Another long, but final day of work. And now, well, just twiddling my thumbs...
Well, that is not quite true, because due to my home PC acting up, I chose to purchase my work laptop from the company, because it is relatively cheap and still very good, with an i7 chip and 32 RAM. It was less than half the price than I could pick up something similar, and it has been decent. Pity though, as I was due a new laptop at the end of this month, though it is the time that reduces the price. What this means though, is that they had to wipe it (the programs, not the case) and add a clean install.
I hate setting up PCs.
Dead.
While it didn't actually take me that long to get what I needed on there for my own entertainment, as that is just Brave and Hive Keychain, I will also have to set up my business again and I have decided to use M365 for my business tools, because I am now quite familiar with them after the last six years. This is a shift away from Google. But, I am just not very smart anymore (and likely never was), because it has been a struggle to get anywhere with it. I am not a great at admin at the best of times, and as a systems admin, even worse.
I realize it is going to take me time to get back into the groove of being a solo entrepreneur, because I have effectively been spoilt in a company and got stupider as an individual. When I was just working by myself, I had to do nearly everything alone, so in any one day I was mearing multiple task hats. But, in a company with an IT, a P&C, a marketing, product, sales, services, support.... and every other kind of department needed in a tech company, I narrowed my task list down to role-specific actions.
Well, sort of.
What I have reminded of over the last few days is that I actually did a hell of a lot more than the tasks on my desk, but I wasn't accredited for it. My supervisor was someone who is on the spectrum and very organized, detail orientated and a stickler. She is very good at her job, but unless there is a paper trail, a report, a document created, it doesn't exist.
This is a problem for me.
And, I bought it up in my exit interview today with someone from the People and Culture Team (HR), because a lot of the value I bring to the table isn't going to create a document directly, or tick off a box on someone's milestone list. For instance, a lot of the conversations I have are directly related to value-adding activities, but aren't going to be attributed to me once they are in development.
But more importantly perhaps than this, there are also value-adding "tasks" that I have been instructed or expected to do, that doesn't go into adding any kind of value to me. For instance, I was going to be heading over to a new team in 2025 that was thrown together a year and a half ago and has struggled to gel as a team, so while they are all very good at their role, they are disjointed, underperforming, and rather non-collaborative as a team. My core job was to perform in my role, but the secondary tasks was to bring them together as a team, even though I would not be their lead.
The value of this is enormous in companies, but as I mentioned above, it doesn't make much of an impact on the paper trail that my supervisor would use to rate me - and she is the one that directed me to do it. That is an issue, because it is not an easy task, nor is it one that happens in a short time frame. It is a lot of work, it takes a lot of interpersonal connection and support for others, but, there is very little chance of actually quantifying the value of it, and therefore, it doesn't exist.
Dead.
And this creates an organizational problem. Because if they only incentivize what can be quantified, all of the little interactions that add up to large scale changes, don't happen. This means that only the engineered activities get energy, and they tend not to align very well without all of the other interaction grease that gets them moving in the same direction.
I brought this up with the person from P&C too. Where is the incentive for others to do that work, when they have seen that it is not only not rewarded, it might be punished, because it didn't make a paper trail. Over the last year and a half, there has been a concerted push to tick boxes, rather than small behavioural changes, which is likely because of the new investors coming in to buy. For them, it is all about those quantifiable numbers.
In the short term.
Long term, focus on the numbers and lose sight of what actually pushes those numbers up, both in the organization and externally. Over time, all of the interaction mortar falls from between the seams, and the brickwork collapses. The cost of realignment can be immense, if not impossible, and many companies struggle for years once they get into that kind of cultural mindset.
At the end of the day, business is driven by humans on the demand side, and they require support as they work on the supply side also. The quest for maximization of profits through the reduction of staff and salaries that grow slower than inflation, will soon lead to a reduction in consumer spending, meaning that they will find it increasingly difficult to make their budgets. But, that is more at the macro level. At the micro level, companies that focus on maximizing profits, will often lose their best, and the cost of training and retention exacts a heavy toll.
Next week, I will dive more into the future of work for myself, but I think that this weekend I am going to spend most of it just hanging out with family and winding down after what has been a frustrating, disappointing and saddening month or two. At least for now though, I am not too bitter or fearful of the future, though I am not exactly sure why, because I probably should be.
But, it isn't even the first day of unemployment - there is still time to panic.
What did make it a bit better this morning was Smallsteps.
Before going to school she gave me a kiss and said, "have a good work day". After walking a few steps she stopped and turned and said, "I love you daddy, even if you don't have a job".
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
When companies start cutting loose their top employees, either to save on salaries or hire more 'malleable' employees, they must eventually see that the cost of training and retaining new employees comes at a much greater cost.
Thank goodness for Smallsteps! She will keep you sane and focused lol. That's a good plan you have..to spend time with family. Looking forward to hearing about your plans for the future. Whatever it is, I have faith that you will make it work!
The bean-counters anchor themselves in the organisation by only prioritising those things which can be measured. That works until the organisation collapses.
The hyperfocus on KPIs (or whatever they decide to call them) irks me no end. It's why businesses will eventually fail if the people making the important decisions are too stupid to realise that bunch of numbers go up is only so useful.
Being not bitter or fearful is better. Fear guarantees idiotic decisions and bitterness is kind of a waste of energy better spent on anything else that would be better spent on useful things. Enjoy the wind down and stay calm and hopefully you'll get some flashes of brilliance and/or something coming along in the not too distant future :)
Have a great day ahead! 😊
😍
They want to drive business with as less employees as possible and don't care about backing up those who carry out some specific task alone at a company. This is what we face in recent months due to the retirements.
Do you think there is ever a situation where they would say "oh crap, we might have made a mistake here"? If they ever did do that, would you go back to them? I can't imagine how hard this day had to be for you. I am really sorry for that.
I think you should not worry about the company anymore, if you can get a consulting gig there that would be great. Otherwise it is no longer your problem what happens there.
Focusing on family and decompressing is a great idea for short term. Once you feel ready start working on your business.
I would have to give the pc to someone to set up for you since you hate setting it up and might consume alot of time. But on second thought, no one will do a better job than when you get things done to your satisfaction
I have a MacBook Air since 2017. It's a good laptop, I haven't changed anything in it for 8 years, the battery lasts for several hours. If I don't make a lot of money soon, this laptop will last me 10 years :)
Your daughter said good words to you. You are needed.
An insulting thing I read the other day was an understatement to the achievements accomplished at NASA, that seemed to imply that to one day for people to go to the moon, or to establish a colony there, those types of ambitions come from a generation of younger people.
An estimated 14% of NASA's workforce is over 40 years old, according to a Zippia analysis.
"That's not where innovation and excitement comes from. Excitement comes from when you've got teenagers and 20-year-olds running programs,"
One could argue funding is a huge obstacle to such an achievement, but that same generation they want pushed to the side are the same individuals who went to the moon, have sent rovers to the moon to study it, and came back with the data that the moon is one of the most harsh places in the planetary world. It consist of dust that sticks to every things, full of craters, is exposed to deadly solar radiation from the sun for a number of days before that flips to being for days one of the coldest places anywhere in the world when temperatures dip 200 degree Fahrenheit. Sensibly, logically, the older generation has concluded the moon is an uninhabitable place to exist and there's likely never to be billions, let alone trillions of dollars that is going to change that. On the flip side of that, even if they could, the alternate question involved would be who would want to live there, they have to build a completely enclosed city where people's lives would consist of looking out windows of vast darkness for days, and closing those same windows for days upon a time while dangerous solar rays pours down over them. There's no rivers, streams, lush green country sides, beautiful sky filled mountains or vast open oceans to sail upon, it would amount to be worse than living like a caged animal. But let's push aside the naysayers who aren't really naysayers, they are the voices of experience who once had the same dreams. You can build upon shared visions of hopes and dreams, but can't when one squashes them out. You are a highly intelligent man, tarazkp, I wouldn't sweat it at all myself that you are going to come out just fine, best wishes.
'even if you don't have a job'.
You realize, I hope, that a month from now that's likely to be 'especially since you don't have a job.'
When 'leadership' gets to the point of quantifying everything there is probably very little hope. They only way that makes any sense is if the new investors are only on a path to raise perceived value in order to sell soon. It's a risky path because if the behavior bites them on the ass 6 months too early the perceived value can crater pretty quick...
Those are solid stats. I'm only working on 16 RAM 😢
Same thing in my classroom it drives me nuts. who cares about these test scores if the students aren't motivated or interested to do the work?! give them learning opportunities that match their ambition and their attention!!
I hope you have a great funemployment with the family this weekend!
With that new laptop with an i7 chip and 32GB RAM, perhaps you'll want to download and install OBS Studio and become into a successful Vlogger or Podcaster in short time and stop earning only twenty or thirty buck$ having to squeeze your brain to write 4 or 5 posts a day on the Hive blockchain.
With OBS Studio you will probably be able to produce up to 25 videos a day (5x your posts) just by sitting in front of a camera and start to talk sharing your usual rants and insights audiovisually to a greater audience uploading and publishing simultaneously these videos on multiple A/V platforms that reward its members, authors and contributors with good money. Monetizing your stuff on TikTok, Vimeo. Youtube, Dailymotion, Patreon, The Leap, etc.
And that's without even taking into account upload your videos to BitChute, Odysee, PeerTube, Rumble, Dlive and even also to 3Speak.tv, Hivestreams.live and Cast.garden if you still start to feel some nostalgia in continuing to want to earn some Hive tokens to power up.
Although I suspect that if you only upload your videos to OnlyFans, you will no longer need to upload them to any of the above. Thus reducing the time and effort in uploading videos anywhere else and most certainly freeing yourself from the need to have to look for a new job as an employee or reactivate your business ever again. Depending on the intellectual value, the creative depth and lustful entertainment that you bring to your OnlyFans account, I bet you can be done into setup and ensure a good luxurious financial situation for life.
Well, just some crazy ideas that might also be worth reflecting on and thinking about. :)