Sinking Ship Blog

Tommy Ryan: You can’t keep us locked up in here like animals - the ship’s bloody sinking!

If you’re a Titanic fan, you recognize the title.  It’s from the scene where they won’t let the people from steerage out from the bottom of the ship, while  the first-class passengers are all boarding lifeboats as the ship takes on water.

Every time there is hope that the USS Sinking Ship won’t, in fact, sink - something else comes along.   We go along smoothly for a couple of months, with tightened belts and a skeleton crew, and every other paycheck being paper instead of direct deposit.  Small indications, but ones that should not be ignored, given the company’s history.

Last month, there was another round of layoffs.  The highly-paid friend of the BMOC finally went.  I feel bad only because the economy is such that it isn’t easy to find replacement employment these days.  Not because his leaving was such a loss to the company that we are having a hard time filling his shoes; it isn’t as if the man was doing much - or at least that is how it appeared to those of us in steerage.

During the call that announced the layoffs, there was mention of furloughs or other cost-cutting measures.  Personally I didn’t like the loss of income but in typical Pollyanna fashion I didn’t give it a lot of thought.  It wasn’t as if the BMOC spent a lot of time discussing the possibilities, it was a fleeting mention in the midst of a lot of other heavy information.

Until last week when we got THE email.  The one that said “Hey, do us this favor and take this 10% cut in pay.  Your line managers have been instructed to be flexible with you regarding your scheduling in return for doing us this favor.”

As is typical with emails from the BMOC, that vague sentence was not further explained.  It prompted speculation among those of us in steerage.  But not for long, because an hour later, the #2BMOC called a meeting with those who work in my business unit.  It was an interesting meeting, but we were assured that four 10 hour days would be possible in order to allow us to have 3 day weekends, or maybe another day of working from home for those who work in offices.  Astoundingly, after being asked, they expected no attrition as a result of the pay cut.  

Seriously?  Seriously.

I thought I was a Pollyanna.  Apparently I’m not alone.  I’m just not in first class being a Pollyanna.

I’m guessing that if the rumors about how ugly the meeting with the other business unit got are true, management got a major education in a quick way.  Rumors are that it was an incredibly unpleasant meeting.

Ooookay.  Moving along, it turns out that we couldn’t just tell them what we wanted to do for our newly-acquired flex time.  We could request it, and the requests would be considered.  And then the day of the decision about those requests came and went and we’d heard nothing.

People started asking questions, and the questions were answered.  The answers weren’t pleasant and they filtered down to the masses.  It seems that they didn’t expect people to want to take advantage of four 10’s. 

Or something like that.  I’m not sure what the motivation for the next set of lies was, but what they were telling us was that what was meant by that sentence in the email from the BMOC was not how BMOC#2 and BMOC#4 interpreted it and their interpretation was wrong. 

Those people who were not in the know that BMOC#2 and BMOC#4 helped write that email might be buying it.  But if you help to write an email, you pretty much know what it means.  There were DAYS of discussion surrounding that email - there was no room for misinterpretation by the ones who were expected to be flexible.

The second lie was that HR wasn’t going to go for it.  We don’t have an HR department.  At least not anymore.  They were the first to feel the axe against their necks, over a year ago.  We have an HR person.  And she is part-time.  And guess what?  She works for the very people who were now back-tracking on their “concessions” that were to make the pay cut more palatable.  What they were proposing is in no way illegal, and I am pretty sure that it doesn’t jeopardize the salaried status of any employees to work four 10’s (turning them back into hourly), so the logic is just about the same as the Titanic only having half the number of lifeboats required to save all the persons on the ship.

The official email comes out, and their next offer is four 9’s, with day 5 consisting of 4 work hours and 4 on-call hours.

You can do the math, right?

We work 40 hours, and as a thank you for taking a pay cut, we get to be on-call for an extra 4 hours.  

So let’s re-cap:

• They stopped tuition reimbursement.
• They stopped matching our 401(k)’s.  
  • They didn’t tell us about it for months, and now are in danger of federal sanctions because they are STILL behind in what they owe us.
• Apparently they stopped paying taxes because there is a large IRS bill.
• Expense reimbursement is almost non-existent or takes months and months to arrive.
• There have been 3 rounds of layoffs, with a starting workforce of about 120.  I would say we are down to approximately 30 employees now.
  • The loss of even one employee out of the ones that are left might not be the equivalent of hitting the iceberg (depending on the employee) but it would absolutely have detrimental effects. 
• We have been subjected to a 10% pay cut, effective at least through the end of the year.
  • Even the BMOC’s don’t expect the pay cut to be reversed by January 2010.
• We were promised flex time in exchange for the pay cut, as long as our level of productivity didn’t decrease.  Instead, we were delivered the chance to work even more hours in exchange for less pay.

Three months later….

And sadly - or is that gladly - not much has changed.

Our year-end wrap up didn’t include numbers, but it did include the word “remarkable”.  A lot.  It’s remarkable that we’re still in business.  It’s remarkable that we all still work together nicely.  It’s remarkable that our clients haven’t killed us, or us them.

You notice that it didn’t include numbers.

But our paychecks arrived, and didn’t bounce.

How many upper managers didn’t get paid?  How long since the top 3 have received normal paychecks?

We lost our newest hire; he saw some writing on the wall and he bolted.  Frankly, I can’t blame him.  We replaced him with contractors.  Contractors who don’t give a damn, don’t know the products, don’t know our coding standards, and just want to do their 8 hours and go.  You can’t blame them for that, really.  They have no investment, emotional or otherwise, in our company.  It’s just not efficient to be working this way.

So, in an absolute burst of crazy genius, our CEO decided to have us all submit suggestions for making the company better, for making the company profitable again.  The number one suggestion:  ditch the contractors and hire developers.  We put out better product with people who are on board and know how we operate, and our clients notice and spread the word and don’t bitch so much.  And then they give us more money.

Oh, and the ONE Quality Assurance person we have - yeah, that person COULD USE SOME HELP.  It goes back to the better product thing.  The overall theme to the suggestions was not to ramp up on new products yet but to adequately support the products that we already have.  They’re the cornerstone of our company.

Our annual New Year kickoff meeting should be happening soon.  We’ll see how that goes and I’ll update.

Happy Holidays on the USS Sinking Ship

Things have been pretty quiet and calm, despite the ‘attrition’ that has been happening.  People are again, predictably, leaving in droves.  The rest of us suck it up and watch as we add another member to the outsource/contract team that we’ve hired to take up the slack.  Considering our payment history with them (they’ve pulled their people off the job before for non-payment) it’s amazing that they’re still doing business with us.  But they do, and so we have people who don’t know the products, don’t know our coding standards, etc., trying to write code that will pass muster with the customers.

I should add that they’re all perfectly nice people and do good work, they’re just at a huge disadvantage without any ramp-up time.

OK, so …. we’ve closed offices (2 more) and laid off people.  Remaining offices have moved to smaller spaces to save money on rent.

And today, I learned that we are losing our 800 conference line.

Cause you know, asking our customers to call long-distance and be transferred to an internal conference line is oh, so professional.  Especially when, just last week, we had an 800 number.  As was pointed out to me, though, it could be worse.  Like earlier in the week when our 800 provider had a glitch and we were all panicking because we knew we hadn’t paid the bill - well, we’d paid it that morning, but what guarantee is there that the payment got there in time to prevent disconnection?

On other fronts, I had a promising call with a recruiter on Monday for a job that I would absolutely be interested in.  That’s a definite change from the disastrous interview with the recruiter from the big-box-software manufacturer a few weeks ago. I still cringe at the thought of that one.  Hopefully, any anecdotes from the USS Sinking Ship will be second hand in the very near future.

And as always, we hope that the anecdotes continue, because if they stop, it means there’s no more money to keep the doors open.

It turns out that you have to spend money to make money.

Which, according to rumors - is a problem for us.

Word comes down from management:  We need your input on whether or not one of our existing products meets the requirements listed in this document.  And, because we don’t want to offer this product to anyone yet, let’s see if our other product meets the requirements even though the potential customer has made it more than clear that they are not interested in Product B.

We will have 10 or so people spend time over a one week period - probably 10 hours per person so 100 personnel hours - to determine if the requirements are met by either product, or if customization will be necessary to meet the requirements.

When all is said and done, and the results are in:  most of the requirements would be met by Product A, most by Product B (which the potential customer still does not want) but there would be some customization necessary.

At conservative estimates, we just spent $10,000 to determine that we are not going to bid on this project.  The rumored reason behind our decision:  We don’t get paid for customizations until they’re delivered.  And we can’t afford to front the cost of development.

Catch-22, anyone?

Essentially, unless we can sell our product as-is, no customizations, we can’t sell it at all.  And we have yet to sell even one copy of our software without customizations.  Every single one of our customers has custom code.  Every.  Single.  One.

It’s a year later…..

and unbelievably, SS Sinking Ship is still in business.

Unbelievably, we are in the same position we were last year, sort of.

Things started to get better.  We hired some new developers, brought in some new financial management, continued talks with investors, and brought in some guy from NYC to make us look good.  Those of us who were left were given increased responsibility, we were caught up on long-overdue raises (but not for the increased responsibility), allegedly we got our books in order to make us more attractive to investors or purchasers.  Expense checks were paid, not always in a timely fashion, but they were paid.  We were doing all the same work, in some cases more, with half the staff.  My local office was closed to save money, and I became one of millions of Americans working from home.  At least I didn’t have to deal with dirty bathrooms, bugs, and dust anymore.  Almost all of upper management is gone, including my direct supervisor who I adored.

And then, two weeks ago - the layoffs started again.  There was another company-wide Koolaid party,  and the numbers were not pretty.  8 people laid off.  Monthly projections in red - negative numbers - until the final cumulation of roughly 170K in the red for December.  The tension on the call was unbelievable.  The Koolaid was served - the layoffs will allow us to reduce those numbers, we’ll tighten our belts even more, we will get it done.

Then the departmental call, immediately after.  They actually took a roll call and compared it with the number of callers the phone system said we had on, and against the invitation that was sent out.  The call pretty much started with these words:

“If you’re on this call, you’re safe.”

Oh.  My.  God. 

We’d just taken a roll call.  The IM’s started flying, for those of us not in the room with our department leaders.  Who wasn’t on the call that we would expect to be on the call?  There was one developer, but it wasn’t totally unexpected because he wasn’t carrying his weight, wouldn’t be considered that he was doing so in a normal company.  Who else was missing?

Two questions were asked, and those who asked will forever live in my hearts as heroes:  1 - will the CEO be kept under control, as he sometimes makes decisions that are out of sync with what stated company goals are.  and 2 - the layoffs don’t seem to make up for the 170K deficit in December.  We were assured that the CEO was on board with all plans, and it was admitted that senior management was taking a rather large paycut to help the numbers.

It turns out that most of those laid off were in another department, one that really needed an overhaul anyway.  Not that the people in it were bad or bad employees, but their business processes just weren’t working, and if the financial state of the company wasn’t earning it a bad reputation, then the state of that product was.   Since the layoffs are happening over the next few months (between now and the end of the year) we aren’t certain of all of them.  There are some project managers who won’t be returning today.  A few developers.  Some support staff, although I’m not clear how we can continue to function with even fewer support staff than we already have.  One person who has a big title but doesn’t seem to do anything.

Oh, but wait.  That one person with the big title is a good friend of the BMOC.  The CEO.  And when he was making the phone calls laying people off, he decided - against the agreements made with other members of management - to just not call the one with the big title.  So while company gossip correctly had him on the list of eight …. the one person on the list who made the most money …. he is still around and not going anywhere.   Company gossip also has it that the other two BMOC’s are pretty unhappy about it.

So here we are.

The expected mass exodus has already begun, but this time we really can’t absorb the loss of personnel.  Ironically we have some decent sized contracts we’ve just signed with a client, with work expected to be delivered by year’s end.  We’re bringing in contractors but there are some parts of the work that really need to be done by people with knowledge of the product, and you can’t get that from contractors.

The mass exodus is expected to pick up pace, since yesterday was pay day.  And no one’s direct deposit was in their bank accounts yesterday.  Remember last year when we had all the first call about the cash crunch?  And the payday immediately thereafter, our checks weren’t in the bank?  Deja vu.  Really.  The official word is that it was a bank glitch, the 2nd in a year from a large bank that you wouldn’t expect this from.  I will say that FedEx arrived on my doorstep very early this morning with a paper check.   I’m almost scared to deposit it, but not being independently wealthy, I can’t afford not to.

I finally broke down and asked my former direct supervisor if she would be a reference for me.  This is a big step because she is still close with members of management at SS Sinking Ship.  I asked her to keep it between us, and I think she will.  She left for the same reasons that made me ask her to be a reference.  I like the company, I believe in the products we make, but I can’t afford to work for free.

There it is.  The last year in a nutshell, and now that things are ramping up (down?) again, there will be more updates.

- PirateGirl

“But it’s better than drinking alone.” - Billy Joel

The Kool-Aid parties are coming more frequently now…. but not as many people are drinking these days, it seems.

The latest highlights from our meeting last week.

• Talks with the latest investment company have ceased.
• We have resumed discussions with the first company, and started discussions with other companies as well.
• We have made it clear to everyone we’re talking to that we have to have a consummated deal in place by the end of October.
• We have had some attrition.
• We have cut almost half a million dollars of expenses from our monthly budget.
• 401(k) has been brought current, plus interest, in accordance with DOL guidelines.

Reactions from people on the street to the above highlights:

• What did company #2 see that made them turn tail and run? The same thing that company #1 saw? What is it that is so bad that these companies run so quickly??
• Why is management lying to us when they say that talks with the first company “never really ceased”? We have it in writing where they specifically said all talks were called off?
• What happens if we do not have a deal consummated by the end of October?
• Attrition?!? It’s a mass exodus. Attrition is normal turnover. That is not what we are experiencing.
• Almost half a million dollars - we can all tell it’s payroll costs - and we still can’t get our office cleaned.
  
• What about the audit surrounding the 401(k) debacle?
• What happens if we do not have a deal consummated by the end of October?

So, I asked the question that had to be asked: What happens if we do not have a deal consummated by the end of October? I was told that the answer would be forthcoming, ASAP. I’ve still heard nothing. I’ve asked about getting cleaning services back in, now that we’ve managed to cut almost half a million from our monthly budget. No answer. We’ve all been given additional job responsibilities, since we can’t seem to hire anyone to replace those leaving.

It’s funny - they squawk and squawk about needing developers, and needing them now, and let’s hire some developers, and when they are presented with the option of using a recruiting agency to find developers - they balk. How much do they really want developers, then? Apparently that battle was won, but why did it need to be fought, when we need people to write code, so we can meet our deliverable schedule and get paid?

Three resignations this week.

Mine was not one of them.

McLovin is gone.

Which means that yes, PirateGirl is still, somehow, employed by the SS SinkingShip. I’ve had several promising interviews that, unfortunately, did not pan out. One company went so far as to tell me I was too smart for the position I interviewed for, then sent me for another interview - only to tell me I wasn’t experienced enough. Can’t win, in that kind of situation.

It’s really hard to job-hunt when you are hunting for jobs 2000 miles away.

The gossip: The SinkingShip is being audited by the DOL for the 401(k) situation. That was not totally unexpected. What was unexpected is the rumor that they’ve been playing games with the 401(k) withholding since January - long before there was supposedly a cash crisis. Rumor is that instead of depositing our 401(k) money by the 15th of the following month as they are legally required to do, they were holding on to it until just before our quarterly statements were cut. Further rumor has it that this is not the first year they’ve pulled this kind of shenanigan. The penalties for not depositing employee contributions in a timely manner are pretty severe, I guess.

We were served KoolAid, I mean had a company-wide morale meeting (where pizza was served in all offices, even though I still have to vacuum my cubicle and take out the trash in the office) and somehow they neglected to mention the bad stuff - are our next paychecks going to clear, we’re being audited by the DOL, we blew the opportunity with Company X. They focused (again) on potential revenue, accounts receivable, and the newest investors they’re courting. Oh, and the fact that we’ve lost 30 employees plus all of our contractors was spun in a positive light - because management somehow misses the point that we couldn’t make our deliverables with the number of employees we had prior to this yet somehow they now think that we are at an optimum number of employees.

I lobbied with my local co-workers to have Chinese instead of pizza. It goes better with KoolAid.

I think I’ve seen it all

McLovin apparently is too chicken to post. And he’s found a nifty new job. So it’s up to me to update, I guess.

Some more background is in order. We are a sub-contractor for a larger company on a big project developing a new system for another country. For some reason, the scope of the contract changed, and we rolled with those changes without a contract amendment for six months. The larger company made some more changes which made the changes we’d been working on obsolete, and then refused to pay us for that which would have been included in the contract amendment. Why should they? They weren’t contractually obligated to do so. It’s not particularly nice, but they aren’t the ones who did $2 million worth of work without a signed contract. Everything else that happened in our company, especially cumulatively, was bad but we would have weathered it, I think. This was the large block of cement that broke the camel’s back - on top of the other stuff, it was too much for our small company to handle.

We received an email from the CEO, with an update.

• Some whining about the repercussions of past mistakes and snarkiness about the company referenced above.  (Inability to accept responsibility.)
• A note that the 401(K) deposits were caught up, earlier than expected.  (How many complaints were filed with state labor boards?)
• Expense checks were starting to be processed.  (But not all of them.)
• We will be hiring some developers, as we’d rather have employees than contractors. Some benefits include freedom, unique challenges, and working with some of the best developers. Pizza parties every other Friday, company sponsored.  (Freedom: You’ll be working for free.   Unique Challenges: How to support yourself and your family without an income. Working with some of the best developers: OK, we do have some really good developers.  Those that are left.)
• There is a conference coming up that is big for generating business. We will have some people attending. ( What he didn’t put in the e-mail is that we will be sponsoring a reception.)

In my last post, I mentioned that sometimes things don’t hit me right away. This one took longer than normal, but the update e-mail, ironically, put it all together in one nice, neat little package for me.

Some more history: After the cleaning lady stopped coming, the air conditioning stopped working. The building manager sent the HVAC company to come fix it. As usual, this meant that there was a worker dude in the ladies’ room on a ladder, making a mess. What was unusual was that the cleaning lady didn’t come to clean it up. What was also unusual was that the HVAC worker dude apparently decided to avail himself of the facilities. And he made a mess doing it - he piddled on the rim, and left the seat up.

I tried to ignore it; I just avoided that stall. It was out of toilet paper anyway, and the cleaning lady had been responsible for that, too. Our office manager showed up with cleaning supplies, including the supplies necessary to clean the bathrooms. Eventually, I broke down, put on some industrial strength vinyl gloves and cleaned the potty.

I am hoping that the connection is clear by now: the company that I work for is throwing pizza parties and receptions while claiming to be unable to pay for cleaning services for our location. I have to clean urine left behind by strangers and they’re throwing parties.

The lack of cleaning has also encouraged bugs to take up residence in our building.

This is the kind of investment that our company makes in its employees. And they think that we will recruit our friends to come work here.

A quick update

I’ve given the bare-bones summary of what has transpired so far, even though there is much more detail that could be typed out - eventually it all will be but we’ve just gotten started.

Yesterday, we got an email that employee 401(k) contributions would be resuming on 8/31 and they were working diligently to get caught up from the contributions not being made for a while. And, they were hopeful they’d be able to start employer matching again soon. I skimmed over the email this morning, thought “Cool. that’ll be nice, if it’s matched again.” and went about my day.

Sometimes things don’t hit me right away, like the difference between employee contributions and employer contributions. One comes directly out of my paycheck, and that was the portion that they would be resuming as normal. Once that realization hit, the anger came - they’d been taking money out of my paycheck, and I’d been trusting them to deposit it in my 401(k) account. It was bad enough that we weren’t getting our company match anymore - but now they were taking our own contributions and ….. doing what with them?

That does remain the big question.

They say it was a glitch, and they’ve just realized that the employee contributions weren’t being forwarded to accounts. I gotta wonder if they’re not telling the truth - one way or another - because they do realize that not making those deposits is illegal. But at this point, I’m not entirely certain that it’s not all just one big talking point to get those of us who haven’t put in our notices to stay on just a little longer. Probably working for free.

The inevitable question will be: Why haven’t we left? We are actively seeking other employment, along with the majority of our co-workers. A good percentage of those co-workers have given their notice. We hope to do so soon as well.

I just deposited my paycheck. I’m taking bets as to whether or not it will clear.