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Resign / Wait / Something Else? Life Choice
cmsamo
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Urgh... I never thought I would make a post about this sort of thing but I need the view of outsiders on this.
Current situation - moved back in with parents to save money, long term girlfriend is moving back to Vancouver (On Saturday!) because her visa has expired after 2 years living in the UK. I have a job I love doing and have been doing it for 9 years. I also have an application for citizenship currently lodged with the Canadian Government because my mother is Canadian. I am British. I have a 1 way flight booked to Vancouver on Sept 7th, and I have requested expedited processing of my citizenship paperwork to tie in with this date (I sent a cover letter and my flight itinerary etc, after conversations with the Canadian Consulate in the UK)
My job has sort of collapsed. We used to have 45 people working on this project. Now there are 3 of us left. Redundancies and downturns have hit us hard. My line manager is leaving next week (resigned) and the guy who has taken over his role is clueless - he has taken the role to try and further himself and is currently brown nosing our senior managers. I have informed my soon to be ex-manager of my personal situation - I need to move to Canada, and he said the company would be interested in having me remain an employee, but be based there full time. Senior management have OK'd the deal and apparently they need to just review the finances and have it approved (my being based there would save our company $40k annually!). The soon to be new-manager does NOT share this viewpoint, and has said as much to me. My old manager's last day in post is next Friday 22nd July. Privately, he has told me he'll be trying very hard to get a deal in place before he leaves. If he doesn't do it, then I don't think it will happen.
Now - My choices:
(1) Resign this week, forget my current job, and hope that my paperwork arrives in time, fly to Vancouver, and start a new life
(2) Press my company for a resolution, and get a firm date from them by which I can leave for Vancouver, threatening resignation if they don't firm up the plans...
Green Wire or Red Wire? I am tending towards just resigning and walking away... and then dealing with the fact that I may have to remain in the UK for some time, waiting for my paperwork, but at least living at home with no real outgoings or expenses. My dad can give me a job working with him in the building industry for a while - so I will have spending money.
Current situation - moved back in with parents to save money, long term girlfriend is moving back to Vancouver (On Saturday!) because her visa has expired after 2 years living in the UK. I have a job I love doing and have been doing it for 9 years. I also have an application for citizenship currently lodged with the Canadian Government because my mother is Canadian. I am British. I have a 1 way flight booked to Vancouver on Sept 7th, and I have requested expedited processing of my citizenship paperwork to tie in with this date (I sent a cover letter and my flight itinerary etc, after conversations with the Canadian Consulate in the UK)
My job has sort of collapsed. We used to have 45 people working on this project. Now there are 3 of us left. Redundancies and downturns have hit us hard. My line manager is leaving next week (resigned) and the guy who has taken over his role is clueless - he has taken the role to try and further himself and is currently brown nosing our senior managers. I have informed my soon to be ex-manager of my personal situation - I need to move to Canada, and he said the company would be interested in having me remain an employee, but be based there full time. Senior management have OK'd the deal and apparently they need to just review the finances and have it approved (my being based there would save our company $40k annually!). The soon to be new-manager does NOT share this viewpoint, and has said as much to me. My old manager's last day in post is next Friday 22nd July. Privately, he has told me he'll be trying very hard to get a deal in place before he leaves. If he doesn't do it, then I don't think it will happen.
Now - My choices:
(1) Resign this week, forget my current job, and hope that my paperwork arrives in time, fly to Vancouver, and start a new life
(2) Press my company for a resolution, and get a firm date from them by which I can leave for Vancouver, threatening resignation if they don't firm up the plans...
Green Wire or Red Wire? I am tending towards just resigning and walking away... and then dealing with the fact that I may have to remain in the UK for some time, waiting for my paperwork, but at least living at home with no real outgoings or expenses. My dad can give me a job working with him in the building industry for a while - so I will have spending money.
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I mean, I could sort of understand if this was "do I stay in the UK for my job until I get the ok, or do I just fly out to Canada on Saturday", but that doesn't fully seem to be the case.
My advise would be to wait. If there's no rush(other than-I gotta see my gf), try to work things out with your job. It will make your life a lot easier on the long run.
If I actually had my citizenship in hand, this would be a no-brainer. I've requested they expedite my application but it might be months until I get it... So, I could end up resigning my job this week, and not getting my citizenship until Christmas time or even 2012...
The other complication is of course that the new manager who will be taking over is a nightmare person to work for... So the prospect of being stuck in a job I am rapidly going to HATE is also hanging over me.
I think if I stay in this job, I will end up getting sacked for misconduct...
At the moment I figure I'll speak to my soon to be ex-manager this week and ask him honestly whether he can get an approval letter in my hand by 22nd July. If not, I'll just resign and work for my dad in the building industry until my paperwork arrives...
We sort of did this the other way, my wife emigrated from the US. I can safely say that if the Canadian immigration service is anything like the UK one...stay in your job. You've applied for expedited processing, but unless i missed it upthread, you can't guarantee that they are going to expedite your application, which could leave you unable to fly out when you want to; this would not be a good time to be unemployed.
I'd also say that something you may be really glad of when you do move is, well, a permanent job. Landing in a new country without any contacts for the first time is likely to be gruelling enough; finding a job at the same time has all the hallmarks of a major nightmare. I'd try and get something in writing from your office prior to your current LM's departure then progress up the chain from there. I don't recommend threatening to quit. It only annoys people, and makes them less willing to further your (presumably) reasonable request.
Keeping the job and transferring is the most secure option, and has the added advantage that if it all goes wrong, you can start looking for a job in Canada whilst employed there, which is likely to be a little easier, and much less of a headache.
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Anyway, for now, I'll take the advice to try and stick the job out, at least until I get some further feedback from the Canadian Consulate on my application, and in the meantime I'll try and get it in writing from my current line manager that the company is committed to sending me overseas... Thanks everybody
Well, at least you have good options. I take it your old company will be up shit creek if you leave? Leverage. If they fuck with you too much, just go consultant and charge them exorbitant fees.
This is exactly what I was thinking of doing. The company kept 2 of us on (the two who know the most about the systems) and sacked everyone else. Now, my colleague is looking for work elsewhere, and our line manager has resigned. If I go, the new line manager (and anyone else he recruits) won't know what to do - not even down to the simplest thing like log on to one of our remote systems, and restart the software.
One thing is for sure... If I DO go, then it will be hilarious watching them try to support 4 international customers without a clue what they are doing!
Yes, your manager doesn't appear to be a great guy. However, if your company feels like you've screwed them by leaving, they probably do have a great deal of leverage with the people you would otherwise work for. If they stop being able to support the system, and your customers decide to move to something else, then you're pretty screwed as well. I would keep your options as open as possible.
In this case, we are the only people who can support our system right off the bat. There is nobody that could come in and replace us without a ton of catch up time and re-learning/discovering things. Also, the product is a world-first, and world-only solution. Nobody else does what we do, or at least, nobody has a working solution to do what we do. So, knowledge and experience of this system is like gold dust.
My working relationship with the Canadian customers is such that they trust me implicitly and usually ask for me by name to go and support them (hence why I've been back and forth to Canada so much). In fact, an angle I hadn't thought about is that if I was to give my notice here, they may want me to consult for them... Hmm...
As was pointed out, it's senior management's decision, not your new boss's, so see what they do before you get too worked up. If they don't approve your move to a remote work situation, you may as well chill if you can until your transfer goes through. You are not screwing with them by leaving at that point, they have simply told you that you are not valuable enough to them even to keep you to their financial benefit. Your life situation is changing and it's their decision what they want to do about it. If they decide they'd rather replace you than work with you, especially if you have other options, there's no shame in letting them do so.
If they decide to keep you remotely, then just keep them posted about your schedule and see how things progress with your new boss. He may come into things or he may not, but give him a chance. If he doesn't get the hang of things after a reasonable time and there's no indication that he'll be replaced, there's nothing wrong with leaving at that point, either.
It sounds like if you hate it enough that you want to leave anyway you could just go to work for family in the interim and get a job once you move overseas. You haven't really mentioned the downsides to doing this.
But I know my company has each employees contract have a bit saying we can't quit and go work at our company's customers for x amount of years after we leave the company. I'm also pretty sure that when our customers license our software, part of the contract says they won't try to hire us away as consultants or anything like that. You may want to review your own contract to watch for that; you may yourself unable to get a job with your company's customers.
Definitely get something in writing before you jet off to canada.
This means that whatever transition you end up making, you need to do so displaying the appropriate professional attitude throughout. To echo some of the other advice here, when discussing your options given your plans to move to Canada with either senior management or you direct manager, don't make any ultimatums. The fact is that you plan to move to Canada at some point, and would like to know what your options are for continued employment that would be mutually beneficial and come to some agreement on it. If you feel like you're blackmailing them because of your unique skill set, you're doing it wrong.
Also, since the date is very up in the air, I wouldn't push too hard to have something in writing until you have that date. My experience with location changes is that they need to know so that they can do all the administrative planning and set up - that would be a logical point to put pen to paper.
In the meantime, if you don't feel secure, feel free to look for opportunities in Canada. I would recommend extreme caution when speaking with your current clients about a position though since it is possible for that to get back to your leadership and impact your chances with them.
If you just want to leave for the other reasons you talked about...Well those reasons are perfectly valid reasons to leave a company.
Ya. There is a clause in the contract which says neither party can employ the other for x years. However I spoke to my soon to be departing line manager about it, and he said "there is no problem with that. If you have given notice to leave, then you can take any job you wish, and if you are consulting, then you're not in full time employment so the clause does not count".
@Witch_ie: The date I am working to in my head is September 7th 2011 since I already booked a flight for that date. I hope above hopes that I get my citizenship but it is looking increasingly unlikely (due to Canadian Postal Service postal delays from the UK). Hence, I feel I need to approach my management with this 'hard' date in mind and ask that if they really consider my request to be a possibility, then we work to that date as a "latest date of departure"
The thing is, when you say "Senior management has approved the move" but then you say that things are still up in the air, this tells me one very important detail:
You didn't get this deal in writing. That is a PROBLEM. What you need to do is ask your manager to go with you to the "Senior Manager" who approved the deal, and tell them both that you would very much like to get that approval in writing and signed. Once it's on paper and signed, there's really nothing your new manager can do about it.
However, I would also fully expect your new manager to do whatever he can to get you fired. So once you get to Canada, start looking for a new job.
So, it seems I am going to have to wait around for my citizenship, put up with the job in the meantime, and give my notice once I have citizenship sorted. I can then move to Canada, find a new job, and 'consult' for the company I am going to leave, hopefully charging them double the hourly rate they pay me
Stay with the job til you have a definite moving to Canadia date.
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if you are this valuable to the company there is no way that the senior managers will let this new manager do ANYTHING to fuck with you.
For all they know, it may be six months.
My company won't send me overseas, so I need to sit it out with them until I get my citizenship, and then resign.
Or - lose my temper and resign in a huff.. and spend some months in the UK without work... I need to sleep on it before I work out which of these two options I go with...!
On the plus side, if I can keep my temper long enough and stay at work, I stand to save up quite a lot of money to land in Canada with. Someone in Best Buy is going to be a very happy bunny the day I walk in and re-buy my xbox360, blu-ray player, surround sound, and TV/gadgets that I sold in the UK
Your PC will definitely be usable in Canada, though you'll need a new power cord and remember to flip that red switch on the back over to 110 when you get here.
I got my citizenship through today, so I'm giving notice to my work on Monday, applying for a passport, and 30 days after that, I am flying to Vancouver