I can't sleep because....

Floof

Haha You’re welcome 

fields5069

randella said:

Foster said:

fields5069 said:

Apparently there's nothing illegal about filling a position without advertising. Immoral, certainly. Illegal, no.

Why is it Immoral? My position wasn't advertised as it was created for me.

I feel it's a lot less immoral than advertising a vacancy for which you've already lined up a candidate. 

I've had at least one of those interviews where you just know from the off that you're pissing in the wind. Demoralising in the extreme. 

Well, it's certainly doing nothing for morale. I suppose it's no wonder that sociopaths are running the country. I really can't handle it to be honest, that "It's only business" type of thing. If there's a principal role being created then I know of at least 4 in the team with 10 years plus experience in the company who would be interested. We would just have to trust that the cards weren't marked. If the guy applied and got it after that then I'd feel better at having tried and been looked over than just fucked over full stop.

Whilst advertising and interviewing are not legal requirements, there are sometimes grounds for discrimination when this sort of thing happens. It depends on the role, of course. If at least one of us senior permies could have done it then it may be worthwhile pursuing the complaint, although people usually don't I guess. It happened to my mum, a new role created which she would have gone for but someone else was installed just like that. It forced her into early retirement.

At least if I do I may get my cards marked and get redundancy easier when the inevitable "transformation" takes place in a year or so. We're getting TUPE'd to the mothership before too long, but I think I'm in the position of being the expert on a platform, so inconvenient if I leave, but yet looked over for promotion because I'm not mouthy enough. I should be doing less work and more talk, it's the way of the world.

Redundancy would be 28-30 weeks' pay for me, depending on when it happened in the next couple of years. I could still end up with a handy wedge if I take a few months to sort some work out, and have that important buffer if I manage to start contracting.

Well, that went off message a bit, but maybe this will turn out for the best.

randella

fields5069 said:

Well, it's certainly doing nothing for morale. I suppose it's no wonder that sociopaths are running the country. I really can't handle it to be honest, that "It's only business" type of thing. If there's a principal role being created then I know of at least 4 in the team with 10 years plus experience in the company who would be interested. We would just have to trust that the cards weren't marked. If the guy applied and got it after that then I'd feel better at having tried and been looked over than just fucked over full stop.

Whilst advertising and interviewing are not legal requirements, there are sometimes grounds for discrimination when this sort of thing happens. It depends on the role, of course. If at least one of us senior permies could have done it then it may be worthwhile pursuing the complaint, although people usually don't I guess. It happened to my mum, a new role created which she would have gone for but someone else was installed just like that. It forced her into early retirement.

At least if I do I may get my cards marked and get redundancy easier when the inevitable "transformation" takes place in a year or so. We're getting TUPE'd to the mothership before too long, but I think I'm in the position of being the expert on a platform, so inconvenient if I leave, but yet looked over for promotion because I'm not mouthy enough. I should be doing less work and more talk, it's the way of the world.

Redundancy would be 28-30 weeks' pay for me, depending on when it happened in the next couple of years. I could still end up with a handy wedge if I take a few months to sort some work out, and have that important buffer if I manage to start contracting.

Well, that went off message a bit, but maybe this will turn out for the best.

Yeah sorry about that! I was probably off-message a bit myself and should have qualified what I said by saying "advertised externally".  There's nothing worse than coming for an interview as an outsider knowing the team's already stitched it up between them.

As for internal vacancies, fine - if you want to recruit internally then go for it.  Although, as you've neatly illustrated, it needs doing by the book to keep things fair. 

Your situation is a whole new bucket of crap and I hope it gets straightened out one way or another, and you don't come off the worse for it chap. We spend some horrible percentage of our lives at work, there's no need for it to add more unnecessary  shite to daily existence. 

fields5069

Thanks. I've just seen the new org charts, the rumours are confirmed. Kick in the teeth. I guess I've been lucky compared to some, the first shit thing that's happened to me in the work place.

ESBlonde

Mostly (but not exclusivly) through my career the best pay rises/cantract terms have been given by me moving my services to another employer. (Not all by any means and staying put has many compensations)

So are your skills transferrable? Is you commute a big issue or would it be if you took off elsewhere? Do you have family reasons to stay put (partner works there or local making joint commute cheaper).

There is a lot of upheaval leaving an established position, there is a lot to be gained if you have a decent CV/skill set and can be flexible and mobile.

fields5069

Yeah the commute would be from Newport Wales to Newbury, assuming I could find work at the next nearest operator. Not ideal, but there are some home based vacancies I see turning up from time to time. I missed applying for one by a couple of days recently, in hindsight I should have at least tried to get an interview of some sort.

My manager is in the office tomorrow, so I'll have a word with him then. There are at least 3 of us who are upset, a colleague was told in no uncertain terms that there would not be another principal in the team.

The only trick I can see them pulling is to convince HR that the contract role was at principal level, hence all that's happening is that role is being converted to permanent. This is bollocks. The role wasn't even senior, just very technical, as there wasn't much vendor management involved.

Another possibility is that this guy's role will be something he is expert in, and we are not. In this case it's then up to us to keep tabs that he is doing that role, and not just hiding under a name. All very unsavoury. I can remember the halcyon days when I joined this ex-fruity operator when it was still fruity. It still had Hans Snook's fingerprints all over it, a really chilled place to work.

Phil_aka_Pip

fields5069 said:

Yeah the commute would be from Newport Wales to Newbury,

That's one heck of a distance. I wouldn't, unless it was so lucrative that in 1 year I made enough money to last me for the rest of my life without having to work again.

fields5069

fields5069 said:

The only trick I can see them pulling is to convince HR that the contract role was at principal level, hence all that's happening is that role is being converted to permanent. This is bollocks. The role wasn't even senior, just very technical, as there wasn't much vendor management involved.

This is quite literally the shit they have pulled, which I guess is one way of getting around the discrimination case.

capo4th

fields5069 said:

randella said:

Foster said:

fields5069 said:

Apparently there's nothing illegal about filling a position without advertising. Immoral, certainly. Illegal, no.

Why is it Immoral? My position wasn't advertised as it was created for me.

I feel it's a lot less immoral than advertising a vacancy for which you've already lined up a candidate. 

I've had at least one of those interviews where you just know from the off that you're pissing in the wind. Demoralising in the extreme. 

Well, it's certainly doing nothing for morale. I suppose it's no wonder that sociopaths are running the country. I really can't handle it to be honest, that "It's only business" type of thing. If there's a principal role being created then I know of at least 4 in the team with 10 years plus experience in the company who would be interested. We would just have to trust that the cards weren't marked. If the guy applied and got it after that then I'd feel better at having tried and been looked over than just fucked over full stop.

Whilst advertising and interviewing are not legal requirements, there are sometimes grounds for discrimination when this sort of thing happens. It depends on the role, of course. If at least one of us senior permies could have done it then it may be worthwhile pursuing the complaint, although people usually don't I guess. It happened to my mum, a new role created which she would have gone for but someone else was installed just like that. It forced her into early retirement.

At least if I do I may get my cards marked and get redundancy easier when the inevitable "transformation" takes place in a year or so. We're getting TUPE'd to the mothership before too long, but I think I'm in the position of being the expert on a platform, so inconvenient if I leave, but yet looked over for promotion because I'm not mouthy enough. I should be doing less work and more talk, it's the way of the world.

Redundancy would be 28-30 weeks' pay for me, depending on when it happened in the next couple of years. I could still end up with a handy wedge if I take a few months to sort some work out, and have that important buffer if I manage to start contracting.

Well, that went off message a bit, but maybe this will turn out for the best.

I have found in the world of big business most high level roles are decided before the job is advertised and usually given to a trusted existing employee that fits the role.

fields5069

Yeah this was more of a business-wide decision - bring all long-term contractors in or lose them. It's sneaky though, my manager was virtually contradicting himself when we had a chat. We had no choice but to make him a principal, because that's the level of pay they had to offer. There were fairly weak excuses - he's our perl scripting and DNS guru (nothing someone could take a couple of weeks to get up to speed with, packet core DNS is fairly simple stuff), and he really does already act as a principal (if that's the case then so do I, and why tell me about the salary conundrum?).

My manager made it clear that I only have to be a bit more "out there" to tick all the principal boxes, but I reckon he was just telling me what I wanted to hear. Plus an internal promotion has a pay rise cap on it, so do I really want to be at the same level on 10k less? I think he was genuinely surprised that I spoke out, and I probably wouldn't have done that 5 years ago.

viz

Normally sleep well but I seem to be awake at 4 this morning