Work

Goodbye Self-employment?

Written by Gerard on Monday 7 September 2009

Well, dear readers, it seems recession, parental deaths and a series of other little factors are pushing me back toward a desk job.

It was almost a year ago that we took the decision to concentrate completely on the business, and I quit my job. For about six months, we were plodding along merrily, the effects of the recession not giving us any cause for concern. Then two things happened:

1. My father took ill in Lourdes, was diagnosed with cancer and died within about three months. It completely took me away from developing our business and into a world of family issues I’d distanced myself from for years. Even after the funeral, my head was fuzzy with grief and I was totally unfocused.
2. The dreaded alliterative nightmare that is the credit crunch visited us. Despite no worrying signs at all, in June advertising revenue from our sites took a massive downturn. Suddenly relying on the great passive-income generator that is Google AdSense (and other advertising schemes) didn’t seem like a great idea anymore.

Now, the summer time is a bad time for ad revenue anyway: people go on holiday or spend more time outdoors. You can feel the general quieting of the Internet for the holiday period. Plus, Big Brother was bleeding viewers, the showbiz world decided to have a slow-news summer and the only thing to write about was the Katie and Peter split. Yawnnnn.

P-P-Pissed Off With Work

Written by Gerard on Sunday 27 July 2008

There's not much to say in this post except that Friday was an exceptionally bad day in work. Without naming names, I had a run-in with my line manager, who I feel is either misdirecting me or downright lying to me.

In the first instance, I moved jobs on the agreement that I'd start on the same salary as my last job, then be reassessed after 6 months and salary adjusted accordingly. I've spent the last year (no, it didn't happen at 6 months!) working very hard to bring our IT up to speed. Not only was there a gap in service between the previous IT manager and myself, but the time I joined was a period of massive upheaval for the company.

So, I expected my salary to be reviewed and to be compensated accordingly toward the upper end of the salary scale for my post. But I've been chasing this issue for the last few months without success. Eventually, I was told by my line manager that someone in our global IT had vetoed the increase. However, the same manager had implied some months earlier that if I could stop my flexible working arrangements, we might be able to swing something on the salary review. Seriously? What happened to my performance review?

And at the same time, a preparatory audit generated a list of actions that need to be carried out to bring our IT procedures in line with new standards being implemented. Which means the job will become even more intensive over the coming months.

My feeling at the moment is of rage and frustration. Why should I commit even more energy to this company when I've obviously been screwed over? I love the job, and the people I work with are fantastic, but the further up the corporate ladder you look, there's a lot of slimy double-talk and backstabbing to contend with.

I guess every barrel has a few rotten apples. I just need to work out where to go from here.