Ok, so here's why today was a crappy day.
I work for one of the largest telecommunications company in the US as an engineering manager. Before our layoffs, I was in engineering operations (headend) but now I'm going to only be doing special projects.
I worked my way up from the very bottom of the barrel to this position. Anyway 7 years ago, I moved over from IT to engineering. Along with that, came a company car. Sweet, they only problem was I had to give up (daily) safety meetings because of the post-accident testing policy (you fail the test, you're fired). I can only use the vehicle for business use, and I'm not allowed to have non-employee passengers. Ok, I can live with this, after all I need to grow up sometime right???
4 years ago, I get promoted to Senior Engineer and move from hourly to salaried. With this comes some stock options and personal use of a company vehicle. 4 months after I take this job, the company changes the Vehicle Use Policy, and only Managers and above are now allowed personal use. Crap.
7 months later, I get promoted again to Engineering Manager. Wahoo!!! I upgrade my Chevy Colorado to a Chevy Malibu. The pickup wasn't my thing. I sold my Rav4 and haven't owned a vehicle since then.
Today, it's announced that only Senior Vice Presidents will be allowed personal use of a company vehicle. Now, I'll be the first to admit, that they didn't completely screw me over here. However, what bothers me is how they informed certain people. Some managers and directors, will be allowed to keep a company car, but will no longer be allowed personal use. A sub-set of that group will be allowed to take their cars home, the rest will be assigned a vehicle for use once they report to work. Of my close friends at work, one of them falls into the 2nd category. Also, the company will be branding the vehicles with our logo and 800 number. He's really pissed, because now he is going to have to drop a load of cash to but a car. More on him later. Some of the people who fall into the same category as me, will be allowed use of a "pool" car. My job classification does not allow that, so if I have to travel, I'll have to expense my mileage costs.
Me on the other hand, well I got a pretty decent deal. So did my new boss and my old boss, and another Eng Ops Mgr, I've worked very close with for many years. The company is going to transfer title/tags/registration into my name. They will cover all fees and necessary taxes. All I have to do is get insurance to get license plates, or I could just sell the car. That's a pretty decent offer, and I'd be pretty stupid not to take it. The problem is, this is the only perk us managers received. After OT, our employees make more then us, we have more responsibility and all of the pressure to meet deadlines. Our one and only perk was the vehicle.
Now my freind who got the shaft, I really feel bad for him, because first they told him that they were going to "gift" him his car like me. He signed off on the paperwork and an hour later, the revised the list and changed his classification. Now that's just not right.
Hourly employees will continue to be able to take company vehicles home, but any vehicles that aren't branded, will be. If the vehicle isn't white, it will get re-painted.
So, now that the only perk for moving into management is gone, what's the left to encourage employees to want to move up in the ranks? What happens when my boss decides to leave, why would I want his job, with more BS and headaches and less perks? Yeah right.
Additionally, starting 1/1/09, Managers are no longer entitled to on-call pay. That's a little more than an $8K yearly decrease I'm taking. I've pretty much had it at this point. Why should I continue to work 60+ hours a week? I get involved with all sorts of system outages at all hours of the night because I can't stand to have a system I engineered or built not running right and impacting customers.
So, now I've also never owned a cell phone. I've always just used my work phone, because I've always had an unlimited plan/usage. I've decided that I'm going to go out and get my own cell phone and turn off my Blackberry at 5pm everyday from now on. I'll give my direct reports my new # just in case the **** hits the fan, but I will not give that # to any of my bosses. It's going to suck notifying everyone to use a different # after work hours. I'm also going to start looking for other areas of work because I'm becoming the angry unhappy employee, and that's not who I want to be.
On the bright side, I won't have to worry about the safety meetings anymore. Thanks for listening to my rant everyone.
Dave
I hope you can find a resolution to this, whether it's acceptance or moving on elsewhere.
uke:
