Financial topics

[Higgenbotham]

Update on Gen X Debacle of the Day

I just got an email confirmation from Dell Refurbished. The FedEx tracking shows the computer was shipped yesterday but Dell Refurbished's email of today says, "Once your package ships we will send an email with a link to track your order." Maybe by the time the package arrives I'll have confirmation that it shipped!

The computer has an Intel i5-4570 with 8 MB of DDR3 RAM and 500 GB hard drive. I think I'll be very happy with it for the price.


Thank you for your order from Dell Refurbished.
Once your package ships we will send an email with a link to track your order.
Your order summary is below. Thank you again for your business.

[Higgenbotham]

Update on Gen X Debacle of earlier this week

Started using my free commissions today and used 11. 489 left. Due to not receiving the bonus, I shut the account down for 8 trading days where they received no commission revenue. At the rate I'm using the free ones it'll be about 10 more weeks before the company starts receiving commission revenue again.

[Higgenbotham]

Now I will make a general point about dealing with Xer supervisors and managers in a workplace. Typically, as illustrated, they will come to you with a threat ("we won't give you a reference unless you give us a 2 week notice") or to play the blame game ("it's your fault Mr Millenial was roaming around in the building for 4 hours because you should have done x, y, and z").

The way to deal with that is to dismiss their point and make sure you have given them an assignment before leaving the meeting. Always leave the meeting with the Xer manager being required to do something.

Examples:

"we won't give you a reference unless you give us a 2 week notice"
By law, I don't have to because this is an at-will state. You don't give the employees you fire any notice. But I'll tell you what. The reason I am quitting is because I can't get any work done because of that noisy pig you dropped 4 feet away from me in my cubicle. If you can get her out of there before the end of the day tomorrow, I'll stay for 2 weeks. Otherwise, my last day will be tomorrow.

"it's your fault Mr Millennial was roaming around in the building for 4 hours because you should have done x, y, and z"
No, it's your fault. You hired him. I didn't and I wouldn't have had I been in your shoes. It's not my fault you don't know how to hire. But the real problem here is not Mr Millennial, it's the woman you stuck in my cubicle. I now have to spend 9 hours per day cooped up with her. Mr Millennial is no longer in the building and I trust he's not coming back. I would be better off if you had forced me to marry her. That way, I could go to the next room, close the door, call my attorney and file for divorce. You need to get her out of my cubicle so I can get some work done.

[John]

> Now I will make a general point about dealing with Xer supervisors
> and managers in a workplace. Typically, as illustrated, they will
> come to you with a threat ("we won't give you a reference unless
> you give us a 2 week notice") or to play the blame game ("it's
> your fault Mr Millenial was roaming around in the building for 4
> hours because you should have done x, y, and z").

> The way to deal with that is to dismiss their point and make sure
> you have given them an assignment before leaving the
> meeting. Always leave the meeting with the Xer manager being
> required to do something.

OK, so here's my sad story about interacting with Gen-Xers:

I got a job with GQ Life Sciences, which was acquired by Aptean about
a year ago. GQ Life Sciences / Aptean asked me to develop a component
that would take six months to complete, involving converting and
transforming 62 million data values in 900,000 gene sequence pattern
patent records, in order to store the data into a database in
searchable form. I worked many hours, including many hours that I
didn't charge for, because I liked this job and wanted to do well, and
because I have special expertise in performing this kind of
large-scale big data parsing and conversion problem.

After four weeks, I was way ahead of schedule, and was expecting to be
thanked. Instead, they hired someone 25 years younger, went to a lot
of trouble to preserve all my code, and then fired me with no
explanation. When I asked why I was fired, I was told, "You know we
can't answer a question like that." I've never received any
explanation for why I was fired.

You mention that managers make firing as humiliating as possible.
That's true, but since there's often illegal age discrimination
involved, I take the opportunity to return the humiliation.

I was pulled into a conference room with the Boomer GQ manager and the
Gen-X Aptean manager. After I expressed my total astonishment that I
was being fired after I was way ahead of schedule, I said that I'd
return to my computer and delete my personal files. They expected me
to skulk off without saying anything to anyone.

So as soon as I left the conference room, I was in the large room with
all the other employees, and I said in a loud voice, "Hey everyone,
I've just been fired." Everyone stared, but no one said anything. I
went to my computer to delete my personal files, and to make sure that
I preserved all the work that I had done.

As I was working, two women employees came over and asked me what
happened. I said that I had been fired with no explanation
whatsoever, and that I had absolutely no idea why I was fired, but
that I assumed that it had to do with age discrimination, because a
lot of companies don't want an older person around. The women
referred to the GQ manager and said that wasn't true, so I pointed to
Chris, the Aptean manager, who was sitting a few desks away, and I
said "Chris fired me." And I added that Aptean is probably a company
that doesn't tolerate older employees.

Now obviously I was hugely pissed, but in retrospect it was very
funny. Chris was sitting there just staring, barely moving, as if
he'd been turned into a pillar of salt. Later, I walked across the
room and he followed me with his eyes. As I passed by, I said "Are
you going to tell me why you're firing me?" He looked frightened, and
stuttered "No." As I said, in retrospect it's actually hilarious.

But this illustrates one of the points of the parable that I posted.
When Gen-Xers do something illegal or immoral or unethical, they
absolutely HATE it when it's pointed out to them, and they don't say
anything but, as in the parable, they knife you in the back when you
aren't looking.

And that's what happened here. I submitted my final timesheet online
to the recruiter office, and Chris modified the timesheet to delete
two days of work, with the explanation "Didn't work." When I saw this
on my computer, I couldn't believe my eyes, and I actually laughed
because I knew this jackass was doing something really stupid, which
is what Gen-Xers do when they want to get revenge for being called out
for their illegal, immoral or unethical actions.

So anyway, I refused to sign off on the modified time sheet. I was a
w-2 employee of the recruiter, Robert Half, so this caused a problem
for them because they needed to have the final timesheet signed off.
I explained what Aptean had done, and I hinted darkly that I might
report this to the attorney general, filing a labor law wage complaint
or filing an age discrimination complaint, or I might bring a case in
small claims court, where I've won cases before.

So Robert Half intervened and forced Aptean to pay me for the two
days.

This meant that the Chris was humiliated once more, because he had
been forced to back down from his petty revenge action, and everyone
could see that he had been breaking the law. As pissed off as I was
(and am) about this, this part of it was quite enjoyable.

I want to mention something with regard to the situation you described
where the company made up phony charges in order to fire someone for
cause and avoid paying unemployment. That's illegal behavior. Labor
courts don't like to see individuals get screwed by companies and
leave them with no income, so even the threat of filing a complaint
that might result in a court hearing could be enough to get the
company to change its mind. Even if you have to go into court
yourself without a lawyer (though you should get a lawyer's advice),
you can cost the company a great deal of embarrasment and money by
subpoenaing them for all documents related to the situation, including
communications with other employees or departments or companies.
Companies will do almost anything rather than have to comply with that
kind of subpoena, especially since if they've done something illegal
to screw you, then they're probably doing all sorts of illegal things.

I posted a summary of this story on the Glassdoor.com website for GQ
Life Sciences in order to embarrass them still further. Fuck you,
Chris.

Finally, there's a footnote to this story. I just learned in the past
week that Aptean has shut down the GQ Boston office, and moved the
project to its Atlanta office. (Aptean is a French company, based in
Paris.)

So all the other employees working in the Boston office were totally
screwed as much as I was. I don't know the reason, but I suspect that
the young kid they hired to replace me didn't have a clue how to
continue developing the software. Furthermore, Aptean had so
completely botched hiring and firing me, they probably decided that
the Boston office had to go.

[John]

One thing I forgot to mention. The way that I was informed that the
Boston GQ office was shut down was because another recruiter told me.
He said that he had called the GQ manager to get a reference, though I
warned him that any reference might not be so good. But he said that
the GQ manager was out of a job, and he had given me a very positive
reference.

You mentioned that many employees leave quietly because they fear not
getting a good reference. There are several points to be made here.

If a company gives a bad reference without a provable reason, it risks
a lawsuit. This is particularly true if there's even a possibility
that discrimination was involved. When I walked out of that
conference room and talked about age discrimination, I was practically
guaranteed of getting a good reference, because a bad reference would
only add to an age discrimination complaint, if I tried to pursue it.
Generally speaking, no matter how much noise you make when you're
fired, the absolutely safest thing that a company can do is give you a
good reference, whether they like it or not.

[Higgenbotham]

What comes to mind when reading your story is that it's a pretty good example of the monkeys flying the 747 analogy. Obviously, the Gen Xer was a clueless idiot. A 5 minute conversation with him would evidence that he has no concept of the basic business principles upon which Western Civilization was founded and built. I actually have many more examples of this that I have gathered over the past 90 days that haven't been posted yet.

I find myself in agreement with your comments regarding various employment topics. Regarding the topic of references, what I was conveying to my Gen X male manager was that I didn't need his reference, so his threat regarding the requirement for a 2 week notice had no teeth. As you pointed out, it was just a threat that he would not act on anyway - something that came into his mind on short notice to try to scare me into staying another 2 weeks. Nobody in their right mind would give a poor reference nowadays, particularly in that situation. I was fine staying for 2 weeks provided they moved that woman out of my cubicle. Forcing them to do that and then strutting around the office for 2 more weeks showing who was really the boss had some benefits. For one, I got a lot of street cred with my male coworkers who knew I had kicked some Gen X super-entitled blonde white female ass and got away with it. That was in keeping with my basic strategies for dealing with Gen X workplace managers - minimize any issue they bring to you as in, "I don't need your reference. Next?" Whenever I deal with a Gen X manager in a workplace setting, I want to think of myself as an armored tank moving forward, deflecting every bullet with ease and effortlessly crushing everything in my path.

[Higgenbotham]

When dealing with Gen X managers in a workplace setting, I would advise that people not ask them the equivalent of, "Why are you doing this to me?" That only adds to their smug enjoyment and provides fodder for additional abuse.

Instead, think of the Gen X manager who is abusing you as a wild gorilla who is poking you with a stick. To make the gorilla stop poking you, you want to grab the stick, break it off, and shove it back into the gorilla as hard as you can.

[Higgenbotham]

On another similar subject, I used to work in a place where supervisors would form mob like groups for the purpose of harrassing and intimidating staff persons. Invariably, the reaction of the staff person was to ask, "Why are they doing this to me?" I never asked that question. As one former supervisor said to me, "Their technique was effective in getting most people to emote and ask why they were doing it. You never asked why. When you were in your cage and they were poking you with their stick, your response was to break the stick off and shove it up their ass." I told him, that's right, why they were doing it was irrelevant; the only thing that was relevant to me was the fact that they were doing it.

[Higgenbotham]

Final Update on Gen X Debacle of the Day

The computer was delivered by FedEx.

Dell Refurbished still hasn't sent an email indicating the computer was shipped.

Dell Refurbished had a Columbus Day sale where all of their non-clearance computers were 48% off with a coupon code. I can imagine they were swamped with orders and the place was chaotic. I'm actually satisfied with the experience. I try to do these things during times when I can track every step in the process.

Getting a Dell Optiplex from a Dell business with an Intel i5-4570, 8 MB of DDR3 RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive for $258 delivered is a good deal in my book, even if the final email was neglected or lost.

[Higgenbotham]

Next, I will discuss a company called Appliance Warehouse of America that I rented a washer/dryer from.

Like State Farm and Dell, the overall experience was positive but it still showed that an understanding of the basic principles upon which Western Civilization was founded and built is now seriously lacking. This provides continuing confirmation to me that we have entered a Dark Age, even though day to day things are still functioning.

I called the company to schedule a pickup. The woman who answered the phone was very professional and had a great telephone voice. I complimented her on that and she greatly appreciated it.

The pickup was scheduled and the driver called me during the scheduled two hour time slot, which was posted on their website as promised. When the driver showed up, it was evident that he was an African man (born in Africa). He handed me a piece of paper to sign. He was in an unmarked truck that did not bear the name of the company. I signed the form and handed it back to him.

I was aware that the company should have provided me with a receipt verifying the serial numbers of the appliances being the same ones I rented, but I didn't bother asking for it. The reason I didn't is I knew there was nothing they could do if he hauled the appliances off and never returned them to the company.

A few days later I got a bill in the mail that was printed up 3 days before the pickup. In the next 3 weeks, I got no other correspondence from the company indicating the appliances were received or the account was closed. I called to ask if we were square and got the same woman. She said their records showed the appliances were returned and my account was closed.

I kind of doubt most Millennials would have any thought that this transaction was not done according to the basic business principles upon which Western Civilization was founded and thrived for 5 centuries because they have probably never seen a transaction like this done correctly.