it’s your Friday good news

by Alison Green on October 28, 2022

It’s your Friday good news!

1.  “I discovered your column while working one of the worst jobs of my life (I lasted 8 months, and was their longest term employee in the role in over 5 years). My job history since has felt like a series of unfortunate events – highlights from different jobs include:

  • “Color-geddon,” where the CEO insisted we completely redo a major rebrand after it’d already launched because his longest term developer claimed the colors “hurt his eyes” (one of his computer monitors was broken)
  • New CEO came in right before COVID, then in the middle of the first month of lockdown, laid off half the employees
  • CEO was so bad to work for I reported to 5 different managers between April and October, because they kept quitting after working with her
  • Instead of working, the colleague in charge of a crucial part of our work spent a year writing a book trilogy
  • Turns out the person in charge of finance/pitching to investors had previously been convicted of a Ponzi scheme, and that’s why we couldn’t put him on our website
  • CEO would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on getting actors as spokespeople (one got so drunk at the office during a film shoot he had to call our executive assistant from his Uber because he forgot where he was going. It was to the airport, so he could fly home)

When my VP at the most recent job left (I actually really liked working with him, it was just a crappy situation all around), I told him I wasn’t far behind and ramped up my search. I expected it to be a challenge; since 2018, I haven’t stayed at one role for more than 14 to 16 months – for valid reasons, but it didn’t look great on paper. I had hoped to stay at the last one for over 2 years, but without the VP there, it was a trainwreck waiting to happen. In my exit interview I found out 8 people had given notice the same week I had.

The job market was MUCH hotter than the last time I’d looked, and I had at least one or two interviews with different companies every week, sometimes as many as 5. I don’t recommend packing them that tight; it was insanely draining. I ended up with multiple offers from different companies, both from personal referrals and online applications. The winner was a connection to a fast growing startup that a vendor I’d talked to months prior had recommended! I asked each person your magic question, and it impressed them while also giving me great insight into the work I could expect to do.

This place has been such a breath of fresh air. I never knew work could be like this. It’s fully remote, a solid pay bump, excellent health and dental, unlimited PTO (I prefer it), office stipend, wellness stipend, a serious DEI initiative, and the company invests immensely in culture and their people. I feel well supported and positioned to succeed, even though this role is a stretch for me. It’s not perfect (no job is), but if I could have designed my perfect opportunity for this stretch role, this is better than what I would have thought of.

There’s hope if you haven’t gone the traditional path, like me. I dropped out of college, worked hard, and have struggled to get above and away from toxic work environments. I thought for years the only places that would hire someone with no degree would end up being toxic places, but it turns out no, you just need patience to hold out for the right org. Reading your column has helped me be the coworker everyone enjoys working with, and helped me let go of the things I couldn’t fix. If you feel trapped or stuck, now is the time to search and get out!

Thank you for posting the good news each week! It was a highlight for me when I thought I was stuck.”

Read an update to this letter. 

2.  “After receiving my MBA back in 2012, it seemed like my career was stalled. It was later finding out that getting your masters from a for-profit school was not the best way to go about it. My jobs were retail, call centers, and short term temporary contracts that were just enough to pay for child care and the bills. Then in 2017 my life imploded. My (ex) husband decided that after 26 years together that it was time to venture into “greener pastures” which our teenage son walked in on. After trying to salvage the un-salvageable, divorce, sell the house, cope with devastated children, pop the oldest in therapy, my kids and I moved in with my parents all within a 3-month span. Now, it was time to get my head on straight. I studied my butt off and got my HR certification; took contract jobs to build my HR knowledge, read a LOT of AAM, and using your resume and cover letter techniques, I finally landed my dream job! I am the new HR Manager for a company that needed my ability to build an HR department from the ground up. I also negotiated my salary for the first time as well and am making almost triple what I have ever earned in my life!

I am now 3 months in and loving it. My colleagues and bosses love my work and take the occasional bitter news very well. “No you can’t do it that way; there are laws” was a common refrain when I started. Slowly but surely, this company is turning their trajectory around and morale is moving up. My kids are doing fantastically and my oldest has just joined the military, where he is thriving. Please keep up the good work, you cannot imagine the good you have done through your blog and books.”

3.  “I have been working for a medium-sized government agency for four years and I kept running into the ‘slacker coworker or absent coworker’ situation over and over. Your advice to people with similar stories has always been consistent — that the problem is not the coworker, it’s with management. After my daily duties kept expanding further away from my actual title, with no raise, I finally took your advice and got an interview with the first place I applied and accepted the job which will mean a 25% pay increase and much shorter commute. Thank you for all the sage advice!”

4.  “About a year ago, I lost a grant that resulted in me and my team being laid off. The results were public, and a very big deal in my small industry. But, I utilized your tips, tamped down my shame and immediately reached out to my network. Within days, a colleague who had turned down a position gave my name to the recruiter. Before I knew it, I was offered a position that was a significant promotion, in my dream city with a 57% pay increase. And, I’m happy to report that the rest of my former team were also successful in finding new jobs!”

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{ 43 comments }

{ 43 comments… read them below }

  1. Goldenrod*

    LW#1: I’m still laughing from your list of highlights! OMG. I think this one is my favorite:
    “Instead of working, the colleague in charge of a crucial part of our work spent a year writing a book trilogy.”

    lol. Congrats for finally getting out of toxic workplaces….I feel you.

    Congrats to all of you!! These are all amazing! Thank you for brightening my day.

    1. Jessica Ganschen*

      I have to admit, I’m somewhat reluctantly impressed with the person who can write a new book every four months, but I’m moreso relieved that LW 1 no longer has to deal with them as a coworker.

      1. Not Australian*

        IMHO – and with a publishing background – they may ‘write’ them in that time but it will take three or four times as long to get them into publishable condition, if they ever do. We can all sling words onto paper, but making them words that people will actually want to *read* is a whole other ballgame.

        1. Escaped A Series of Unfortunate Events*

          She proudly told me about them before she quit and shared the book covers. She misspelled a word in the title that is a very common and easy to look up word…that she just… didn’t.

          Based on what I know of her writing abilities in regular life, I doubt the books were anything worth picking up.

      2. Mallory Janis Ian*

        And they managed to write a book trilogy while managing to avoid the layoffs that impacted a number of their colleagues — wow!

        1. Escaped A Series of Unfortunate Events*

          These were different jobs – the layoffs were the org before the one with the book writer.

          At the org with the layoffs, the entire senior leadership team has been replaced at least twice since I left…and I left in 2020.

    2. Mallory Janis Ian*

      The part that made me LOL was the actor calling the EA to ask where he was going. He couldn’t remember that he was going home via the airport, but OF COURSE he had the poor EA’s number so he could call up and ask her.

    3. Daniel*

      Ha, this. It sounds like letter-writer 1 could write a book trilogy of their own.

      Also–how on earth did someone WHO WAS CONVICTED OF RUNNING A PONZI SCHEME manage to get a TOP job in finance??

      1. to varying degrees*

        I mean to be fair part of the job was pitching to investors. Sounds like he’s pretty good at that part.

      2. No Longer Looking*

        Because they “have experience.” Think of a couple of the biggest financial companies involved in scandals you heard of, and then do some googling to see where the executives ended up. You will almost certainly be disappointed.

      4. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

        Yeah, Daniel, this doesn’t sound right – because if you are convicted of running a Ponzi scheme, and it’s a felony – you would almost always be barred from working in the financial world, or any finance position.

        In a legitimate outfit. Then again, if it’s NOT a financial frim, they can probably get away with hiring someone from the “dark side”. There was a situation involving some real estate in my neighborhood, and the point person was to show up with a bond (I think $250,000) in a bankruptcy court , to purchase the distressed property. Then it was revealed in a news article – three days before the court deadline – that the treasurer for the purchaser had been imprisoned for contempt – for refusing to turn over financial records.

        So that blew the financing out of the water. No bond. Purchase cancelled.

        My point is, if there’s someone who has engaged in shady dealings in the past, it’s going to be difficult for that person to function/maneuver in financial matters.

    4. Lenora Rose*

      I’ll confess to writing (and editing) fiction at work in earlier jobs – but only when there was genuine downtime, and the job always had top priority. An entire trilogy? Even with the world’s worst prose and no editing, that’s … a lot of time. Yikes from me.

    5. Artemesia*

      My personal favorite was ponsi scheme boy maybe because my husband used to prosecute securities fraud and so I have heard some doozies like this.

    7. Bitsy*

      Agreed! After reading that list I really hope that LW#1 puts together a screenplay. She’s got the material for it!

    8. So it goes*

      That reminded me of an experience years ago! The tech writer was actually spending most of her time writing a novel. She’s put together a draft user’s manual, and send it out for corrections/feedback (this was back in the days when this would be printed on paper).

      You’d hand in your feedback, and she’d pretend that she’d made the edits, but actually ignore all the feedback, and just re-print the original if people wanted another review.

      Someone got suspicious, and made a Xerox of the marked up version before they gave it back to her. When she handed out the next “revision”, they went through and checked and not a since edit had been made.

    9. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Totally made me LOL. And I really wonder how the Ponzi schemer actually got a job *doing finance.*

    10. Uranus Wars*

      I came unglued at Turns out the person in charge of finance/pitching to investors had previously been convicted of a Ponzi scheme, and that’s why we couldn’t put him on our website

  2. Stunt Apple Breeder*

    Congratulations everyone!

    LW #2: You are a strong person. I am very glad things are going better for you.

    1. Education Mike*

      Yes!! Their letter gave me that gonna-tear-up-for-a-stranger feeling. I am so inspired by the ability to just get sh*t done in the hardest situation. LW2 deserves applause, cookies, a trophy, a best mom(dad?) ever mug, an all expenses paid vacation, and an amazing career. I hope their family continues to thrive!

  3. KoiFeeder*

    Gods above. At your house? With the kids present? Your ex-husband is a particularly loathsome creature.

    1. Ruby Julian-Lee*

      One of my parents did that, and I was the kid who caught them in the act. Since this was in 1967, the guilty parent pretended it didn’t happen. Very classy trying to gaslight an eight-year-old.

  4. Vice President of Monitoring Employees’ LinkedIn and Indeed Profiles*

    “No you can’t do it that way; there are laws”

    Thousands of bosses nationwide need to be hit over the head with that.

    2. Hen in a Windstorm*

      I have a friend in HR who once worked at a small company that had never had HR before. He said this all. the. time.

    3. No Longer Looking*

      My wife makes triple my salary – she works in Regulatory Affairs for a healthcare company and that sentence is basically her entire job in a nutshell.

  6. ZSD*

    #1. I laughed out loud at the book trilogy, then laughed more when I got to the Ponzi scheme!
    #2. Thank you for being the kind of HR person who makes people obey the law! And congratulations on the upturn in your life.

  8. SJ (they/them)*

    Congrats to everyone, and particular kudos to #4 for keeping your chin up after what I’m sure felt like a pretty awful blow. Glad to hear you and your team all landed on your feet!

  10. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

    Yeah, Daniel, this doesn’t sound right – because if you are convicted of running a Ponzi scheme, and it’s a felony – you would almost always be barred from working in the financial world, or any finance position.

    In a legitimate outfit. Then again, if it’s NOT a financial frim, they can probably get away with hiring someone from the “dark side”. There was a situation involving some real estate in my neighborhood, and the point person was to show up with a bond (I think $250,000) in a bankruptcy court , to purchase the distressed property. Then it was revealed in a news article – three days before the court deadline – that the treasurer for the purchaser had been imprisoned for contempt – for refusing to turn over financial records.

    So that blew the financing out of the water. No bond. Purchase cancelled.

    My point is, if there’s someone who has engaged in shady dealings in the past, it’s going to be difficult for that person to function/maneuver in financial matters.

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