I've been getting a LOT of traffic on my site from my former employer lately. They've been hitting the site off and on throughout the last seven months since I left, searching for god only knows what.
I assume they want to find me badmouthing them somehow, in a way that they can then use against me litigiously...
Well, I'm not going to give it to them.
But I will give you, my faithful readers, an accurate account of the events that transpired between August, 2002 and January 2003.
I was brought on to the Marketing Team by Paul S. in August of 2002, working alongside two extremely talented and creative people: Amanda and Anders.
Paul was feeling pressure from Amin to produce material for an Industry portal for the company website, and was having a hell of a time. Amanda and Anders were working on product collateral for a new project, and were unavailable for more work.
And thus, I was brought onto the team as a bright young web designer. We were supposed to get the Industry Portal out by the end of August. I quickly saw that we wouldn't be able to do it. I talked to Paul about it, and he said not to worry - he'd get Amin to give us more time, and I wouldn't have to take the fall for any of the delays.
The first couple of months were pretty good, as I got to know Amanda and Anders better. I'd wander over from my cubicle on the other side of the building, and we'd talk about the website, what they were working on, and (more often) just shot the breeze.
Then, in late September or early October (I can't remember when exactly, and I apparently didn't blog the event) Anders was just gone. Paul pulled me aside and gave me "the real story", which involved Anders having made "several enemies" within the company, and had been given several warnings to shape up. Paul also told me that he'd fought to keep Anders aboard, but was railroaded by the management.
Having got to know Anders, I knew that he was a goofball, but a professional goofball that had a lot of talent. I pretty much dismissed Paul's story as BS.
It was now well into October, and we were still trying to work out how to get the Industry Portal going. I had built a plan of attack, which was put aside as Gail, one of the Marketing VPs was added to the project - since she was supposed to be the liaison for the Industry Board within the company.
By this point, I had been given full webmaster control over the site. All webmaster@ emails were directed to me, as were all error messages, change requests, updates, etc.
Paul again told me not to worry about the delays, and confided to me that he planned to place the blame for lack of development solely on Gail's shoulders. In reality, this was partially truthful as Gail was not cooperating in giving us content for the site -- or even a clear marketing direction for it.
At this point, I started developing the site's direction on my own, keeping in mind the key themes everyone had talked about to this point: integrity, knowledge, and credibility. I developed a template, which consisted of a 'success story' (an application of the company's technology towards an industry-specific problem), followed by a list of solutions offered in each industry.
Paul consistently assured me that I was heading in the right direction, sending me emails which praised my talent and perception. (These would later be used by him as 'proof' that he had warned me I was acting inappropriately)
In late October or early November, I was told that I would now be working with a search engine placement consultant, to help increase the company's ranking in Google. I was very upset that I was not consulted on this move at the time. The consultant charged the company $1000 a month (with $2000 down) for a six month contract to give the company what amounted to a list of suggestions to improve the site. That might have been fine, but 75% of the suggestions were completely and utterly wrong, or based on false assumptions; there was no attempt to check industry standards, or norms, and the level of professionalism shown by the consultant was below subpar. Some of his suggestions included:
- Using different case for acronyms - even within the same sentence. An example of this would be: ASCII, Ascii, ascii. The grammar nazi in me screamed a blood-curdling NO! at this; it would have looked like a 4th grader wrote the copy for our site.
- Heavy emphasis on meta tags, despite the fact that nobody uses meta tags for search engine placement any more
- Insistence that Google wouldn't spider pages with an asp extension
- Insistence that we place a linked graphic of his company logo on every page in the site.
- Most of the pages he claimed to have "improved" already had top 3 placement, and did not benefit from his "help"
- Several pages actually dropped in the Google rankings after his changes were made.
And my personal favourite...
Given this, I find it interesting that I now place #3 for their corporate name, without having even tried.
Throughout the months of October to December, Paul became extremely withdrawn. He rarely talked to us, resorting to email (his office was next door). He left his office for great periods of time, not to be found anywhere. On top of this, he didn't start his work day until well after 10am. He complained consistently about Holly, Gail, and Randy, mocking each of them for different reasons (Holly and Gail were certifiably crazy, and he hoped they would leave the company, and Randy was a control freak). In the same breath, he bent over backwards to accomodate their wishes, whether they were valid or not.
Some time during this period, I had a very verbal disagreement with one of the VPs regarding the site construction. Randy was convinced that we should immediately jump people half-the-way down a page when they entered it, because information he wanted to push was there. Despite telling him that I couldn't do it from a usability point-of-view (it would confuse users to be jumped halfway down a 100k page when they didn't expect it to happen), and suggesting that we instead move the material up to the top (he refused, saying that it wouldn't be in alphabetical order then), we left the agrument unresolved. A day later, I placed a prominent jump-link on the page to the section he was referring to, at Paul's suggestion, and left the issue thinking it was resolved.
In late October, I decided I'd had enough of the delays for the Industry Portal. We had content to go for three of the portal sites. The Industry Portal had still not been put live. I knew there had been massive delays on the project, so I posted what I had already done - which was production-quality - knowing that we could build on it. Within a week, traffic to the Industry section had increased 400%. The ad system I had put in place had likewise increased intra-site traffic a significant percentage. With the new Industry portal came a tighter, more attractive main site page. The only comments I received about it were from Paul, who -- after having seen the site a couple of days before its launch -- complained that the logo wasn't prominent enough. (I quickly made it more prominent).
The other bomb dropped near the end of December, when I learned that Amanda was leaving the company as well. We were already overworked, since we were down a copy writer. Amanda and her husband Dana had planned to take a trip through Europe this summer (2003). She finally decided to tell Paul about it, and had planned to give her notice around August of 2003 -- she wanted to give him a lot of advance notice, so there would be no surprises.
She was told that, in fact, he'd like her to leave immediately. Apparently she had 'made enemies within the company' (sound familiar?) and he had been fighting with management to keep her on board as long as he had. Since she was leaving now anyways, he said, she might as well leave now.
About a week later, Paul pulled me aside in the board room, and we had "a talk". He told me that I had "a credibility hole" within the company, and that he'd had a couple of complaints that I was "difficult to work with". When I asked him who I had offended, so I could make amends, he told me that he couldn't tell me. He also expressed "concerns" about my "judgement" within the company -- literally telling me that I shouldn't do things I think are good for the company if they don't mesh with a manager's opinion on how it should be done. I was told "not to worry too much" and that this was "just a warning" and that "we'd work on it" and talk in the New Year about "how to resolve it". At the end, he looked at me with a broad smirk on his face, and said, "OK, so let me have it. I know you've probably got a lot to say." I declined, and he ended the meeting with "If I lose another one of you guys, I'll quit myself."
A week after that, I was contacted by HR, who informed me that Paul had expressed concerns about me, and said he had given me several warnings about my behaviour. Funnily enough, I was in the process of writing HR an email myself, to try and find out if there were any problems I didn't know about. I met with Jerrie, the head of HR, and we discussed what was going on. I told her of the situation, and the conversation that Paul and I had, and she decided to persue a formal investigation, with my blessing. She had read through Paul's "warning" emails to me, and was as confused as I was - they showed nothing but praise for my work.
This was a week before the Christmas break. I hadn't seen or heard from Paul since the board room meeting.
I left for Abbotsford, feeling relatively sure that my name was to be cleared of any misdoing, and had a really nice Christmas with K and her family.
When I returned in January, I again met with Jerrie. Her investigation had turned up nothing negative. I repeat: nothing. Though there was a complaint of being stubborn from Randy, the rest of the people interviewed had nothing but glowing reviews for my professionalism.
But, she said, there was a problem. Without letting her know, Paul had authorized the hiring of a new designer to take my position. In December. I was now - through no fault of my own - left without a job. Funnily enough, Paul didn't quit that day. He never told me I was to be replaced - despite knowing he had already done so. In fact, I hadn't seen or heard from him since the meeting in December.
Again, to her credit, she attempted to find me a new placement within the company. One was found for web development, within one of the product groups, and a meeting was set up the next day with the product development manager. Within an hour, I received another call from Jerrie telling me that Amin had talked to her and given her hell for trying to re-place me within the company, and that the position was no longer available. I was told I had to leave the office immediately, without being given time to get my things, because my replacement was starting the following Monday.
Jerrie wrote a letter explaining that I was terminated without cause due to managerial conflict. My pink slip reads "Termination without Just Cause". I left the company with two reference letters (one from the product manager I started under, and the other from the Investor Relations representative), and three personal references from fellow employees.
I left the company angry and upset about what happened, but unable to do squat about it. According to Alberta Labour Law, an employee can be terminated without just cause, given a week's notice, or a week's pay in lieu of notice. Had they given me a reason for my termination, I could have sued for wrongful dismissal. And won. However, since it was termination without just cause, there was no legal basis for me to stand on.
I moved on, and started looking for work elsewhere.
Since that point, I have logged hundreds of accesses to this site from the company proxy. I have also logged access of this site from Paul S's home connection, where he trawled through many personal entries and photo albums. It was become so consistent, that a couple of months ago I put up a redirect page for users behind the company firewall, so they could not access my personal site. It appears now that I have to do the same for my professional site, as there's been a resurgence of "interest" by the company in my life.
And that's the reason why this has appeared here today. I've basically had enough of being stalked online by a company that I haven't worked for in seven months. If it goes any further than simply googling my site to find negative references to the company, I'll seek criminal harassment charges.
Amanda & Anders -- feel free to correct me, or add your own information to this account in the comments.
# Insistence that Google wouldn't spider pages with an asp extension -- HA!
http://www.google.com/search?q=******** -- Double HA!
Thanks for the great (and sucky) story dude.
-- Posted by >> Arcterex » Thursday, August 21, 2003 02:36 PMThe Goofball's Preamble
I was sought out in Calgary and hired to work at the company's Edmonton office because of my previous work experience as both a marketing copywriter and a technical writer at GE Fanuc's industrial automation software division. The company seemed friendly and the Calgary job market was stale post 9-11, so I took interest in the offer even though it would require a move.
I was interviewed by Paul and two sweet ladies (Colleen and Elizabeth) from HR. I was told that I was needed to fill a long-vacate writer position in the Marketing department. I would be working with Amanda the graphic designer and Paul himself (then the web designer) on product marketing materials and providing creative concepts to the sales effort.
Back in Calgary I was interviewed on the phone by Amin, who intoned in a deadpan voice "You seem to have impressed many people here, but you have not yet impressed me."
I laughed, because I thought it was intended to be funny. Then Amin asked (and this ended up being a strangely pivotal point)... "Do you know how to use PowerPoint?"
Thinking that was an odd thing to ask a professional writer (get a secretary, pal) I told him that I had never been called on to use the software, but that I would be able to help write presentations as needed.
Matters shifted to compensation and he said I was hired. My contract was to include a review for salary increase after six months. The salary was low, but decent to start.
I packed, moved, unpacked and started my new job. I was in an office next to the one Paul shared with Amanda. Our "supervisor" Gail was very friendly right off the bat and would tell me gossip at every opportunity. How Warren was incompetent (I later met him and he is a great guy, good at what he does, and they're lucky to have him), how Nicole is difficult to deal with (also a very nice person who had the most interesting projects and was our favorite internal client), how Randy was always trying to get his way (okay, I'll give you that one Gail), and how damn successful she was. This political monster was the catalyst of my undoing, but she had help.
I had been working there for a month, quite happily working on projects that Gail had directed us to work on. Everything seemed to be going well. Except that Amin had told Gail to have us focus on a particular sales PowerPoint, which Gail had told us was NOT important as her invitation mailouts, etc.
One day I was sitting at my desk and Amin entered, sat down, and as the subtle smell of his body odor wafted through the room, he sat there silent. Then he turned to me and said "I look at you, and I think you are not good at anything."
And I started laughing, because it was funny, and said "That is a hell of an endorsement. Can I quote you on that?" And here I am quoting you. See Amin? I'm all about the follow-through.
"I do not understand your sense of humor," he answered and proceeded with inquiries about why the PowerPoint was not finished yet. I told him we were told to put it aside. He made comments to the effect of "Perhaps you are not a good fit for the company" and he walked out.
Well have a nice day.
This was the beginning of Gail's latest political tumble as she became increasingly agitated with us at every turn. She lost her temper in meetings, when we questioned her strange requests ("We need to make the font much bigger because executives tend to be older men who can't read small print without their glasses... and they never have their glasses with them when they read the mail...").
It got hostile enough on her side that she stopped talking to us at all. So I did the grown-up thing and approached her discreetly on behalf of our group and offered that we should probably assess how we function as a group. She looked across her desk and said that we should learn to shut up and do what we're told, or she would contract our work to outside firms.
Well then. Have a nice day.
Shortly thereafter she was removed from her position for another in a series of "lateral promotions". Word came back that she was now badmouthing us to anyone who would listen, including Amin.
Meanwhile, growing like a cancer in our midst, Paul had been playing political tennis like a pro. To us he would things such as "I'd like to kick Gail right in the box". To Gail we can only suppose that he was saying that the talented Amanda and I were wrong to assert our opinions. Paul confided in us that he wanted to run our group in Gail's place. He said he was going to convince Amin to put him in charge to solve the problems, because he wanted a promotion, because he has huge student loans, because he dropped out of a Philosophy Doctorate a year short of finishing. So we told him to go for it. Mostly because we didn't want to listen to the whining anymore.
He got his promotion, but it was informal and "unofficial". Unofficial or not, what followed was four months of Paul doing intermediary duties and contributing nothing but distraction to our projects. He "tracked" our progress and reported to Amin several times a day.
Then they made his position official. There was an announcement. And two days after that, he came into my office, sat down, and told me that *I* was one of the problems. That I was over-confident in my abilities, that I should realize my limited skills, and that he was considering recommending that I be fired. I had six weeks to become, in his words "Less confident".
To be fair, I certainly AM confident in my abilities. I rock. Unhindered by political drama, I am a creative juggernaut and one hell of a writer. On the flipside, I can't dance, can't sing, and I am rotten at math. These acknowledgements should be evidence enough to rule out the possibility of an ego problem. I told this all to Paul.
Paul went on to say that since he isn't confident in any of his abilities, he doesn't want anyone who "works for him" to be confident. He said that being insecure was the best guarantee that mistakes will not be made. I disagreed, saying that being certain you are right is the best defense against being wrong. This conversation lasted two hours, and then finished with him reiterating "six weeks".
He came back to my office on the following Monday, retracted everything he had said, told me that I was right, that I was a valuable asset to the company, and that I would not be let go. This, just two days later. He said that he had spent a long time thinking about it and came to that decision.
Having spent the weekend considering the load of bullshit I had been shoveled, I told him that I wasn't going to tolerate anymore fear mongering, and that if there is a communication issue between us, or a personality conflict with anyone, that we should sit down and discuss it with HR. I reminded him of my six month. told him that I was tired of the flip-flopping, and that I would like the issue should be resolved. Paul said not to worry about it. Paul said he would let them know he wanted me there. Paul said I was a valuable asset.
And then six weeks later I was called next door (I had switched spots with Paul and gave him my office, so I could room with Amanda the Good and Awesome) and I found Paul sitting with Jerrie from HR.
Jerrie is a nice lady with a bad job.
"Anders," she said, "I'm really sorry about this..."
…she proceeded to tell me that I was being offered an extra week's pay if I would sign the Termination Without Just Cause "mutual agreement" and leave the company willingly. We had a brief discussion, during which Jerrie thanked me for being so professional about the whole thing. But of course.
Paul had said nothing the whole time, but interjected the worrisome "Don't put anything on your website about this". I told him that was a fairly lofty attempt at controlling things outside of ones control, and that he could probably count on seeing something eventually.
And then I left. Happily. What followed in my absence is nicely described by Darren above.
-- Posted by >> Anders » Thursday, August 21, 2003 03:46 PMOf course, what I haven't added in my account were the following, unsubstantiated (unproven) incidents:
I also had a run-in with Amin, where he told me I wasn't as talented as I thought I was. I have to disagree with him. -- Posted by >> Darren » Thursday, August 21, 2003 04:00 PM
You know what... I forgot to mention Holly.
The lady sat behind me for a whole week and wanted me to take dictation of every single word of a brochure that I had written (4 times) and she and Gail had "improved" on.
Having the copywriter write the copy, or at least letting the copywriter edit the final draft of the poorly written version before you print a billion copies full of errors and awkward pressure-sales crap jargon... that would be plain silly.
-- Posted by >> Anders » Thursday, August 21, 2003 05:23 PMSame story, different city. Insecure assholes engaging in their political malfeasance are great bloody wastes of time, energy, creativity and profit.
-- Posted by >> Suzanne » Thursday, August 21, 2003 09:27 PMThe only thing I would correct of your account Darren is that Paul did indeed know for quite awhile that I was planning on taking the Europe trip. So when he called me in his office to tell me that I did not "fit", that I had pooched relationships with a few undisclosed people within the company, and that I did not have plans to stay for the long haul so I should just go now it was totally out of the blue. When I talked to Nicole & Jerrie about it (while fighting tears because I have never had this kind of thing happen to me at a work place) they were shocked and just as confused as I was. Especially when I told them Paul said he would be searching for my replacement in January and that I should starting "thinking" of leaving. heh. frick.
*sigh*. There are so many things I could say, and lots of interesting stories that I could add to this discussion of wacko things that happened before Anders & Darren were even hired. That place was a horrible experience for me, and I can't see how any creative individual would not go insane working there.
I think the thing that bothered me the most about the company (besides my creative ideas being constantly stomped on, being told I was crap, and not being paid what I was worth) was that I had a friend there (Paul), a good friend, you know we hung out, had fun, I even had the guy over for dinner. He dressed up as Edward Scissorhands and came to my Halloween party for cripes sake. I was just so sad to see him pretty much backstab me, and the two boys above. Granted, I do give people the benefit of the doubt and give them my trust easily...but he totally had is own agenda and political goals, and he did not care who he had to hurt to get what he wanted. Which is now pretty much a lap dog for the uppity ups, and I just can't understand why a position like that is worth compromising morals and values.
I could not stand being at a place where people did not respect other people. The one great thing that happened when I was there was they chose to hire the superest writer for me to work with daily, and they of course took that away.
They also took a huge chunk of my self confidence, which I am still trying to build back. For the longest time I feared that my freelance business would fail because I "did not work well with people'. Now I of course realize that people love to work with me because I am fun and nice and respectful - but for a long time I certainly thought I was the problem. The company is the problem.
I guess it was a learning experience. What does not kill ya will make you stronger right? blah. I really feel sorry for my pals above though, because I think they had a shitter termination situations.
Since I have left that place my work has grown and flourished like crazy, I am making my husband less crazy with the drama, and Anders and I work on fun projects all of the time without them getting shot down. So let us all take a moment and thank our lucky stars it is over over over.
I drive by the office once and awhile and see the logo I designed on the building and think - nice logo, wayyyy prettier than that stupid black and red flower they had before.
-- Posted by >> amanda » Friday, August 22, 2003 09:12 AMWow, scary place to work.
/me sits back with popcorn
-- Posted by >> Arcterex » Friday, August 22, 2003 10:58 AMAlot of nice people worked there as well (I feel like I have to mention this). Really nice people to deal with. Nicole, Pauline, Tim, Norm, John, the whole HR team, the whole IT team, whole admin team, among many others. It is just to bad other people have to ruin it.
-- Posted by >> amanda » Friday, August 22, 2003 11:25 AMPost a comment
* under no circumstances will your email address be traded for a sack of quarters. No-sirree.