team hanging on my wall from ~15 years ago.
A tiny but telling example of what you could call molecular social transformation - capitalism turning itself into its opposite from inside. Management become wage-slaves showing active solidarity with their fellow wage-slave teammates, ignoring the owners' bottom line, repudiating the owners' (and their retrainer agents') way of thinking of things.
If the socialist aspect (solidarity, cooperation, planning on a social rather than company scale, society run by ex-wage-slaves for wage-slaves-no-more) becomes more prominent, then we could talk about guerrilla change.
Tux for the parallels.
Perhaps Creative should do the same for their programmers for the various sound cards they sell after the following gaff about terminating the assistance of one very helpful product user with his Vista(tm) work around drivers to get these card to function correctly !
On the Creative website link some 75 pages of vitriol and rising faster then a rocket to the moon link= http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332&view=by_date_ascending&page=75
<rant>
A colleague recently left the company he had been working at. The company were very pleased with his work and he parted on amicable terms, as any professional should strive to.
He told me that a few weeks before he left, he asked his boss if there was any company procedure to pass on knowledge before people leave. His boss said no.
Surprised, he continued to go about his job as usual.
As the last few days approached, he said he got an uncomfortable feeling; he wasn't happy about *not* passing on the knowledge. He wrote about ten sides of information, including useful names, phone numbers of contacts in other departments, outlining his test methologies and the type of equipment he had been using for the testwork.
On his leaving day, he waved the sheets of paper around and asked who he should give the information to. To his surprise, nobody wanted them. He put them on his desk and left.
I find it extraordinary that a company would choose to refuse good advice or useful information, whenever it is offered so readily. This was a talented and professionally qualified engineer with years of experience.
Do you know a 'colander' company / organisation?
</rant>
>> I find it extraordinary that a company would choose to refuse good advice or useful information, whenever it is offered so readily. This was a talented and professionally qualified engineer with years of experience. <<
I know the feelling well... I retired (aging myself, I know) from the Post Office, from a position last year where much of the work I did, I was the only one in the office who knew what needed to be done, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual reports, IT support, etc. I gave the boss three months notice, and waited and waited to be told who to pass 35+ years of knowledge to... Three weeks before I left, the boss, who had been there on a one year detail, returned to his permanent office two hours away, and a temporary boss came in... Another week went by... I was finally told to train one person on one small portion of my job... And I had to fit that training around her work schedule, so I ended up being able to give her about eight hours training...
Sure enough, the week after I retired, my former supervisor called me a half dozen times... the first time while I was standing in front of the ToonTown Post Office at Disneyland... One of the calls was because there was no one left in the office knew where the control box for the alarm system was located and a Postal Inspector needed access to the system.
Not an unusual course of events in my experience...
For a proper handover to take place the organisation has to move on from the denial stage and accept that you are leaving (whether voluntarily or redundantly). Then someone to take on your responsibilities must be identified (or hired). No one inside the company is generally jumping at the chance to take on more work for no extra pay, and the new hire process usually takes too long...
I was left in a position one on occasion when my nominated successor was not going to accept my handover notes and briefing because they were 'not in the right format'. I had to have a little heart to heart with him explaining everything he needed to know was there, and that at the end of the week I was going to be gone, his call...
In my experience I have always put together a handover document of some description - and if I can find someone to run through it with I will. I have almost always had a thank you from my successor down the line...
I think the manager deserves a bit of appreciation for his/her efforts to help them find new positions anyway possible. Many times, budget cuts (wise or not) are handed down and there's simply no choice.
It's somewhat comforting to know that their tallents were recognized and the fact that their former boss would take the time/effort/energy (probably in violation of corporate policy regarding personal recommendations) is laudable in my books.
Kudos to him/her.
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