Surfie
New member
Background: there are four things you need to know to understand the full extent of what has happened. And why i make the statement above about my (former) boss.
1) in my business, non compete clauses in employment contracts are common, however these only sometimes apply to the businesses own clients. In this case, there is one that stops me from being employed by my companies clients for a period of 1 year.
2) Competition in my industry is fierce. The demand for good workers is much higher than the supply currently, which means that my sector has low unemployment, but with the non compete clauses - a lot of options get closed off.
3) i have a young family and (as is quite common here in Sydney) a large mortgage. Any period of lower (or none) wages than what i was on, will quickly make my position in regards to that untenable.
4) my family and i have a trip to Thailand booked, paid for and starting on the 4th December, with me flying back in early January 2018.
To protect confidentiality, i will be obscuring or glossing over certain facts. The main takeaway here is what has happened, not why.
The story: on the 29th November, my boss calls me into his office to explain that in the new year, he will need to cut back on the number of days that i (and others) am/are employed in the office by two full days per week - effectively turning my role into part time. He then goes on to explain that why this is, and how many (and who) are affected and how badly, and when it would start. He then says that unlike some others in the business, that i am highly marketable and as such should be able to find another job easily: something he would hate to see, but which he says is understandable given my situation. Naturally I'm thinking "Yeah, but the clauses in my contract mean that i can't move to many of those places..."
Then he hits me with this: "So I have on my radar three opportunities that you can easily get and perform well in. Two don't conflict with your contact, but the third i think would be best for you, so i've forwarded your resume to them, and got it all set up so you can talk to their hiring manager today." Turns out that the third option is with one of my clients. Conflicting thoughts!
So, he's done the base leg work, and put me forward for the role and got the phone interview all but set up BEFORE he told me about it, and it's for one of our clients which i shouldn't be able to work for, but he's done the setup so how can he really object? Pretty awesome, right? It gets better.
I call the number (on work time) have a 30 minute phone interview which ends up with a face to face. I go back in the office after this and do my work, saying only to the boss that there is a face to face on the 30th (next day). Gotta say, it felt weird talking to a current employer about that, but there it is. Boss tells me to do the interview on work time, and just get back into the office as quickly as possible.
30th: attend the interview, get told that a letter of offer will come in shortly. Bosh: got the job, no real issues. Get back in the office, boss asks how it went, i said "It went well, but not sure about the outcome yet."
(I'm waiting to see what remuneration was forthcoming, as up until this point no figures were even discussed). He's just cool saying "keep me informed".
Job offer comes in, 20K pay rise with a nice bonus if i make targets. Well, hard to say no, especially with the circumstances being what they are. I explain to the new employer that I'll be taking the job, but i need to sort a few things out at my end: namely the contract, and sorting out an end date.
Again, boss makes it easy: hands me a reference letter, a letter of contract waiver (but only for this client), and says that i can start there as soon as i come back from Thailand. All i had said to him was "Ok, I'm going to take the job, but don't want to leave you in the lurch when i get back, as i understand that the change was taking effect late January.".
This effectively meant that the 30th was my last day in the office (i was scheduled for a client site next day), and the 1st December my last day working for the company (though still being employed through my holiday). By rights, i should have had to keep working until late January.
I've spoken to many people, and they have never heard of a boss being so generous. Not saying that he doesn't win out of it: he does as it means less hours need to be cut from other people, so there is a motivation for him there too, but there was no real need for him to go to the lengths he did or be as accommodating as he was.
On the same note; the new employer didn't have to go out of their way to ensure that i had some piece of mind before my holiday either; so that bodes well for the future.
What do you think? Best boss ever? Or just a boss working his own agenda? Certainly none of my previous bosses would have gone to such lengths.
I personally think the former, because i know the guy. He's as straight as you can get, and doesn't buy in to office politics...
1) in my business, non compete clauses in employment contracts are common, however these only sometimes apply to the businesses own clients. In this case, there is one that stops me from being employed by my companies clients for a period of 1 year.
2) Competition in my industry is fierce. The demand for good workers is much higher than the supply currently, which means that my sector has low unemployment, but with the non compete clauses - a lot of options get closed off.
3) i have a young family and (as is quite common here in Sydney) a large mortgage. Any period of lower (or none) wages than what i was on, will quickly make my position in regards to that untenable.
4) my family and i have a trip to Thailand booked, paid for and starting on the 4th December, with me flying back in early January 2018.
To protect confidentiality, i will be obscuring or glossing over certain facts. The main takeaway here is what has happened, not why.
The story: on the 29th November, my boss calls me into his office to explain that in the new year, he will need to cut back on the number of days that i (and others) am/are employed in the office by two full days per week - effectively turning my role into part time. He then goes on to explain that why this is, and how many (and who) are affected and how badly, and when it would start. He then says that unlike some others in the business, that i am highly marketable and as such should be able to find another job easily: something he would hate to see, but which he says is understandable given my situation. Naturally I'm thinking "Yeah, but the clauses in my contract mean that i can't move to many of those places..."
Then he hits me with this: "So I have on my radar three opportunities that you can easily get and perform well in. Two don't conflict with your contact, but the third i think would be best for you, so i've forwarded your resume to them, and got it all set up so you can talk to their hiring manager today." Turns out that the third option is with one of my clients. Conflicting thoughts!
So, he's done the base leg work, and put me forward for the role and got the phone interview all but set up BEFORE he told me about it, and it's for one of our clients which i shouldn't be able to work for, but he's done the setup so how can he really object? Pretty awesome, right? It gets better.
I call the number (on work time) have a 30 minute phone interview which ends up with a face to face. I go back in the office after this and do my work, saying only to the boss that there is a face to face on the 30th (next day). Gotta say, it felt weird talking to a current employer about that, but there it is. Boss tells me to do the interview on work time, and just get back into the office as quickly as possible.
30th: attend the interview, get told that a letter of offer will come in shortly. Bosh: got the job, no real issues. Get back in the office, boss asks how it went, i said "It went well, but not sure about the outcome yet."
(I'm waiting to see what remuneration was forthcoming, as up until this point no figures were even discussed). He's just cool saying "keep me informed".
Job offer comes in, 20K pay rise with a nice bonus if i make targets. Well, hard to say no, especially with the circumstances being what they are. I explain to the new employer that I'll be taking the job, but i need to sort a few things out at my end: namely the contract, and sorting out an end date.
Again, boss makes it easy: hands me a reference letter, a letter of contract waiver (but only for this client), and says that i can start there as soon as i come back from Thailand. All i had said to him was "Ok, I'm going to take the job, but don't want to leave you in the lurch when i get back, as i understand that the change was taking effect late January.".
This effectively meant that the 30th was my last day in the office (i was scheduled for a client site next day), and the 1st December my last day working for the company (though still being employed through my holiday). By rights, i should have had to keep working until late January.
I've spoken to many people, and they have never heard of a boss being so generous. Not saying that he doesn't win out of it: he does as it means less hours need to be cut from other people, so there is a motivation for him there too, but there was no real need for him to go to the lengths he did or be as accommodating as he was.
On the same note; the new employer didn't have to go out of their way to ensure that i had some piece of mind before my holiday either; so that bodes well for the future.
What do you think? Best boss ever? Or just a boss working his own agenda? Certainly none of my previous bosses would have gone to such lengths.
I personally think the former, because i know the guy. He's as straight as you can get, and doesn't buy in to office politics...
