Should he stay or should he go?

August 6, 2009 10:22 AM

My boyfriend can't decide what he should do about his job. Should he stick with a job he's not happy with but has great job security and benefits? Or is he better off finding something that will make him much happier? Or somewhere in between? Much, much more after the jump.

This question is being asked on behalf of my boyfriend. He can’t decide what to do about his current work situation, so I suggested asking the hive mind’s opinion. I have tried to give as unbiased a summary of the problem as I can (I’ve never been all that thrilled with the way they treat him) and I’ve shown it to him for his approval. I apologize now for the length.

My boyfriend currently works as a computer engineer at a science-oriented government facility. He has been there for approximately 6 years and this is the only job that he’s had after college. The core part of the software system he works on was produced by another developer who left the group about 3 years into the project. This piece of software is used in various places around the facility. His responsibilities include (but are not limited to) maintaining and adding on to the existing program. Over the years, he has learned a fair amount about how the core works although it is very convoluted and difficult to understand. He hasn’t been all that happy with the job for a while and at various times has considered posting his resume, but he just hasn’t done it. He did try to leave about two years ago. He found another job that was offering a more money, but his current job gave him even more money to stay and he did. They gave him a bonus and made him sign an agreement saying that he would remain there for a year.

Recently, however, things have started to get a lot more stressful. There is and has been a lot of turn-over in his group, which was relatively small (6 people). Three people quit within the past 6 months and only recently has one new programmer been hired. Additionally, my boyfriend is now the only one left who understands about 2/3 of the software system used throughout the facility. As a result he is seen as the guy to go to when there is a problem. Often the problems at the instruments have nothing to do with the software. However, whether they do or do not, he is the most likely person to be able to diagnose the problem and fix it. The facility runs 24 hours/day for about 10 months out of the year, so there are often people there late at night and on the weekends. Therefore, he often gets phone calls after he’s left work or on weekends because something broke. If he isn’t already busy, he will often agree to just go back into work because it is not something that can be easily diagnosed/fixed over the phone. He also has the added responsibility to train new employees.

So, he has been seriously considering posting his resume to see what kind of jobs/offers he can get. One potential problem is that after the third person quit, his boss asked him if he was looking for another job. He said that he didn’t really answer the question because he didn’t want to lie. He told his boss that he doesn’t have a resume up but didn’t specifically tell him he wasn’t thinking of looking for another job. His boss also asked him not leave for at least three months because they would be completely screwed. My boyfriend has discussed this with his parents and they are encouraging him to ask his boss for a raise and a change in job title and description (to include the new supervisory duties).

He doesn’t know whether to stay in the job he is basically unhappy with or try to find something new. He also doesn’t know whether or not to talk to his boss about a raise. One extra thing to point out is that he said a raise would be nice but it wouldn’t be long before the unhappiness with the job came back.

Reasons for staying:
1. He has iron clad job security and government benefits. He has some pretty major health issues, so health insurance is a must.
2. His pay is decent. He thinks its at least average for his field (although he’s not certain). He gets regular cost of living increases and can receive raises.
3. According to him, continuing to work there is a “known quantity”. Basically, he’s worked there for so long he knows how things are run and how everything works (and doesn’t see any huge changes in the future).
4. He believes he has built a good reputation within the building, beyond the people he works with all the time.
5. He has some feelings of guilt if he leaves when they are already down three people.

Reasons for leaving:
1. The software which is produced is of low quality. The facility he works at is not willing to spend the resources necessary to improve the software and the project is generally poorly managed. In addition, the facility wants to keep expanding the software to work on all systems without addressing its core problems.
2. The clients of his software (the scientists) do not like the software and he rarely gets positive feedback from them. Even when he does, he knows that it could be made a lot better.
3. The work is not particularly challenging.
4. The job is very stressful, especially right now. He often has difficulty falling asleep (can’t stop thinking, sometimes about work). Occasionally, he will wake in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep because he is stressed out from work.

Hopefully, you’ve stayed with me this far… so do you have any advice for him? Should he stay the three months and then say screw it I’m finding another job? Should he wait it out to see if the economy gets any better? Thanks for any help you can give!

Bonus question: Assume that my boyfriend decides to post his resume. His boss is actively looking for more people to hire. What does my boyfriend say to his boss when he (the boss) eventually finds bf’s resume online?

posted by Nolechick11 to work & money (20 comments total)

Something that isn't clear: does he like the kind of work he does but not his particular employer? Or does he not like that work at all?

If it's the former, there are a number of good tactical choices. One might be pushing for that raise and title change, and then leveraging it to look for a similar position with better circumstances.

If it's the latter, I'd say work on narrowing down the potential jobs and figuring out the next step.

Definitely don't leave the job without another lined up. Furthermore, if you guys aren't already frugal, I'd recommend starting a healthy emergency fund to ease any job or medical insurance transition.

Bonus answer: many job posting sites allow anonymous resumes. He may also need to scrub some project details and leave things deliberately vague.
posted by dualityofmind at 10:41 AM on August 6

My opinion: He shouldn't talk to his boss about a raise or a change in job title (although that can be part of it), he should talk to his boss about making his job suck less.

What's the case against him going to his boss and saying:

"Look, I'm torn right now. I mostly like it here, it's steady work and I know everyone. But I'm finding myself really stressed and unhappy - to the point of thinking about leaving. I don't want to leave you guys in the lurch, but I also have to look after my health and happiness. Can we talk about making some adjustments to my day-to-day experience so I'm not so stressed and unhappy?"

Go in with some suggestions like: Make it clear that some nights/weekends are off-limits for work, and his boss has to make your boyfriend feel OK with that.

In summary - why not an honest but realistic conversation about the real problem. It sounds like there's not going to be some magic turnaround where they're going to fix the core issues, but maybe the experience can be patched up to be sustainable.

You didn't mention that your boyfriend had big dreams or career aspirations right now, sounds more like the health care is a big issue. So my advice is try to fix the status quo. If that doesn't work, post that resume (but he should tell his boss he's doing it, so his boss doesn't "find" the resume online).
posted by gribbly at 10:42 AM on August 6 [2 favorites]

As a general rule, if you tell a boss you are looking around, you will be considered as gone, or potentially gone, or not worth trusting for raises, promotions etc.

Look around. See what is out there. Then, if a solid offer, you can speak to your boss to see what he will do to keep you, or you can decide that now is the time to move.

But: in this job climate (recession) it might be smarter to wait till the economy improves, as it will, for you to consider job change, locating new job, giving up security you now have.
posted by Postroad at 10:56 AM on August 6

Just addressing one tiny aspect of this...

...he often gets phone calls after he’s left work or on weekends because something broke. If he isn’t already busy, he will often agree to just go back into work because it is not something that can be easily diagnosed/fixed over the phone.

Your boyfriend is training the people he works with to do exactly the thing he doesn't want them to do. They push the lever, he gives them a treat; of course they're going to push the lever again. Maybe he gets something out of it too (feeling important / needed?) but he should realize that this isn't the sort of problem you solve by finding a new job; the problem will come along for the ride. This one he's got to fix by making a stand, setting boundaries and sticking to them.
posted by jon1270 at 11:05 AM on August 6 [2 favorites]

Does he know people in private industry? Having worked at private companies, quasi-state government, city government and universities, I HIGHLY recommend he talk to some people in private industry. "Low stress" is not something I associate with for-profit software development.

I agree with setting some damn boundaries. Turn off the phone at night. Let them know you'll quit if you can't live a normal life. You'll _always_ get calls after-hours if you let people take advantage of you. If he's the one who knows how to make problems go away, they'll bend over backwards to keep him if he's serious.

Also, yeah, don't let your boss know if you're actively looking for other work. Only trouble can come from that.
posted by paanta at 11:08 AM on August 6

My $0.02: They showed their hand. If they seriously just asked him not to leave, and left it at that, I'd normally say get an offer as fast as you can. They may be willing to pay him even more beaucoup bucks again to stay. The wrinkle? As a government org, they may not have the resources to pony up right now.

That said, while all jobs to some degree suck, you have to be able to find going to work to be tolerable on a day over day basis, and I don't think that your b/f has that anymore - if he ever did.

He should look around - discreetly/anonymously. It may take time, but I think (based on your description) that he really could use a change of scenery. (Or, failing that, a very large payday from his current employer. :) )
posted by Citrus at 11:09 AM on August 6

With 6 years of institutional knowledge in a group with high turnover, it's no surprise that he was given more money when he found a new job. If I were him I would this time focus on finding a more enjoyable work situation with the same employer. They should be interested in keeping him in the building regardless of whether or not he is working in his current capacity.

If I were him (and I can understand if this isn't an appealing option), I would make it my job to fix a lot of the problems you listed in his reasons for leaving. He may have more influence than he thinks on the quality of software (find inexpensive ways to change the way the software is produced & perceived), the turnover (get in on the hiring, retention) and what his own work involves (interested in management?).

They would likely rather hire people to work under him if it meant that they could again keep his head (full of all that irreplaceable institutional knowledge) in the office. I would take advantage of that.

A stressful job that isn't challenging means there is a lot of mundane soul crushing things to fix. I have at points told employers "I'm going to fix this broken software, build humane working practices so we can retain talented employees and make my team look good. I can do that here or I can do that somewhere else." That itself is a great challenge and with reform can come a lot of benefits including stress reduction.

With all that said, I am not a believer in staying at a company out of anxiety. A lot of companies would be happy to have someone looking for a challenge and willing to agonize over this. If his current situation doesn't permit self actualization (in as much as one can in an office), I'd go make some other team happy.
posted by jjames at 11:17 AM on August 6

Hmmmkay. I'm an engineer who writes code as well, in roughly similar working conditions, as your boyfriend.

I'll comment on his reasons for leaving:

1. Software produced is of low quality -- this is a common complaint I see with most engineers; they want perfect, elegant solutions. His expectations may be a little unrealistic; chances are high that he'd leave this job only to find in his new job that the software he works with isn't as high quality as he wanted.

2. Clients complain about the software -- fair enough. I'll concede that this one.

3. Work is not challenging -- to be fair it sounds like he has a lot of challenges right up his alley already though. Without being familiar about the details of his software system, I'd recommend that he show some initiative and take it upon himself to improve the system. He could ask for a raise, a new title, and tell his supervisors that he wants to implement fixes/improvements.

4. Job is very stressful/loss of sleep etc. -- I see this problem with a lot of my colleagues, chances are high he'll face the same situation elsewhere.

This is generally not a problem with the job per se but the person doing the job. Your boyfriend has to stand up to his superiors/clients and say "I'm working from 9 to 5 on weekdays, after that I'm unavailable." He's not getting paid for the time he's working after hours, unless the job description ( and the existing work culture ) specifically states that he would be required to stay after hours/come in on weekends. In that case this is a very understandable reason to go look for work elsewhere (and this is certainly something he should explain to his superiors).

Personally I think his situation at his current job isn't intractable and he should certainly be able to work with his superiors to resolve his problems.

If he does decide to leave though, he shouldn't feel any guilt at all. Guilt should never be a reason to stay in a particular position & stagnate. If he leaves, his workplace may or may not be 'screwed', things may go haywire -- but in general life will go on.

That said, 6 years is a long time for an engineer to stay with a single employer so it may just be time to expore other options. He doesn't even need to visibly post his resume online where his employer can see it -- he can network with his former classmates/friends etc who are currently working and find out what's available for him 'out there'.
posted by the_ancient_mariner at 11:18 AM on August 6 [1 favorite]

His boss also asked him not leave for at least three months because they would be completely screwed.

It sounds like your boyfriend is in a great position to negotiate to improve his job conditions. Is there a personality issue (with him or his boss) that has been preventing him asking for the kinds of things gribbly suggests? I'm not much of a negotiator myself, but frankly, it kind of sounds like your boyfriend has them over a barrel until they get new staff in and get them up to speed on the software, which could take quite a while. Its clear that your boyfriend is needed - I hope that management can see that they need your boyfriend functional, at minimum, and preferably happy. If more money isn't negotiable at this point, I would think a new job title ought to be, and some robust limitations on after-hours calls - with the boss's full support for enforcing those limitations.

The reasons for leaving are significant if your boyfriend is ambitious - this doesn't sound like a place where he's going to make great strides in his field. Security is obviously important - has he figured out what his progression path (if any) within the program or the facility might be? Is it worth it at all to stick this out for a little while with the aim of moving on within the organization while maintaining the security of income and benefits? Or is this a dead end? If the latter, yes, it's time to think about how and when to leave - "when" definitely should be not until he has another job lined up, and "how" should ideally be without burning any bridges - in other words, I think it would be good to at least have the discussion with his boss (assuming boss is a minimally competent manager and decent human being) about what the possibilities for improving the situation are. I suggest doing this sooner rather than later, before your boyfriend gets to a breaking point (assuming he hasn't already) and can't think through the situation strategically.

Good luck to both of you - having been on both sides of this situation before, I know it's rough to be the person who's massively stressed at work and having difficulty seeing a good way out of the situation, and the person trying to support them through it.
posted by EvaDestruction at 11:24 AM on August 6

I think he should look around, apply to anything that sounds interesting, and if he receives a good offer, give his notice. I would suggest that rather than post his resume, he apply to jobs or deals with recruiters directly. He should not mention that he is looking to his current employer because that may have a negative impact on the rest of his time there. As long as he secures another position before he resigns, then his financial and health insurance situation should be the same, if not better.

I wouldn't worry about the three months, because that's the company's issue, not his, and it may take three months or more to secure another position. I would also disregard negotiating for the raise, not because there would be anything wrong with doing it, but it sounds like if he received one he would feel obligated to stay even though he's unhappy, and may even be required to since his increased compensation was conditional the last time. As long as he does not leave without notice, he has fulfilled his professional and ethical obligations. Good luck!
posted by katemcd at 11:30 AM on August 6

Does he get hazard pay when he comes in at off-hours, or is it considered part of his salary? Perhaps he could negotiate for time-and-a-half, even if he is salary, with a maximum number of off-duty hours per month. Money has a way of making long hours suck less.
posted by notsnot at 11:35 AM on August 6

Red flag:

1. The software which is produced is of low quality. The facility he works at is not willing to spend the resources necessary to improve the software and the project is generally poorly managed. In addition, the facility wants to keep expanding the software to work on all systems without addressing its core problems.

2. The clients of his software (the scientists) do not like the software and he rarely gets positive feedback from them. Even when he does, he knows that it could be made a lot better.

If they build on this rotten core without fixing it, it's just going to get harder and harder to maintain, and he's going to get more blame despite his extended efforts. He should get out when he can.

Bonus question: Assume that my boyfriend decides to post his resume. His boss is actively looking for more people to hire. What does my boyfriend say to his boss when he (the boss) eventually finds bf’s resume online?

He can say that he put it out there just because he was curious about what was out there. He's not necessarily leaving, but he feels it's a good idea to get an idea what your options are once in a while.
posted by ignignokt at 11:54 AM on August 6

6 years is a long time to stay at your first job out of college. If he is happy in the general field, he should be able to leverage his experience and find a job with better pay and more prestigious title with a competitor without too much effort. Keep everything secret from current boss until he hands in his notice. If started now this process would likely take 3 months or more anyway, so that should not be an issue.
posted by the foreground at 12:18 PM on August 6

There has not, IMHO, been enough mention of your boyfriend's major health issues and the fact that he currently has guaranteed health insurance.

I would, frankly, not leave this job. By all means, he should gear up to have a conversation with his boss about a job title change and making the job work better for him - the boss doesn't need to know that it's impractical for your boyfriend to find other work.

But there are a million stories on the blue and the green about people who can't get health insurance, SMEs who dump employees at will because they drive up their group premiums, and just an endless litany of health insurance nightmares.

Yeah, health insurance is a crappy thing to hang your job on. But it's also reality. And there are plenty of people working craptastic jobs at craptastic wages just for the coverage and feeling fucking lucky to have it, so I would very, very seriously re-consider that aspect.

If he is going to change jobs, I would guess he's going to have to look at another academic institution or a blue chip company. I'm not an expert on this and not even pretending to be one on the internet, but were I you guys, I would look into this with your eyes wide open and looking at the worst case scenario.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:21 PM on August 6

Thanks to everyone who has answered so far. I've already sent him the link to the question and told him to keep an eye out on it.

For those of you who pointed out the reinforcement of the calling after hours... I think you've nailed it. Unfortunately, there are some new-ish developments at work that may or may not make this a difficult cycle to stop.

It is not written in his job description that he has to be "on call". This is one of the things that I'm the most sensitive about (we've been in several arguments over this). There was a while where he would spend hours at night and on the weekend at work with no form of compensation at all. After a few arguments over this, I told him to find out if he should be getting compensation for this extra time. Turns out, he should have been getting comp time. He ended up talking to his boss, who was very hesitant to give the comp time. Although, lately I think his boss has been better about it.

When I heard that the third person left the group I told him that he was going to have to be more clear about working after hours. Unfortunately, my boyfriend heard that someone else in the building has complained about working after hours. All the groups in the building were asked to come up with a set of hours that they would not mind being "on call". My boyfriend told his boss he wasn't comfortable setting specific hours (because that would seriously impact his out of work life). As far as I know nothing else has been done about this situation.
posted by Nolechick11 at 1:55 PM on August 6

Due to his knowledge and the attrition of other folks who have this knowledge, your boyfriend is in a strong position and should not cave in regarding his on-call status.

He does need to look for another job, immediately (while remaining with his current job). Life is too short for a talented person to spend working at a crappy job. The challenge is, of course, finding that dream job, and responsibility, effort, drive, passion, etc resides in your boyfriend. He alone is responsible for making himself happy. He needs to make sure he is not leaving one crappy job for another.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:09 PM on August 6 [1 favorite]

I don't think anyone has addressed this point which is that the longer your boyfriend stays in this job, the more he is tied into working for this particular group. Especially since it is his first job out of school, he is gaining experience that is not going to be especially transferable to another employer. Even though it is a government job and probably therefore has more security than an industry job, I don't think there is any job that is completely secure these days.

I believe that economic security stems from career security:
- what you know
- what you've done
- who you know and your reputation with them

I've been an engineer for 30+ years and have been in engineering management for most of that time. I think that if you are not constantly learning new things, you put yourself at risk for staying trapped in a dead-end job or having to take a huge cut in pay to move to a new job. The New York Times had a recent article on this topic. Quoting from the article (discussing why people tend to make less money years after they are laid off), "The largest wage losses are typically for workers who had long tenures at their previous companies. The stability often allows them to build up skills specific to their employers or their industries and to accrue corresponding wage increases, but those skills can be worth less to other companies."

That said, I think it is a lousy time to look for a job. If your boyfriend cannot find a job immediately, he can spend some time brushing up on his technical skills (perhaps by taking a college-level course or by working on an open source software project). He can also network with others in his industry -- attending conferences in the area or joining a technical society. This will allow him to legitimately say, "I'm sorry I can't come in. I'm busy," to those calls from work.
posted by elmay at 4:43 PM on August 6 [1 favorite]

Working after hours/weekends regularly without being compensated sounds quite unreasonable.

There's definitely crunch times when you're expected to be around for longer hours; but those are always temporary.

It seems that his superiors have grown accustomed to him coming in whenever he's called and don't want to compromise on that. I don't know, that kind of work situation isn't good at all in the long term.
posted by the_ancient_mariner at 8:16 PM on August 6

I've been in your boyfriend's position almost exactly: first job out of college (working as a software developer), huge amount of knowledge no one else had, lots of people quitting, "needed" at work, pressure to work unpaid overtime, on call constantly. I even had serious health issues. It was a pickle.

After much brainstorming with my friends, here's what I did.

* Made sure I was eligible for COBRA and made an educated guess how much it would cost
* Calculated all my living expenses and the maximum amount I could possibly reduce them
* Determine how long it would take to save 6-12 months of those expenses
* Based on personal feelings of how long it would take vs. risk, I decided to go with 8 months of minimum expenses.
* Kept my head down and saved money as hard as I could, taking overtime when I could get it to speed things along.
* Made a plan of exactly what I wanted to change including: normal working hours, a raise, a better title, and a real plan for distributing my knowledge among my colleagues.
* Went and told my boss that if these things weren't happening in some real fashion, I was out.

No more bullets. He was a much older/wiser businessman and had been playing me for years. He thought he would call my bluff and told me he could give me a small raise but that he couldn't do much about the other stuff. I quit.

I had also been working on plans in the background to start my own company and, after a few interviews, decided that was more my speed. Even if he just wants to start looking for jobs with impunity, I think this plan is a good balance between safety and freedom

Ultimately, even if you don't like my plan I think the important thing to to make _a_ plan and stick to it. Once I made the plan, my job became much more bearable because I knew exactly when it would change.

You and he have my complete sympathy and I wish you the best of luck. If I can answer any more questions or be of any help, I will happily do so. Being a software developer can be great, I promise.
posted by systematic at 9:02 PM on August 6

Your approach was smart Systematic. However, the OPs boyfriend is in the US and has major health issues. COBRA coverage is only for a limited time. He will likely have trouble getting reasonable independent health insurance. This is a big problem in the US, many many people are unable to strike out and be entrepreneurs.
But the rest of your advice, especially the setting your budget then saving up to cover six months of your budget before negotiating is spot on. If you go in and negotiate, you have to be willing to leave -- or they still hold all the cards.
posted by Librarygeek at 12:33 PM on August 7