Job thread

[Xanthippe]

Yeah I actually haven't had a reference called in years. I generally don't include them in anything unless it is an actual paper application where they have boxes to fill out.

My spouse tells me that employers can face legal action if they give negative references. The last company he worked for only gave positive references. Which is like having no references, really, when you think about it. In California, apparently, a former employee can sue their former employer for giving a bad reference, but a company can't sue another for not giving a bad reference.

[pants]

Yeah I actually haven't had a reference called in years. I generally don't include them in anything unless it is an actual paper application where they have boxes to fill out.

My spouse tells me that employers can face legal action if they give negative references. The last company he worked for only gave positive references. Which is like having no references, really, when you think about it. In California, apparently, a former employee can sue their former employer for giving a bad reference, but a company can't sue another for not giving a bad reference.

Yup, which is why when you get a references, and it says 'Such and such worked here for x years', run a mile.

[Cheddar]

Yeah I actually haven't had a reference called in years. I generally don't include them in anything unless it is an actual paper application where they have boxes to fill out.

My spouse tells me that employers can face legal action if they give negative references. The last company he worked for only gave positive references. Which is like having no references, really, when you think about it. In California, apparently, a former employee can sue their former employer for giving a bad reference, but a company can't sue another for not giving a bad reference.

Very true.  Most places can only say x amount time worked.

Personal references seem ok, but you take the risk on oneself.

[Strazos]

Any advice on how I go about looking into if it's feasible to look for work over there?  Just go on Indeed?  use a recruiter?  Anyone have any specific recruiter recommendations?

Best I have is try to work for a big international organization, then look into opportunities to have them post you abroad.

It really depends on what field you're looking to work in.

[Paelos]

Very true.  Most places can only say x amount time worked.

Personal references seem ok, but you take the risk on oneself.

Why did this become common practice? Why can somebody sue you for telling the truth about your job?

[Yoru]

Any advice on how I go about looking into if it's feasible to look for work over there?  Just go on Indeed?  use a recruiter?  Anyone have any specific recruiter recommendations?

Best I have is try to work for a big international organization, then look into opportunities to have them post you abroad.

It really depends on what field you're looking to work in.

Yeah, putting aside the "be rich" option, you realistically have 3 possibilities:

(1) Do what Straz said. Find a big outfit, join and then look for positions abroad. Oil, mining, finance are good bets. Buddy of mine works for an oil firm and has been posted to northern Norway for several years now.

(2) Be in an "in-demand" occupation, such as chemical engineering. Look at big firms in your target country. You will, in all likelihood, have to already be fluent in the native language. (Except in pure software firms, but those jobs are largely being filled from the UK/eastern europe these days.)

(2a) Look into the local startup scene, if you're in the tech industry. The startup scenes are all pretty international and English-centric, but you will probably need contacts (or spend a lot of time at meet-n-greets) to make inroads.

(3) Go to a country that permits self-employment and either work remotely as a contractor OR try to find local non-career type work (e.g. dishwashing, DJing). As a contractor, you'll want to have a history of freelance work to show the immigration authorities and/or active contracts to support yourself. Local non-career stuff is basically the same as living like a service-industry peon back home, but now you also won't speak the language. Have fun.

This latter one's fine if you just want to have a sort of extended drinking-holiday for a year or two.

[Cheddar]

Very true.  Most places can only say x amount time worked.

Personal references seem ok, but you take the risk on oneself.

Why did this become common practice? Why can somebody sue you for telling the truth about your job?

It is a liability issue.  If my reference cost you a new job it opens the company to litigation, or summtin.  If I give a personal reference it leaves me at risk.

You would be surprised over some of the stuff people sue over.

[Abagadro]

You can be sued for anything. You won't necessarily lose but companies have become so risk adverse to just the nuisance value of such things that they wildly overcompensate in my experience.

[Paelos]

You can be sued for anything. You won't necessarily lose but companies have become so risk adverse to just the nuisance value of such things that they wildly overcompensate in my experience.

That's pretty ridiculous. I am fairly sure you can't win a suit against somebody telling the truth. I understand not wanting to deal with the costs, but good grief.

[schild]

There's nothing I want more than to rabidly tell employers how shitty some of my co-workers were. I'm sure it goes both ways.

[Abagadro]

You can be sued for anything. You won't necessarily lose but companies have become so risk adverse to just the nuisance value of such things that they wildly overcompensate in my experience.

That's pretty ridiculous. I am fairly sure you can't win a suit against somebody telling the truth. I understand not wanting to deal with the costs, but good grief.

[KallDrexx]

You can be sued for anything. You won't necessarily lose but companies have become so risk adverse to just the nuisance value of such things that they wildly overcompensate in my experience.

That's pretty ridiculous. I am fairly sure you can't win a suit against somebody telling the truth. I understand not wanting to deal with the costs, but good grief.

Most likely if an employer says something bad about a former employee it is not going to be 100% factual and will probably have a tiny bit of opinion type of content in it.  Since opinion can't be fact or not that will be the factor it is litigatd on under the pretense of the old employer working out a vendetta against the employee.

[Paelos]

You can be sued for anything. You won't necessarily lose but companies have become so risk adverse to just the nuisance value of such things that they wildly overcompensate in my experience.

That's pretty ridiculous. I am fairly sure you can't win a suit against somebody telling the truth. I understand not wanting to deal with the costs, but good grief.

Made me laugh.

[Cheddar]

You can be sued for anything. You won't necessarily lose but companies have become so risk adverse to just the nuisance value of such things that they wildly overcompensate in my experience.

That's pretty ridiculous. I am fairly sure you can't win a suit against somebody telling the truth. I understand not wanting to deal with the costs, but good grief.

Most likely if an employer says something bad about a former employee it is not going to be 100% factual and will probably have a tiny bit of opinion type of content in it.  Since opinion can't be fact or not that will be the factor it is litigatd on under the pretense of the old employer working out a vendetta against the employee.

Takes 1 bad manager to cost millions.  Outside of that, even if you settle or win, it is still a cost.

Thus, not allowed.  It makes sense at a high level, but sucks when good people ask for a reference.  At that point it is on me.

[Signe]

This is brand spanking new!  My brother in law is part of a company just starting up, although he's worked with the man who's starting it for like a million years.  They're hiring.  They have really nice office space, too.  The company is in San Fransisco but there's also a job opening in NYC.  HEY SAM!  You're in San Fransisco, no?  The whole package is awesomely good sounding.  Look at the job listings and if you're interested, have at it.  Please!  GET A JOB YOU LAZY BUMS!!!

PS  The spankings are part of the benefit package.

https://cloudhelix.com/careers.html

[Chimpy]

It has "cloud" in the name  .

[schild]

And helix. It's like a web 2.0 name generator result. I suppose it's better than Cloudr or Helixr though.

[Signe]

I know.  I don't like clouds either.  It's just a name, though.  I suggested they name their company Dave but it seems no one wants to name their company Dave.  It's disappointing.  I'm pretty sure you won't find naked pictures of yourself floating around their cloud, though.  Pretty sure.    Because of the man who started this oddly named company, I have no doubt at all that it'll work.  He's pretty brilliant at what he does... which is creating companies that do useful things.  The spankings, however... those should be your prime motivator.

Oh great.  Prime Motivator.  Now I have a giraffe stuck in my head. 

[Bunk]

This seems as good a thread as any for this. Looks like my company is about to be bought out by Newscorp. Yay? 

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MOVE

It did cause a 37% jump in stock prices. Too bad I only have 13 excercisable stock options right now.
My question for any of you with financial experience out there: what effect will this likely have, if any, on my unvested Restricted Stock?

[Paelos]

Typically unvested options roll over to become unvested options in the purchasing company.

[shiznitz]

This seems as good a thread as any for this. Looks like my company is about to be bought out by Newscorp. Yay?  

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MOVE

It did cause a 37% jump in stock prices. Too bad I only have 13 excercisable stock options right now.
My question for any of you with financial experience out there: what effect will this likely have, if any, on my unvested Restricted Stock?

I recognize that this answer is at odds with Paelos, but in my experience, public company options and restricted stock vest immediately upon a change in control.  If the buyer is paying with stock, you will get stock in the buyer.  This deal looks like cash, though, so congratulations!  Do not forget to budget for the appropriate tax liability. 

[Sky]

(2) Be in an "in-demand" occupation, such as chemical engineering. Look at big firms in your target country. You will, in all likelihood, have to already be fluent in the native language. (Except in pure software firms, but those jobs are largely being filled from the UK/eastern europe these days.)

Everyone needs dish washers and they don't need to speak any language!

[Paelos]

I recognize that this answer is at odds with Paelos, but in my experience, public company options and restricted stock vest immediately upon a change in control.  If the buyer is paying with stock, you will get stock in the buyer.  This deal looks like cash, though, so congratulations!  Do not forget to budget for the appropriate tax liability. 

That's the other way it can go. There are really three options. They can give you their options, they can pay you off with their vested stock, or they can pay you in cash for the value. They typically do whatever they think will net them the most retention of employee value.

[Bunk]

Yea, we had the big corporate meetings. Apparently current outstanding options will be paid out at the buyout price, but unvested restricted stock is just going to roll over to Newscorp stock. On the positive side, they've been very consistent in their stock price over the last year as compared to our rollercoaster stock, so at least I know where I'll be standing when mine do vest.

All hail our corporate overlords!

[Teleku]

I'd like to know as well.  I'd give my left arm for a faculty position in Europe. 

Well, I don't know how well the pay/prestige/work is, but I know some internationally focused universities take on English only speaking staff to teach.  Like, language of instruction for sciences will be in English in a non-English speaking country since they know that's what much of the important research is done in and want to train their students for it.  Also, when I studied in Japan, almost all of our professors were westerners the school had hired, most of which spoke little to no Japanese.  The school had a large international program, where the language of instruction was English, even though only 30% of the students were from English speaking countries.  So students from around the world had to prove they were fluent in English, to get into a program in Japan to study Japanese language, heh.  They needed the teachers to teach the international students in all the other topics not language, and I know several of the teachers were working on long term research projects while there.  Though none of the teachers/topics were in the hard sciences.  Everything centered around Economics/Finance/History/Religion/Language type stuff.

But either way, if you look up schools that have a big study abroad program or a mainly international focus, I'm sure you can find a position somewhere in Europe or Asia (Japan is a fucking awesome country) where they are looking for an english speaking professor to relocate.  Again though, I have no idea how the pay is.  But might be fun for a year or three.

[Cheddar]

My wifes transfer fell through, so looks like she will have to start fresh.

Sucks.  16 years at her company.

[Viin]

Wow that's a long time. I'm having a hard time staying past 2.5 years these days!

[Yoru]

Wow that's a long time. I'm having a hard time staying past 2.5 years these days!

I hear you. I've been here just about two years, I get my blue card on Monday and I'm already getting an itch to perhaps look around locally. Locally, mind - moving internationally three times in six years is enough.

I did get asked if I wanted to move to our UK office. Same pay in a city with twice the cost of living, plus a whole new visa process. I laughed.

[Merusk]

It all depends on the field and area of the country. If you've got a history of jumping around every 2-3 years in Architecture here in the Midwest you'll find you're not getting hired after a few hops because that's the length of one big project. Nobody wants to keep a Project Architect who'll be around for one job then hoof it unless they're bringing a big client portfolio that can be raided.

Then I had a discussion about it with the 20-something in the NYC office but he laughed and said it's common there among folks at his level. They'll do a job or two then hop to another firm.

[shiznitz]

Then I had a discussion about it with the 20-something in the NYC office but he laughed and said it's common there among folks at his level. They'll do a job or two then hop to another firm.

That will bite him in the ass eventually.  A solid resume has to have a good 5-7 year stint somewhere.  There are always some exceptions, but in a professional field if you are 30 years old and never been more than 3 years in one place it is going to hurt you.

[Yegolev]

There are a lot of carefree dumbasses out there.

[Merusk]

...and they all work at design firms in NYC, apparently.

Then I had a discussion about it with the 20-something in the NYC office but he laughed and said it's common there among folks at his level. They'll do a job or two then hop to another firm.

That will bite him in the ass eventually.  A solid resume has to have a good 5-7 year stint somewhere.  There are always some exceptions, but in a professional field if you are 30 years old and never been more than 3 years in one place it is going to hurt you.

That's what I expect to see, yeah.  I don't know that he understands he's an exception and has skyrocketed up the ladder despite being young due to winning so many design awards on big projects

[Rasix]

I feel like I'm in a bad situation at work.

Our department has been trimmed down so much that I'm the only person that can do what I do, and what I do right now is too much.  Our team lead could help, but he's stretched too thin as it is.  Our PM may be able to help, but she'll only make small moves into offloading some of this garbage I'm responsible for (do I really need to be the guy chasing down approvals?).  There's one guy that's technically capable of helping, but he's an anti-social hermit and buried in his own "high priority" project that's going nowhere.

We previously had 2 people doing my job because it was just too much for one person and was leading to high rates of burnout.  That person left over a year ago.  The brain drain and the refusal or inability to backfill intelligently is not helping.  I tend to sit at my desk, think of all of the different shit I need to fix, and sigh.  No one has the ability or inclination to help me in the slightest and it's starting to stress me the fuck out (I'm the easy target to beat on when something goes wrong).  

I suppose this is how people get burnt out in QA.  You're surrounded by a bunch of people that should have the ability to learn how do this shit, but they can't or won't.  

[Yegolev]

If you can't beat'em, join'em.  Obviously your responsibilities are not a hot priority for your company, so why kill yourself over it?

Why kill yourself over any of this, really?

Hugs, from someone that did irreparable damage to his physical self by working/caring/stressing too much.

[Rasix]

Yah, I have to find a way to chill during all of this. I have a few medical conditions that do not respond well to stress.

I need to find a way to use this knowledge and ascend to some sort of position where I can focus and not be ripped apart by all of the different forces tugging on me from different directions.