I'll be fired in 3 months time and I still got 4 weeks of leave left. No idea what to do

Aldo

Hi H/A,

Since January this year I am employed as a salesman for a tech company. I got the job because the company was in trouble after their previous salesman bailed out on them and his replacement was a joke. When all that happened I was employed as a temp to do some data entry work and they figured that I would be smart enough to learn how to sell stuff to Fortune 500 companies and how to explain the stuff we sell to every engineer in the world. The last year has been tough, I learned a lot and made so many mistakes it's not even funny any more. It took everyone a lot of effort to show me what it is this company does and why that's important. I worked my ass off, did unpaid overtime, took books to home to study and still couldn't get my work done in time.

Last Wednesday I had a conversation with my bosses about how I was doing and although I was expecting a lot of negativity from them they tore me apart for half an hour, saying absolutely nothing positive about me. When I would complain about my workload they would say that if only I was more motivated, I would have easily got everything done on time. It was a painful conversation and I barely held it together. Surprisingly, they did not fire me then and there and told me (after I pushed them for a date) they would tell me on Dec 1 this year, my contract ends on Jan 1.

Now I don't know about you, but to me a 100% negative personal evaluation with people who were absolutely certain that you are unmotivated should be considered an early warning that you'll be kicked on Dec 1.

There are a lot of problems this is causing for me and I will have to deal with them one at a time. One of them has me especially stumped and I will need to find a way to fix it ASAP...

I have 4 weeks of leave left to my account, to be used before the end of the year. I am swamped with work, I will be on an expo next week and the week after that is for phoning everyone we spoke to on there. I am already more than a week behind with work and there are still piles of work I haven't even been able to look at. If I take time off now, it just means everything I was supposed to be doing last week is going to postponed by another 3-4 weeks. So the earliest possible occasion for me to take time off is end of Oct.

What I am trying to prevent is the following:

1. Giving them a reason to fire me before I even had a chance to talk with temp agencies.
2. Leaving behind a steaming pile of shit. I have my pride and I am infuriated by the thought someone thinks I am unmotivated.
3. Being fired on Dec 1 with still those 4 weeks now being obsolete.

I have absolutely no idea how to handle this. There is no HR department in the company (OK, there's 1 guy and the wife of the director who manage our salaries) and I am not part of a trade union. My parents are both civil servants and know nothing about this. Practically everyone else I know is either a student, artist, teacher or researcher. I desperately need some ideas from anyone who has been through shit like this before.

Scooter

At the least, I think I'd take off like two weeks for Thanksgiving. I'm assuming you don't get cashed out for extra time when you leave?

matt has a problem

Where are you Aldo? In the US, any accrued paid leave time that you haven't taken when you quit or get fired from your job is owed to you, unless you signed something in your contract that you forfeit unused leave time when you leave the company.

Aldo

In Holland, but on this subject I might as well be in the US. It's just that I have more weeks of leave (sorry folks). I should take a look at my contract though, there ought to be something in there about this. Thanks so far, but if anyone has any experiences related to something like this, please share! Even if it's in a PM, I now know firsthand that there's all kinds of emotions in cases like this and if it's something you don't want to talk about in public I'm all ears anyway.

The problem is that if I take 2 weeks off, the only other guy who can do my work (who is also my manager) will only pick up the cases that can't wait and they'll expect me to be up to date by the time I take time off. It's been like this every time I took a day off or had to go to a meeting for work. You just end up working overtime or forgoing other tasks every time you need to be somewhere that's not behind your desk. I'm sorry if I sound dramatic, but a lot of stuff that happened over the past year are moving from "hah! working life eh!?" to "shit, I've been used as cannon meat" in my mind. :?

a5ehren

If you get paid the time when you're done, you're probably best off not using and having the cash as a buffer to get you by between jobs. If you don't get it, then just use it all at the end and tell them to go fuck themselves - they pretty clearly aren't going to give you a good reference either way.

Mortious

I had 32 days of leave when I left my job on the 31st of December 2011. I resigned though, this was in South Africa and I was a permanent employee.

My leave was just paid out (and taxed out the wazoo). Honestly, if that's an option I'd take it. It'll allow you to try and complete your work/maybe not get fired. And if you do, extra money to ride out the unemployment.

LewieP's Mummy

I only know about employment law in the UK, so I can't really give you Holland specific advice, but: Join a Trade Union now - you will get advice from them. Check your employment contract, see how much notice they need to give you, how much notice you need to give. Find out if they pay salary in lieu of notice, if they don't, book your leave for December. If they do, use the 4 weeks leave as soon as you can, even if it means getting behind on your work - make sure you clearly and in writing brief your boss on where you're up to before you finish for the week. A decent employer would pay you your outstanding leave when you finish, but they don't sound decent.Start looking for a new job now.

Mortious

LewieP's Mummy wrote: »

I only know about employment law in the UK, so I can't really give you Holland specific advice, but: Join a Trade Union now - you will get advice from them. Check your employment contract, see how much notice they need to give you, how much notice you need to give. Find out if they pay salary in lieu of notice, if they don't, book your leave for December. If they do, use the 4 weeks leave as soon as you can, even if it means getting behind on your work - make sure you clearly and in writing brief your boss on where you're up to before you finish for the week. A decent employer would pay you your outstanding leave when you finish, but they don't sound decent.Start looking for a new job now.

Unrelated to the main question, but yes. Regardless of what's happening/going to happen in the future, getting at least your CV updated is never a bad thing.

Scooter

a5ehren wrote: »

If you get paid the time when you're done, you're probably best off not using and having the cash as a buffer to get you by between jobs. If you don't get it, then just use it all at the end and tell them to go fuck themselves - they pretty clearly aren't going to give you a good reference either way.

Yea, and if they're going to give you 4 weeks of time off a year, then they actually have to give you the opportunity to have the four weeks off. If they're going to guilt you into losing 90% of it because they aren't staffing at a reasonable level, well, fuck them.

I think there might be some states in the US where you can lose unused time, but I'd be surprised if this was the case in Europe. In my case I can lose time if I go over the 1-year storage limit, but do get paid out if I leave the company.

Aldo

Hmm I will have to look this up, I've come to think that maybe step 1 would be to tell them I want to quit after my year contract is up. It will at least give me peace of mind and I wont have to lie to coworkers about my plans for the holidays etc. I am just scared they will fire me on a 4 weeks notice instead which would leave me with less money than I would have otherwise.

How could a union help me out here, actually? I don't think anyone here is part of one...

Mortious

Since I don't know your personal situation, I don't really feel comfortable with giving this advice, but this is the internet so anyway.

It doesn't sound like this job is a good fit for you. You were put in a position you weren't hired for, given a task and workload you weren't prepared for and not given the support you needed. And now they're trying to blame you.

Might be the reason they're previous salesman bailed. 3 salesman not meeting their expectations? Something's wrong on their end.

Point being, I'd try and get out sooner rather than later before this burns you out completely.

V1m

a5ehren wrote: »

If you get paid the time when you're done, you're probably best off not using and having the cash as a buffer to get you by between jobs. If you don't get it, then just use it all at the end and tell them to go fuck themselves - they pretty clearly aren't going to give you a good reference either way.

This is basically your optimal strategy.

MichaelLC

1. Find out if you get paid for unused time off. As mentioned, that's almost always the case in the US, but don't know Hollandlish law.
2. If you're sure they're going to let you go Dec 1, and you don't want to work there, which sounds like a 'yes' for both, don't tell them a thing.

While the desire to help your co-workers is nice, it's only going to make your life harder, yes? You don't owe them anything except to do the best job you can, which you did and they offered only criticisms without any suggestions to improve.

Do your work, and spend free time looking for a new job.

Shutdown

If they've painted a picture of you being canned at December 1, then you can probably start asking HR about what the deal is with leave being paid out - they've already thrown the concept out there, might as well make the most of it.

Take a break for a couple of weeks over Xmas - places like these really take it out of you.

Thanatos

They're not giving you a good reference. The best thing you can use those paid days off for is job interviews. Start looking for new work tout de suite.

RadicalTurnip

I actually wonder if they're planning on firing you: and here's why. Places like this often just use people up until there's nothing left to squeeze out. I mean, if they're paying you for 40 hours a week but they can commonly get 60 out if you, and you have the drive for excellence that it bothers you when your work is late even though you've worked 60 hours a week: well, they may just badger you into a low self-esteem right up until you're not useful to them anymore because of all the problems the continued stress of working has put on you.

So...uh...I would say *get out* but I would also say it may not be as sure that you're getting fired as you think, I don't know, you know your situation better than I, but you may be too close to it.

iRevert

RadicalTurnip wrote: »

I actually wonder if they're planning on firing you: and here's why. Places like this often just use people up until there's nothing left to squeeze out. I mean, if they're paying you for 40 hours a week but they can commonly get 60 out if you, and you have the drive for excellence that it bothers you when your work is late even though you've worked 60 hours a week: well, they may just badger you into a low self-esteem right up until you're not useful to them anymore because of all the problems the continued stress of working has put on you.

So...uh...I would say *get out* but I would also say it may not be as sure that you're getting fired as you think, I don't know, you know your situation better than I, but you may be too close to it.

I do agree that we do not know if he is getting fired.

I contracted for a company that shall remain nameless that would basically shit in your wheaties every morning. Nothing you could do was positive as it was "what you should be doing in the first place" the tactic they were using was the people that couldn't cope with this would crack from the stress and wash out, others would just go "oh well they aren't giving me any positive feedback so I must be getting fired soon" and would just do nothing till they were fired.

For the most part what they were trying to do was weed out anyone who couldn't handle the negative and stress that came with it, and put those who could into a "strive to succeed" position. In a nutshell telling the person they were shit and couldn't do anything right to see if that person pushed themselves to improve and continued on working regardless.

Granted it was two very different industries and it was very beneficial to get anyone who wasn't fully committed washed out right away but the concept still stands.

Don't just do nothing and give them a reason to fire you, don't assume your being fired, and do not burn any bridges while you are there.

If you do get let go do so with dignity and self respect, shake your bosses hand thank him for the opportunity and all that jazz.

I would in the meantime put together your paperwork for the job hunt and just have it up to date and ready to go if things go badly, I'd also start setting aside a little bit more money then usual for in the event that you do get let go and have to find a new job. I'd just be prepared for either scenario as I feel it could go either way and if I had to put my money on one or the other I would say they are testing you.

TheBigEasy

I don't know the specifics in the Netherlands - but in Germany, any vacation time you didn't use, you either have to take at the end of your contract or they have to pay out the money, if you don't use it. Either look it up in your contract or look up Dutch labor law. I'd guess the law might be the better alternative, as we don't have that stuff written in our contracts.

Also - start looking for a new job asap.

Reverend_Chaos

I don't know if I missed something, buy why not schedule December off. The way I read this was that they will give you an answer on Dec ! but that your contract isn't up until Jan 1. Assuming that they are going to fire you, schedule the whole month off and use that month to look for work. If they don't fire you, you still use that month to look for work as it sounds like you need to get out of there anyway.

I applaud your work ethic.

Aldo

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Ive got so much to think about! My contract doesnt mention anything about paying out holiday time, and a cursory glance in the lawbooks hasnt yielded anything tangible yet, so iguess i will have to get some support from a union in this.

Tomorrow and thursday i'll be at an expo and this saturday there is a company bbq. So far i managed to catch up a little with the backlog but all that will fade tomorrow. I also got proof that the manager who is supposed to help me if i can't keep up is also incapable of answering people on time. I usually pick up some of his customers when they'll need resources from my department anyway, but there were just too many coming at me at once so i forwarded one to him. It was one of the biggest companies in western europe too. But we are now 4 days past their deadline and he won't be able to answer them until next week. So like...i guess i shouldn't expect him to help me with any tasks that are part of my job description.

Not sure if i am going to fight back at all but i suppose its nice to have something to hit them with. I am going to make a list of customers i helped instead of my manager once i have a moment. It shouldnt take long and i could use my lunchbreaks.

The Ender

If you get paid the time when you're done, you're probably best off not using and having the cash as a buffer to get you by between jobs. If you don't get it, then just use it all at the end and tell them to go fuck themselves - they pretty clearly aren't going to give you a good reference either way.

^ This advice ^

Also, like Thanatos said, start looking for a new job now. Don't let that company squeeze so much time out of you that you can't go look for another job.

Giggles_Funsworth

Aldo wrote: »

Hi H/A,

Since January this year I am employed as a salesman for a tech company. I got the job because the company was in trouble after their previous salesman bailed out on them and his replacement was a joke. When all that happened I was employed as a temp to do some data entry work and they figured that I would be smart enough to learn how to sell stuff to Fortune 500 companies and how to explain the stuff we sell to every engineer in the world. The last year has been tough, I learned a lot and made so many mistakes it's not even funny any more. It took everyone a lot of effort to show me what it is this company does and why that's important. I worked my ass off, did unpaid overtime, took books to home to study and still couldn't get my work done in time.

Last Wednesday I had a conversation with my bosses about how I was doing and although I was expecting a lot of negativity from them they tore me apart for half an hour, saying absolutely nothing positive about me. When I would complain about my workload they would say that if only I was more motivated, I would have easily got everything done on time. It was a painful conversation and I barely held it together. Surprisingly, they did not fire me then and there and told me (after I pushed them for a date) they would tell me on Dec 1 this year, my contract ends on Jan 1.

Now I don't know about you, but to me a 100% negative personal evaluation with people who were absolutely certain that you are unmotivated should be considered an early warning that you'll be kicked on Dec 1.

There are a lot of problems this is causing for me and I will have to deal with them one at a time. One of them has me especially stumped and I will need to find a way to fix it ASAP...

I have 4 weeks of leave left to my account, to be used before the end of the year. I am swamped with work, I will be on an expo next week and the week after that is for phoning everyone we spoke to on there. I am already more than a week behind with work and there are still piles of work I haven't even been able to look at. If I take time off now, it just means everything I was supposed to be doing last week is going to postponed by another 3-4 weeks. So the earliest possible occasion for me to take time off is end of Oct.

What I am trying to prevent is the following:

1. Giving them a reason to fire me before I even had a chance to talk with temp agencies.
2. Leaving behind a steaming pile of shit. I have my pride and I am infuriated by the thought someone thinks I am unmotivated.
3. Being fired on Dec 1 with still those 4 weeks now being obsolete.

I have absolutely no idea how to handle this. There is no HR department in the company (OK, there's 1 guy and the wife of the director who manage our salaries) and I am not part of a trade union. My parents are both civil servants and know nothing about this. Practically everyone else I know is either a student, artist, teacher or researcher. I desperately need some ideas from anyone who has been through shit like this before.

You should PM me brah, my company is always looking for good salespeople and the management isn't a bunch of dickholes.

You got any experience with selling Information Security products or services?