Tag: job

I wish I could be CEO of my company for just a year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not that I want to make yet another post talking about work, it’s just that this is something that’s been sitting on my mind a lot lately and falls into the category of if I don’t write it out now, it’ll never getting written out and I think this has legs enough to be worth a post.

But “culture” has been the overarching thing going on with the company I work for, and I do feel that we’re at a little bit of a rough patch as far as everyday operations are going.  Things aren’t the worst that I’ve ever had to deal with in my career, but they’re far away from being a place that doesn’t feel more than a means to an end type of job.

This year, my workplace has gotten a little caught up and fixated on their “scores,” which is how the company is perceived by its own employees, taken by a third-party company.  Apparently, the scores this year have been some of the worst ever, to the degree where many people above or not adjacent to my paygrade are seemingly constantly in the works to figure out ways to improve morale, employee satisfaction and potentially improve their scores the next time survey time rolls around.

Obviously, one of the first things that comes to mind is, where the fuck are all these people getting time to fixate on stuff like this, when there are business objectives and tasks that could be done alternatively?  But I digress, all this score analysis has resulted in a whole lot of aggravating outcomes, which feels like when a couple is having issues, and where one party is trying too hard to make things better that they actually are making things worse.  That’s pretty accurate to how it feels like at my workplace currently.

Recently, we had an event pop up called “Stress Break at the Park” which ordinarily would make me roll my eyes at the forced fraternization, but the park selected was actually near my home, and would’ve been a welcome interruption to daily Office Space to be able to have a much shorter trip home.  However, just the other day, an amendment went out, and suddenly Stress Break was no longer four hours long, but one, and it was no longer at the park near my house, but instead the atrium of the office.

The ironic laughter was copious among the jaded of my team.

Anyway, I could write a NaNoWriMo about some of the more inane bullshit that occurs at work, like most people probably could about their respective jobs, but I’ll try my best to cut to the chase and get back to the title of this post.

We had a meeting, where all hands on deck were tasked with spitballing ideas to improving business, profits, engagement and other metrics that big companies tend to want to see heading in an upward trajectory.  I remember making some suggestions that I thought were good and viable, but when the day is over, I’m so far removed from the plateau to where actual decisions could be made that when the meeting ended, everything seemed for naught.  However, I believe in a lot of the ideas that I have, and this is where I wished that I could just be the CEO of the company for just a year, so I could push through some of my ideas and put them really to the test to see if they would shake out for a company like ours.

Primarily, most of my ideas revolve around dropping prices across the board, and giving shit away.  There’s been so much evidence in the world of commerce that lowering costs to consumers typically equate to consumers spending more, and big bad Target just this past year recorded considerable sales growth on account of lowering prices to consumers.

When you look at some of the most successful apps out there, they thrive on microtransactions, because most everyone can afford to part with a few bucks here and there, as opposed to targeting the most financially privileged and expect nothing but home runs from every transaction.

One of my favorite stories in business is Sega, when they created Sonic the Hedgehog, instead of charging consumers for their answer to Super Mario, they basically gave the game away.  It helped usher in an entire generation into purchasing Sega Geneses, and lightning struck twice when they released Sonic 2, and had it be the pack-in for later consoles.

That’s the kind of general mentality I’d love for my company to do, is not be afraid to give shit away for free, to the right recipients.  Partner up with other Atlanta-based companies or organizations and get their name out there and collaborate.  Donate product to be used for their offices or places of business, in exchange for content and sponsorship.

Partner up with charitable organizations and donate products to build relationships, create positive PR and press, and get the company’s name out there to be associated with charity, good will and doing well for others.

Sure, there would be a big up-front cost to give away product and labor, but I just believe that there’s enough evidence out in the world of business that proves that those companies who have been unafraid to give shit away, have managed to prosper and flourish in the long game.

Frankly, in the sterile, copy what everyone else is doing world of business, I would just love to take the reigns of a company like the one I work for, and love to try and shake shit up and see if I could rock the boat and succeed and thrive using ideas of my own that I don’t have to push through and climb the ladder with.

One can dream.  I have little desire to actually be in the role of a CEO, I’m someone who needs to work, and being a figurehead and a fall guy doesn’t seem like much of a job to me, but one can still dream about wanting to make change.

Things White People Like: Not showering after working out

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In all my years that I’ve been going to gyms, this is something that I can’t say that I’ve really paid attention to until more recently.  Maybe it’s because my current gym is very small and has a very small sample size to analyze, but it’s through this observational process do patterns begin to emerge, and lead to me being able to spout off bullshit brog posts like this one.

But as the title of this post reads, I have observed a disturbing trend that has occurred enough for me to widely brush stroke the statement that white people don’t shower after working out.

Once or twice, sure, maybe we’re short on time, maybe something has come up.  A meeting you’re cutting too close to, or the workout had been underestimated and time is no longer on our side.  But I’m witnessing the same people with regularity, who work out, and vanish into the locker room only to emerge just minutes later, with not nearly enough time to make believable that any sort of bathing had occurred.

Look, I’m not a complete psycho who’s following every white guy into the locker room after their workout, but I know from my own experience with expedient showers, that even when trying to be quick and timely as possible, I still need like 10-15 minutes in the locker room to shower, dress, groom before I’m ready to go back to the office.

These Ben Afflecks are in and out of the locker room in under 5-7 minutes in most cases, and the laws of physics are saying that these motherfuckers ain’t showering, full stop.

And it’s always white guys.  Much like myself, all the black men who also work out at my gym, they always shower after working out.  It doesn’t matter if they’re doing weights, or spending any amount of time on a cardio machine, if they exercise, they’re showering.  It’s only the white guys where it’s more of a surprise to see one actually taking time to bathe and clean themselves after a workout than not.

The thing is too, a lot of these guys I’m witnessing on a regular basis who don’t shower, it’s not like they’re doing some wimpy pussy workouts where they don’t build up a sweat or put themselves into situations where they should probably consider cleaning themselves up for the courtesy of the people they’ll spend the next half of the working day in close proximity to.  Lots of these guys are doing cardio and building up a considerable amount of sweat and perspiration, the chief ingredient when it comes to generating BO.

And then they finish their workouts, get back into their white guy uniforms and hop on the elevator to get straight back to the office.  This kind of lack of regard for the olfactory comfort of others is equal parts selfish, arrogant, disgusting and just plain dickish.

My brain can’t wrap itself around the idea of not showering after a workout.  The shower is practically the best part of the workout, the reward for taxing the body and now we can cleanse ourselves of all the sweat and strain of exercise.  I love the feeling of being clean, and especially in the workplace where feelings of positivity and physical pleasure are often being worked against, why would I deny myself something that I could realistically indulge in?

White people, man.  I just don’t understand these motherfuckers sometimes.  For as much as they think they own the entire planet, they sure conduct themselves in some truly mind-boggling, third-world manners.  I feel very fortunate that of all the white guys that I’ve seen not showering after sweaty workouts, that I don’t have to conduct any business with them; I just know that if I saw them in the actual office, I would just know that they probably reeked of varying degrees of BO, and I wouldn’t be able to hide the displeasure on my face, and nobody wins when unpleasant interactions occur.

The perils of getting younger in the workforce

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I seldom feel as old whenever I stop and take a few steps back and look at my job, and ponder how many of the aggravations and gripes I have stem from the fact that my company hires a lot of younger people, as opposed to older professionals with actual work experience.

Sure, there’s merit to hiring young from a corporate standpoint, they lack the leverages of experience and work history to where companies feel like they hold the advantage when it comes to negotiating salary and benefits.  Younger workers are often believed to be malleable to fit into existing cultures, and the theory is that they still have enthusiasm and energy, and hope that they can inject such into workforces that are tired and jaded by a history of Office Space.

However on the flipside, younger workers lack the work ethic the generations before them have, and their overlap with older workforces often creates a culture clash that companies are still trying to figure out the calculus on how to combat and work through in order to have a harmonious environment.  You can’t push younger workers too hard, lest they immediately start updating their LinkedIn profiles and start looking for an exit.

If it isn’t obvious, the impetus of this post stems not just from a recent resignation of a colleague under the age of 28, but of months and months of being a part of a company that has demonstrated the tendency to hire on the younger side of the spectrum as opposed to possibly more professional candidates, and I feel like it’s leading to a lot of the day-by-day issues that are emerging and compounding as time progresses.

The recent resignation sucks, because this person was basically the point person of this retail campaign that my company is in the midst of trying to launch.  Their departure creates a noticeable hole in the workflow of the project, and until their successor can be identified, implemented and brought up to speed, the project is effectively on pause, because despite them still being present for their two-week notice, they’ve already basically stopped working on anything, instead of you know, trying to leave on good terms and tie up as many loose ends as they can.

But just in general, I work with a bunch of kids on certain teams, and them being kids means they’re all flaky and terrible communicators and spam up our internal Teams channels with gifs as a means of communication as opposed to actual fucking words.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m trying to not be nearly as age-ist as I’ve heard some of them be, they’re rather pleasant and easy to chat with on a personal level, but when the temperature at work starts to rise from time to time, very few of them have the fortitude or tenacity to keep their shit together, and their bad habits tend to come out when things heat up.

But the biggest thing is though, like I said before, you can’t push them without chasing them away.  The turnover at my company in the three years that I’ve been here has felt pretty absurd, and I feel like it’s this downward spiral where young workers are hired, crumble under the pressure of real-world work, bolt after 6-8 months, creating a shitshow for the teams they abandoned; their backfills are also young workers, but entering a worse environment than their predecessors, crumble under the pressure and then bolt, and the cycle has been repeating itself, but with things continuously getting worse, rather than showing any signs of stabilization or recovery.

I get that the workplace in general is changing and loyalty and longevity mean dick and butt these days, and it’s not necessarily age-related when it comes to people bouncing in short order, but it doesn’t help the narrative and reputation that it is, when it’s mostly the younger workers of the workforce, that are exorcising this right the most frequently.

Seeing as how this is a thing that more of a cultural shift as opposed to something that can be fixed, it’s times like these where I wish I could just work for myself, but the reality is that I don’t know what I’d do for a living, let alone make ends meet and support my family.

If only I could get paid, generously, to brog about inane bullshit and the happenings in my life, that would be the ultimate dream come true.  But since that’ll never happen, it’s remaining in the downward spiral vortex, and just simply holding onto my butt and hope one day improvements occur.  At least I’m not under the draconian thumb of my old boss, but frankly, it’s not okay to constantly keep that comparison in my back pocket to justify other bad workplace behavior.

Is this anyone else’s experience or just mine?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously, it’s arrogant of me to assume that I’m the only person in the world who deals with this on a regular basis, but who really knows; I might be the only one who thinks about it to length enough to blab about it in a brog that nobody reads.  The point remains however, that this is still a phenomenon that I deal with on a daily basis, and I’m curious to know just how much this is the case in places all around the country and the rest of the world.

But I can’t help but feel like this is a behavior that spawned from life after the murderous peak of COVID.  I’ve said it many times, that I kind of miss the COVID era, minus all the senseless death and tragedies to people who really didn’t deserve it, but if there was one thing that was really nice about the whole pandemic is that it sure as hell made the roads really, really nice to drive around on.

I never really minded the early onset of return to office, because I quickly learned how much more efficiently I worked when I was in the office setting, plus it gave me the opportunity to formally return to a gym regimen.  But the commutes to and from the office were that of dreams, being able to leave the house at 8:45 and make it to the office at 8:57, almost nobody else walking into the building, almost always having an elevator to myself.

Now, I’m fucked if I leave the house at anything after 8:35, and I usually get to the parking lot at 8:55 if I’m lucky, and there’s always a ton of other people headed into the building at the same time, and I often have to get into an elevator with 2-4 other people where inevitably someone will be coughing, peaking my anxiety about getting sick because we’re long past the days of masks in public.

And in the midst of my obnoxious commute, is a whole fucking lot of this bullshit behavior; people camping the left lanes way long in advance, because they need to get ready to get on the highway, a lightyear away.

I really feel like this really started happening after COVID, because during COVID, driving behaviors in general kind of reset all over the place, and lots of common sense behavior and tendencies were forgotten all over the place.  Left is the fast lane, right for slower drivers, right-of-way rules, all of that shit seems to have been forgotten, as lots of olds have died off and stopped driving outright, and there was even a point where dumbass 17-year olds didn’t even have to take behind-the-wheel training in order to get a license.

But left lane camping, as what I like to call it, seems to have gone way the fuck up since COVID restrictions and return-to-office mandates have come into play.  There are two major left turns that I have to make on my morning commute, and it’s ridiculous the amount of camping that goes on, every single morning, by people who want to get in their lane that inevitably takes them to the left-turn lane they eventually need to be in, as early as humanly possible, regardless of how many other motorists might need to be in them, get into them, for them to make sooner left turns than they do.

There’s a stretch that’s jump into every morning where it’s around four miles until you get to the highway; every single morning, commuters pile into the one lane that inevitably dead-ends into the left turn lane of said intersection as early as humanly possible.  It doesn’t matter how empty the adjacent lane is, people will fight gangbusters in order to get into this particular lane so they don’t have to worry about switching again for the next four miles.

And not only do they give no fucks about getting passed or how much they’re inconveniencing motorists who need to turn in one mile, two miles or three miles, nobody is going to move them out of their lane to where they might actually have to put some effort into driving.

Heaven forbid you try to squeeze in at any point, because once these types of drivers get into their desired lane, they will defend their spot like they’re a Spartan warrior against the forces of Xerxes.

Naturally, the second major left turn that I need to make every day is the one that takes me to my office building.  The thing is, there are three different ways I can enter, but they all require a left turn to get in; my preferred one is the last one, as it is the closest to my actual building, but I’m not picky, if I see that the first or the second one has a green light, I’ll do it, just so I can get out of the petty rat race of left lane campers who will trudge along in a voluminous lane, because they need to get onto the highway that’s five miles away.

And honestly, it’s getting worse; since the school year started, and commuters are in an adjustment phase to their daily routes, to account for school buses and elevated traffic, I’m finding that on my route home, there are tons of people now camping the left lanes on my way home, where this was not the case just a few weeks ago.

It’s among my biggest pet peeves now when it comes to observing the behavior of the drivers all around me, and it’s times like these when I’m stuck behind a bullshit line of cars in a left lane, while everyone in the adjacent and right-er lanes are flying by, I begin to pine for the days of coronavirus, when so many of these shitheads were simply off the roads altogether.

Take that, job hoppers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yahoo Finance: wage growth for job hoppers slowing down as labor markets cool

One of the many things that I’ve had to accept as a changing of the times kind of the thing is has been the growing acceptance of job hopping in the working world.  I was more or less raised on the mindset of getting myself into a company, staying for my entire career, earning pension, retirement and all the benefits that come with longevity, and then work my entire career for a single company.

Obviously the world does change, and I don’t disagree that there’s little point in staying somewhere if you become miserable or the game of finances doesn’t seem to be keeping competitive to the market, but mostly if you’re just not plain happy, or you get laid off of released for any litany of reasons.  It’s naïve to think that anyone is going to stay with a singular place of employment for 30+ years anymore.

But as the years have gone by, the working world has gotten to the point where employees spend less and less time at employers before deciding to bounce, and it no longer seems like it’s people having lower thresholds for bullshit as much as it is that people today are just bigger flakes and indecisive and easily swayed by the shiny thing on the other side of the fence instead of remotely trying to have a stable career somewhere.

I used to tell myself that no matter what, to give every place at least a year before exploring a change.  A year seemed like an adequate amount of time to really learn about the highs and lows of a company, learn about the commutes, the types of people you work with, how they operate holidays and busy seasons, etc.

My first job after I moved to Atlanta, I stuck it out a year.  At first, it was great, but then the commute became murderous and the superiors in my company weaned off the honeymoon period and became really toxic to everyone.  I was the third or fourth resignation in a rapid exodus, because I found a job that was way closer to home, and paid a little bit more money, but honestly I do chalk it up as a mistake because I realized that I hated the work and the line of business I was in.

I didn’t quite make it a year at this place, but that was because they laid off my entire team, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I got with a place where I stayed for nearly four years, before my entire team was laid off there as well, which put me into a tumultuous life of freelance for many years, before I got my foot in the door with the state.  I stayed there for three years before a lack of growth, wages and just general boredom led to a messy divorce, and then I made another career mistake by bouncing to a place that was again closer and paid better, but the nature of the work and the dynamics of the company were hell.

This was actually the first time in my career I bounced before a year, because I was miserable and wanted out.  It was a move I don’t regret, and where I really had to self-reflect a lot on my choice to deviate from my original mindset, but it was for the best, because I ended up somewhere where I spent the largest tenure in my career.

But when coronavirus and the age of COVID-19 came upon the world, it transformed the world to closer where we are now.  My shortest tenure at a place was six months, but I was now beginning to witness people barely staying at a company for six weeks before deciding to bounce.  I remember assessing and trying to sniff out flight risk when combing through resumes and interviews at my old job, because my company and department in particular had a tendency to attract a lot of people who were looking for means to get their foot in the door, and as soon as their probationary period ended, would capitalize on the favoritism of internal associates to swap to a different team.

However, it wasn’t just internal bouncing, people just weren’t sticking around the company, or any other company, anywhere.  People would come, and just when it seemed like things would settle down on the team or company, suddenly there’d be news of them having turned in their notice, and the company and/or team was back to square one.

I get that when the day is over, everyone does have to take care of number #1, but the reality is that when they take a job that they’re not gung-ho over, and keep their options open and get a bite somewhere shinier, they really are fucking over the employer, which nobody is going to lose any sleep over, but a whole bunch of colleagues who might not all be soul sucking shitheads that deserve such disrespectful dismissal, are typically going to get shortchanged in that they’re losing a co-worker who was hired to be depended upon for what is usually hoped to be a for a semi-permanent amount of time.

The positions that are suddenly vacated all have to start over from square one, and there’s no guarantee that all other possible candidates are on the board anymore.  Most places have to go through the whole process from the beginning, meaning they have to vet and bot resumes all over again, interview a set number of candidates, and for anyone whom they’re crawling back to, lose leverage and face towards someone that wanted the job previously, and are now looking at the employer with their own set of resentment and likely notion to flake on them increases.

Before I left my last job, we too were no stranger to the COVID-prompted mass migration of employment, and lots of people, those I knew or knew of, were bouncing out of the company left and right.  Meanwhile, the power vacuum as a result of such departures led to a lot of shitty unqualified fucks to get some high up positions, and by the time I threw in the towel and left, I was in a position where my cunt of a boss was actively trying to get me out the door.

Sure, I did migrate during COVID, and got a sweet 26% pay bump in the process, but honestly if my work-life wasn’t as toxic as it had become, I probably would’ve stayed and not even entertained the thought of looking somewhere else.  I really didn’t want to leave, but my boss forced my hand.

But at my current place of employment, I’m in but just year three now, but I’ve already witnessed an inordinate amount of people who have started working for the company, and within as little as two months, seen them bounce, leading to myself and everyone else to throw their hands up and basically say what the fuck?

And of course they’re taking care of themselves, but several of these people really did fuck over my team with their general flakiness, and this is why I’m starting to relish in the notion that job hopping’s notion of getting better money or better positions is starting to diminish, because I do feel some salt and some want for retribution towards this entitled and lazy, flaky workforce that has gotten the working world to this sorry state we’re in currently.

Maybe if more people are “forced” to stick with their jobs that they’re fortunate to have in the first place, perhaps companies can actually get some teams that gel and become competent through experience and tenure, and become you know, better companies, that produce better products and services, and suddenly miraculously become more successful based on performances from their workforces.

But fuck me right, everyone’s got to take care of themselves, and it’s okay to bounce every six months?

The financial burden of smokers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s a lady somewhere in my office building that I surmise takes a smoke break every single hour.  Every time I go to the gym, I will inevitably see her walk past the windows to where all the smokers tend to congregate, which is horrifyingly over a section of the Colonial Pipeline gas main that made national headlines a few years ago. 

The thing is, as much as I’d like to, I don’t go to the gym at the same time every single day, I have to be fluid with the times in which I go, depending on my workload and any scheduled meetings on a daily basis.  So I’ve been to the gym as early as within the 10 am hour, as late as the 3 pm hour and at any time in between.

But it does not matter what time of the day in which I go to the gym, I will always see her trudge past the gym windows to go take a roughly 20 minute smoke break, or whenever she gets done with dicking around on her phone and milking her smoke.

That being said, I’m really curious what she actually does for whatever company she works for, and I can’t imagine it’s something remotely essential or necessary, considering the fact that a person who literally works maybe 30-35 minutes of every single hour is in the position, because factoring in the walking time, and elevator time into each smoke break, that’s what I’m assuming she actually at her desk/workstation, regardless of if she’s actually working or not.

I know the hiring process is not supposed to demonstrate any sort of bias or discrimination, but honestly if I were ever back in a position of hiring people, I think I’d try to find out if an applicant were a smoker or not.  And if they were, throw their application in the trash, because I can’t imagine that short of being Good Will Hunting genius, a person who works 3/5th of the time of someone who doesn’t smoke, will actually outproduce in the long run.  Last time I checked, smoker isn’t a race or a class of person that has any consequence for discriminating against and if it were up to me, I wouldn’t want any smokers in my workplace if I ever were in control of one.

Just the sight of this person kind of disgusts me.  I’m not trying to get all high-and-mighty on someone, and I seldom thing I’m above most things or most people, but considering the work ethic of Miss Chimney, who stinks like one, and I can tell when she’s been in the elevator recently, because she leaves it stinking of smoke, I do kind of look down on her.  If I were her employer, I’d be aggravated as fuck knowing that she’s burning 20-25 minutes every single hour of every single working day trolling around outside dragging on a bunch of cancer sticks on company time.

If it were up to me, once this kind of bullshit gets on my radar, I’d consider making a case against it, and start extrapolating their wages against how much time they’re actually present in the office, and see what happens afterward.  I’d wager the behavior corrects itself more likely than not, and that they might look for an exit strategy, to which I would say good riddance, may I get a replacement that doesn’t smell like an airport smoking lounge.

It’s the kind of behavior my old cunt of a boss would embark on, but if there’s one thing that I would agree with her is that time theft is still theft, and I sure as fuck don’t want any thieves on my team.  I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have team members that are equitably present, and also don’t smell like fucking alleyways behind Chinese restaurants.

A work story that made me happy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today, I used the above wrestling gif in a work group chat thread, and it was 100% topical and relevant to the conversation that we were having.

I can’t remember the last time I felt more satisfied in my professional life.

Shoutout to the company for not putting a purchase limit on an on-sale item and not anticipating that an ambitious customer would literally purchase 600 of them and completely derail an entire promotion. 

We’ve already found their eBay listing, re-selling them at a profitable price point, but there’s nothing the company can do about it, except marvel at one man’s entrepreneurial spirit.