RIF'd Episode 2 : The months before layoff

[00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000]  Everyone welcome back. I can't believe we did it. This is episode 2 of Rif'd
[00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:12.000]  You know I think this is sort of the inflection point of most podcasts to get to episode 2.
[00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.000]  I either call it quits or they don't. Let's see what happens here.
[00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:24.000]  I wanted to talk this episode about what led up to the layoff because my work was weird.
[00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:28.000]  There's a lot of weird stuff going on and maybe some people find it interesting.
[00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:41.000]  So I thought I would just talk about that and sort of go through the weird existential nonsense that was happening at my job at this software company that makes virtualization software.
[00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:55.000]  And I'll leave it at that. And how it all played out leading up to me ultimately being let go or choosing to be let go from my job.
[00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:03.000]  So it started in August of I don't know let's start in August of 2022 because a whole lot of crap has been happening.
[00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:09.000]  But again let me just recap. I was a customer success manager working for this company.
[00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:15.000]  And you know our job was to make sure that our our cutie little customers were using all the software that they bought.
[00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:21.000]  That it was doing all the things they wanted. We were answering questions. We were delivering training and stuff like that.
[00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:27.000]  But on top of all that I had a crazy boss named Rita to protect her identity.
[00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:36.000]  And because she's nuts. If she ever listens to this she's not nuts. She's great. She's great. She's a great boss.
[00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:51.000]  Rita starting about August we came through new management and you know the senior VP was talking about all the things that they were going to do for the team we were on and make sure that customer success was the best thing ever.
[00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:59.000]  And that we were succeeding with our customers and it was it was just everything that we ever imagined that customer success could be.
[00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:05.000]  So what they wanted to do first was take everyone's accounts and shuffle them up. Because why not?
[00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:14.000]  Whenever you have a you know a consistent relationship with a customer and things are going well why not just fuck all that up and move all the accounts between all the people.
[00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:19.000]  So that was the first step. And this really kind of triggered my boss Rita. She wasn't happy about that.
[00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:29.000]  Rita had bigger dreams of what customer success could be at the company and she let it be known. She's kind of a loose cannon.
[00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:38.000]  She's a single mom of three and they're all about college aged and one of her kids has autism.
[00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:47.000]  So she has all that going on. And anytime that I would talk to her and we were all working remote by the way so every time we would talk it would be over Zoom.
[00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:56.000]  She looked like hell and it got progressively worse as time went on. So it started out you know she would just look a little disheveled.
[00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:05.000]  Maybe her lipstick was smeared and her hair was messed up. But as time went on she would call at weird times like 6 p.m.
[00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:11.000]  We would have a meeting and she would sound completely fucked up and drunk and she might have been drunk. I don't know.
[00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:18.000]  But she was just wild. So she would just wax philosophically about herself and talk about herself.
[00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:24.000]  Who would do that? I mean come on. Who wants to talk about themselves? That's sick. That's disgusting. Thanks for tuning in.
[00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:32.000]  She would talk about herself and just nonsense for hours. You could talk to her for an hour and not get a word in edgewise.
[00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:37.000]  She would just steamroll you with nonsense the entire time.
[00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:44.000]  So Rita started acting kind of crazy and that went on for a couple weeks.
[00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:53.000]  And then she said you know I'm going to take a vacation. I think she got a stern talking to because she was just acting real weird.
[00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:59.000]  They probably said you need to take some time off. So she goes and takes a vacation in Mexico.
[00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:07.000]  And you know she spends like two weeks there. When she gets back she says team. She sends out a team's message.
[00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:12.000]  I need to talk to everyone. It's a very important meeting. I hope you can make it.
[00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:18.000]  I couldn't make it because I had something else going on and frankly I knew it wasn't going to be an important meeting.
[00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:23.000]  It was going to be her talking about bullshit for an hour and I didn't feel like going.
[00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:34.000]  Lo and behold Rita decided to tell my entire team the experiences that she had in Mexico.
[00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:48.000]  One of which was being sexually assaulted. So she brought our whole team onto this call and then detailed the events leading up to and after and during her sexual assault.
[00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:55.000]  This is fucking crazy. I've never heard of something like this happening at the job. I mean we had weird stuff happen at work before.
[00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:02.000]  We had a guy disparage Islam on a whiteboard and he was summarily walked out.
[00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:11.000]  This same guy, this guy also, I don't even let's call him Johnny. Johnny Masterson. Is that a real person's name?
[00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:21.000]  Either way, Johnny was fucking crazy too. He used to like go around the cube farm that we worked in and just fart in people's cubes and then run away.
[00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:25.000]  One time he lit a bunch of fireworks off in the parking lot like over everyone's cars.
[00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:29.000]  He was just like launching fireworks off. None of those things got him fired.
[00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:37.000]  But the second he wrote about Islam he was out. So that was Johnny Masterson or something like that.
[00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:48.000]  Rita told everyone about her sexual assault. I'm so glad I didn't make that call. Everyone was like, "Dude, that call was insane. I can't believe you weren't on it."
[00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:52.000]  And all I thought was thank fucking God I wasn't on it.
[00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:55.000]  After that she basically left the company. She disappeared.
[00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:00.000]  Then a few weeks went by. We didn't have a boss for multiple weeks.
[00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:05.000]  And then the senior leadership was like, "Oh by the way, Rita's gone. She's not coming back."
[00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:12.000]  And that was sort of it. And I didn't have a boss after that. They didn't even change who I was reporting to. I just didn't report to anyone.
[00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:16.000]  So then another woman came along and her name was Joan.
[00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:28.000]  And she was sort of, she was in operations and she was really in charge of figuring out all the different numbers and finances and how much we were charging customers.
[00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:43.000]  Our subscription renewals and net income and what does all this look like. So we could put it together on a sheet and deliver it to senior leadership and show them, "Look at all your money. Look at the dollars coming in. Here's what they're doing."
[00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:51.000]  So Joan came along and she said, "Kevin, I want you on my team. I want you." And she said this exactly.
[00:06:51.000 --> 00:07:00.000]  She said, "How would you feel about playing in my sandbox for a while?" And I thought that was fucking weird. Who even says that?
[00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:09.000]  Why would you ever say that to someone that sounds dirty? Like you just got a sandy vagina and you want me in it? I don't know. It was weird.
[00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:14.000]  So I said, "Sure. Why not?" I didn't have a boss at the time.
[00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:22.000]  And you know, I had nothing going on because I didn't really pay attention to my accounts anymore. I was still under the impression that we would be laid off any day.
[00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:32.000]  Now, this was about November 2022 that this came around. So I was pulling numbers. I was compiling reports and showing our finances and revenue so we could bring them over to people.
[00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:46.000]  And then it was a whole thing. We had this big sheet of customers with outstanding balances of money. And in that column, the outstanding balance column, there's also customers with negative balances.
[00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:50.000]  And then if you looked in our internal systems, all they were doing was doing a standard sum.
[00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:55.000]  So you had a bunch of negative balances that were taking away from the outstanding credit balance that we had.
[00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:02.000]  Ultimately, when I did the math correctly, we had like $60 million of money unaccounted for that they didn't know about.
[00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:09.000]  And when I brought this up, they didn't like the answer. They didn't even want to hear about that. They're like, "No. No, we don't."
[00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:15.000]  But the math worked out. We actually did have $60 million extra that they didn't want to think about. That was a whole other thing.
[00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:35.000]  So Joan and me, we're exploring the sandbox of Joan and compiling stuff. And then like one week after she took me under her managerial wing, she said, "By the way, I'm going to Egypt on vacation. Why don't you run the ship?"
[00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:45.000]  So here I am. A guy that this is none of this was supposed to be my job, by the way. I'm supposed to be helping my customers, not fucking around on internal accounting numbers.
[00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:59.000]  Like this should obviously be done by finance people, not by this person, Kevin, who doesn't give a shit and is generally just not good or worthy or cares about anything going on right now.
[00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:12.000]  So she fucks off to Egypt. Literally bum fuck Egypt. And I'm just doing numbers. I'm writing up, you know, PowerPoints to show to the big men, show them how much money they have.
[00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:21.000]  And that sort of went on. And then when she got from Egypt, I guess I didn't do a good enough job because she was mad at me and she didn't want me to do it anymore.
[00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:30.000]  And she actually I found out later, like a friend of mine that still works there said that she we had a team dinner and she was talking shit about you.
[00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:37.000]  She said you're stupid and you don't know anything and that you're useless. I was like, yeah, goddamn, Joan.
[00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:47.000]  Basically, she's pissed. I didn't turn her sandbox into glass. OK, but fuck her. And it was stupid anyway.
[00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:53.000]  It wasn't my job. So after that, she didn't she didn't want anything to do with me. But I still didn't have a boss.
[00:09:53.000 --> 00:10:02.000]  So I just didn't tell anyone I didn't have a boss for like two to three months because why wouldn't you?
[00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:10.000]  I was still getting paid and, you know, the money was coming in and my customers were easy to deal with and I didn't have a boss.
[00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:26.000]  It was great. No one bothered me. So basically what I did was enjoy my Christmas holiday and play a lot of video games and, you know, try to learn guitar and just generally fuck around and hang out with my kids and just have a good time.
[00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:38.000]  It was great. And things were hunky dory. That was until they gave me a new boss. His his name was BJ.
[00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:49.000]  And BJ also had his own issues, right? I'm pretty sure he has Tourette's. So like a lot of times, like when he's talking to people, he just got the entire time.
[00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:55.000]  So we got to get the we got to get this. It's just like, oh, my God, dude.
[00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:04.000]  Can I talk for you? Can that can that be my job? Because the customers like the fuck's wrong with this guy is like long covid. Why is he always grunting at us?
[00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:10.000]  What is wrong with his sandbox? So that was fine.
[00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.000]  I really wanted to raise at this point because I felt like I'd been dicked around by the company.
[00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:21.000]  Like I didn't have a boss. I went from Rita being crazy to Jones sandbox to no boss to AJ.
[00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:30.000]  And I felt like, you know, they kind of owed me because I was running a lot of stuff involving, you know, all the financial crap for a while.
[00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:35.000]  And I never got any, I don't know, recognition for that.
[00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:43.000]  And it was kind of annoying. So I had heard through the grapevine that they were giving people retention bonuses.
[00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:52.000]  Basically, people were getting one hundred thousand dollar cash bonus that was paid out quarterly just to hang around.
[00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:58.000]  And my buddy got one. I was like, dude, how do I get one of those? He said, dude, they just gave it to me. You should just ask.
[00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:01.000]  But I thought, I don't think they're going to give me one.
[00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:04.000]  They would have told me by now if they were going to give me a retention bonus.
[00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:13.000]  So I tried to come up with a scenario where I could force their hand and make them give me a retention bonus.
[00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.000]  And this is the sort of this is an ethical.
[00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:26.000]  Basically, I was highly unethical at this next point, but I convinced my wife's boss to make up a position for me,
[00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:33.000]  a director of IT position and write up an offer letter so I could say, hey, I got this offer letter for a new job.
[00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:42.000]  Do I take the new job or will you guys give me this retention bonus that I know you guys are disseminating among various people?
[00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:44.000]  And I'll stay here and I'll work with you guys.
[00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:49.000]  So I came up with this fake offer letter and I and I brought it to them and I said, hey, I got this offer letter.
[00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:53.000]  I don't know if I should take this job or not. You know, it's a it's a lot different responsibility.
[00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:56.000]  It's a director of IT position for this company.
[00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:00.000]  And I don't know if I want it. What can you do for me?
[00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:05.000]  You know, then they said, oh, you should take that job.
[00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:07.000]  They did not honor it.
[00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:13.000]  They did not like even Dane to think that I should keep working at my current company.
[00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:15.000]  I said, what? You guys don't want me.
[00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:18.000]  They're like, well, we can't match this offer.
[00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:25.000]  And knowing full well that they gave my friend a hundred thousand dollar retention bonus, like three days prior to this, we can't match it.
[00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:28.000]  I said, oh, well, that's discouraging.
[00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.000]  So they completely called my bluff, which was impressive.
[00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:34.000]  I didn't think they were going to do it, but they did.
[00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:40.000]  And that was a fun little vignette of my time there.
[00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:43.000]  So ultimately, I didn't take my fake job.
[00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:47.000]  And when they asked about it, I said, you know, I've got to look at the finances and stuff.
[00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:52.000]  And I wasn't comfortable moving to that job because I don't know how long it's going to be around.
[00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:59.000]  So they're like, OK. So I just kept working there with a with BJ as my boss.
[00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:03.000]  And I didn't really do anything. And I worked about three hours a week.
[00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:14.000]  So from August to March, I was working about three hours a week and I was getting paid handsomely for that.
[00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:16.000]  And it was pretty sweet gig.
[00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:19.000]  So I just kept doing it, even though I hated it.
[00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:25.000]  Realistically, I did hate it because I do want to be doing something meaningful and and helping people and whatever.
[00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:31.000]  But if they're going to pay you so much money to not do any of that stuff, it's hard to turn down.
[00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:40.000]  So at which point in April rolls around and I got a new boss, I don't even remember her name, honestly,
[00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:47.000]  because they're like, welcome, Sharon, she's your new boss.
[00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:50.000]  She's going to reach out to everyone. She never reached out to me.
[00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:54.000]  I literally never talked to her. I never met Sharon.
[00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:02.000]  The very first time I ever got to talk to Sharon was when a random meeting invite
[00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:07.000]  popped up on my calendar and it was called important meeting.
[00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.000]  That was the title of the meeting. It just said important meeting.
[00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:15.000]  It was with me and her. And that's when I felt it in my gut.
[00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:20.000]  I was like, oh, this is it. This is the layoff meeting.
[00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:26.000]  And everyone on my team is freaking out because they all got the same meeting.
[00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:29.000]  And, you know, ultimately it did happen.
[00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:33.000]  I met with Sharon and she said, very nice to meet you.
[00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:40.000]  Literally the first time we met and then she looks down at her desk and she's literally reading off of a sheet
[00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:45.000]  and she runs through how the layoff will play out.
[00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:51.000]  She says, OK, Kevin, you can either change your title to technical adoption manager
[00:15:51.000 --> 00:16:01.000]  and continue working here or you can take this severance package and not work here anymore.
[00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:03.000]  And meanwhile, I'm just like laughing at her.
[00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:07.000]  I was like literally giggling during it because it was so ridiculous.
[00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:11.000]  A scenario where she's reading off a paper. She's never met me before.
[00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:14.000]  She's my boss. I've never met her before.
[00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:18.000]  And she's just telling me basically I can stay or go.
[00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:22.000]  And I was like, cool. Thank you. I'm going to think about it.
[00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:26.000]  And then we got off the phone and the severance package was sweet.
[00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:31.000]  It was two months on the payroll, followed by two months off the payroll
[00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:35.000]  and then an additional week of pay for every year of service.
[00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.000]  So I was there for 11 years. So I got 11 more weeks of pay.
[00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:45.000]  And ultimately it came out on what is it like 6.75 months of pay to not work.
[00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:51.000]  And it was the summertime. And I said, I'm going to take it even though I don't know what I'm going to do next.
[00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:57.000]  And you know, I've been here 11 years and nothing is ever getting better here.
[00:16:57.000 --> 00:16:59.000]  I only see things getting worse.
[00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:04.000]  I don't understand how I had no boss for like four or five months in the past year.
[00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:08.000]  And I don't foresee that getting any better. So I'm just going to take it.
[00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:12.000]  And thanks Sharon. And that's where we left off.
[00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:14.000]  I just took the money and ran.
[00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:20.000]  And then I was sort of listless and didn't know what to do with my life.
[00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:23.000]  And I think we'll go into that later. I don't know.
[00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:26.000]  But it really started the summer of Kevin as my neighbor coined it.
[00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:32.000]  The summer of Kevin. Coming to a summer of Kevin near you.
[00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:35.000]  It was one of the best summers I've ever had.
[00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:41.000]  And did a lot of soul searching and ended up finding nothing during that summer.
[00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:45.000]  In terms of what I want to do with a career, which is really discouraging.
[00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:48.000]  Because right now I still don't have a job. By the way, I'm just looking.
[00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:51.000]  I'm looking for jobs. I'm getting like a million rejections.
[00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:56.000]  And I feel like my resume is pretty good. I'm not even getting first callbacks.
[00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:59.000]  So the market out there just sucks right now.
[00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:01.000]  So I feel for anyone looking for a job.
[00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:07.000]  But in the end, I mean, I think maybe what I did learn in the summer is like Tyler Durden.
[00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:10.000]  Is he the one that said it? You are not your job.
[00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:15.000]  It's such an American thing to only talk about work and what you do.
[00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:18.000]  But you are so much more than that.
[00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:21.000]  And maybe we can talk more about that next time.
[00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.000]  OK, bye.