Please allow me to vent about work

[HobbyDave]

You should have just told them that your wife was sick and you were distracted by that and the dinner ran long.

What you should have done was let them know that in advance, and tell them to call you on your cell phone if they had any questions that needed to be answered by you. Let the sales shmuck front end it since he's getting the commissions.

I think that's a reasonable suggestion. If your wife was sick enough where you wanted to be home, explain the situation. If they were not understanding of a personal issue, then you certainly have room to be upset with them.

 

[Spanky]

My general feeling about the whole thing is: get a steady job with well-defined hours or schedule, e.g., pharmacist -- no need to entertain clients, performance reviews, objectives, personal development plan, project deadlines. The pay is decent - $100K (medium).

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I stood in line behind a woman in her 80's at the pharmacy yesterday. She insisted the pharmacist said she could do a return there, when he said that he hadnt. She wanted him to fix a problem with her check not being cashed to pay her bill to the store credit card, and would be "very upset" if he didnt take care of it there. She then wanted him to ring up her entire basket of purchases at the pharmacy when there was a line a mile long there and nobody at the front of the store. And she wanted her return to be credited to a different card from the one she made the purchase on. Or again, she'd be "very upset". If I didnt have respect for the elderly, I could easily have told her that all of us in line would very much like for her to be upset and move along...

I'd cross pharmacist off the list of easy jobs...

 

[shorttimer]

Saluki9, even at good jobs, with good pay and reasonable rules sometimes everyone has to vent. What better place than an anonymous forum where many people can relate and allow you to calm down so you don't burn bridges.

what I find working for a big company is there re many people who could care less about family, and are interested only in the almighty dollar. They will do anything to get ahead, neglect spouses and children, step on others, and only have one thing in mind. Move up, make more.

It is frustrating to have an ill spouse you can't be there to help, or feel so pressured you can't get away for bloodwork. It is a sad statement of people's priorities. Just don't believe for one minute if you drop dead tonight the company will come to a grinding halt. They will fill your chair with another body and life will go on.

 

[Andre1969]

I didn't exactly make the company come to a grinding halt, but the night I finally got fed up and quit my job delivering pizzas, they had to close the store down that Saturday night! I'm still kinda proud of that little accomplishment! 8)

And I know this is more coincidence than anything else, but that store went WAY downhill after I left, and was never anywhere near as profitable. Eventually it got sold off to be a franchise, because directly under the company wing it was just falling flat on its face. About a year ago (4+ years after I quit) I actually ran into my old manager and his wife, also a manager. We started talking about old times, and I could see where this was starting to go, so I said HELL no, I'm NOT coming back!

Quitting that job was a major milestone, because at that point my average workweek went down from 65-70 hours to 40-45.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

We had a wildcat strike at macdonalds when I was 16 and worked there for a while. The manager, who clearly thought his job was Drill Instructor, fired one of the girls working at the counter because she called Filet O' Fish "swimmers" as in "I need a couple of swimmers up here!". So me and all the grill crew sat out back until he apologized and rehired her.

I'm glad to continue enjoying the telling of that story, since all of us got fired the next day. He just wanted someone to fill out the shift.

 

[Nords]

I am attempting to be honest about the situation.  Unless I understand correctly, this is not a "support" group, where we all give each other high 5's.  We evaluation other people's situations, and tell them when they're possibly fooling themselves.

Eeewwwwwkay, thanks for being honest, but I think perhaps a little essence of tact & support is probably more appreciated than a Vulcan logic analysis. There's probably a time for each and a suitable combination, and I don't think this was intended to be a time for 100% engineering straight-ahead problem solving.

The subject of the post is "Please allow me to vent". If we were required to go into problem-solving mode it'd probably say "Please solve my problems for me."

 

[retire@40]

My general feeling about the whole thing is: get a steady job with well-defined hours or schedule, e.g., pharmacist -- no need to entertain clients, performance reviews, objectives, personal development plan, project deadlines. The pay is decent - $100K (medium).

No need to entertain clients You need to deal with customers every minute of the day! Not to mention the insurance companies and doctors.

No project deadline How about having the prescriptions ready in 15 minutes before the customer starts complaining??

 

[HobbyDave]

Eeewwwwwkay, thanks for being honest, but I think perhaps a little essence of tact & support is probably more appreciated than a Vulcan logic analysis. There's probably a time for each and a suitable combination, and I don't think this was intended to be a time for 100% engineering straight-ahead problem solving.

Actually, I probably would have been more supportive, except that by the time I read the thread, there were 15 "Yeah, stupid companies!!" posts already. I figured he'd had enough support already and could handle a single negative comment

 

[Jarhead*]

Eeewwwwwkay, thanks for being honest, but I think perhaps a little essence of tact & support is probably more appreciated than a Vulcan logic analysis.  There's probably a time for each and a suitable combination, and I don't think this was intended to be a time for 100% engineering straight-ahead problem solving.

The subject of the post is "Please allow me to vent".  If we were required to go into problem-solving mode it'd probably say "Please solve my problems for me."

Nords: Having a wife and two adult daughters,
they mainly want to use me as a sounding-board. "I didn't expect you to fix it for me Dad, just listening is good." (It took a while to get this down, but now have it covered pretty well.)

 

[Jarhead*]

Eeewwwwwkay, thanks for being honest, but I think perhaps a little essence of tact & support is probably more appreciated than a Vulcan logic analysis.  There's probably a time for each and a suitable combination, and I don't think this was intended to be a time for 100% engineering straight-ahead problem solving.

The subject of the post is "Please allow me to vent".  If we were required to go into problem-solving mode it'd probably say "Please solve my problems for me."

 

[REWahoo]

Nords: Having a wife and two adult daughters,
they mainly want to use me as a sounding-board. "I didn't expect you to fix it for me Dad, just listening is good." (It took a while to get this down, but now have it covered pretty well.)

In a very similar boat as you (wife & two adult daughters), I know of what you speak.

You are absolutely correct, but I have a miserable track record for automatically reverting to the problem resolution mode. I'm hoping being retired will help cure me, and I can be reliably depended on to only respond with "Ummm Hmmm" in the future.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Wasnt that an old saw...men are problem fixers but women dont want them to fix their problems, just hear about them.

Hence a small communication problem between the species...?

 

[cube_rat]

Just to set the record straight, it's me with the overdue bloodwork not saluki

 

[VoyT]

I'd cross pharmacist off the list of easy jobs...

Add in the other retail hazard -- crummy hours -- and the very real danger of robbery, and I can see why the pharmacy majors I knew in school wanted to work for hospitals or phamaceutical companies ...

 

[Nords]

"I didn't expect you to fix it for me Dad, just listening is good."

I'm hoping being retired will help cure me, and I can be reliably depended on to only respond with "Ummm Hmmm" in the future.

"That's OK, Dad, I'll ask Mom. I didn't want to know that much about it."

In our house, the punishment our kid fears the most is having to discuss with me what she did wrong, what she learned from it, and what she'll do about it.

I know how she feels. I learned the technique from the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board's Operational Reactor Safeguards Exams... annually and as a triennial surprise...

 

[haha]

Like Jarhead and REWahoo I also have 2 grown children. Two sons who are extremely honest and extremely competent, but not exactly wizards at communication. I have a hard time when they are describing their problems to me, mostly because I think that if I had done a more complete job while I was bringing them up they would be better in this area.

My attitude as a young father unfortunately tended to be that my kids were bright and most things they could figure out for themselves instead of me trying to tell them. I hated arguments, and I felt that I didn’t really know WTF was going on anyway. It was kind of hippie laissez-faire. My parents treated me the same way. About the only thing my Dad ever told me was "don’t mess up"; he didn’t give any pointers about preferred ways to avoid messing up. He also said he didn't want to see any girls coming around wearing maternity clothes. Left it to me to handle the details here too.

But I now believe that one's ways of seeing the world depend to a large degree on pre-set mental categories and notions. So this is something that a parent can to some degree manage, without much conflict or strife. It’s more like creating frames and words to help shape perceptions and ideas. If I had been sharper, I perhaps could have given them the categories to make their lives easier now. They both have full speed ahead competitive and demanding jobs, and I feel that I have let them down in this regard.

One of the benefits I get from this board is seeing people's differing ways of structuring their world. To bad life is only one trip down the slope.

Ha

 

[brewer12345]

In addition, as far as social skills I regularly teach an investments course at a local college and love speaking to large groups of people.  What gives me the greatest joy is meeting newer investors and giving them a good footing and keeping them from the sharks. I am also active in my local CFA society and enjoy participating in group discussions and their speaking engagements. 

Heheh, saluki, ceberus probably has no clue how much in demand someone like youself is in today's labor market. Frankly, your employer should be kissing your keister, not the other way around. If you get shellacked for your superiors' misjudgement, it might be time to take the show on the road.

 

[haha]

Heheh, saluki, ceberus probably has no clue how much in demand someone like youself is in today's labor market.  Frankly, your employer should be kissing your keister, not the other way around.  If you get shellacked for your superiors' misjudgement, it might be time to take the show on the road.

I actually can't figure out what someone like him would do. He doesn't analyze individual securities- he says his firm uses ETFs and index funds. He doesn't sell clients. What does he do? The same thing that people here argue about all day- slice and dice, asset allocation, etc?

Ha

 

[brewer12345]

I actually can't figure out what someone like him would do. He doesn't analyze individual securities- he says his firm uses ETFs and index funds. He doesn't sell clients. What does he do? The same thing that people here argue about all day- slice and dice, asset allocation, etc?

Ha

I'll let saluki answer in detail, but he said "most" of the money is in ETFs and with DFA funds. That means there is probably some hedge fund allocation (selection & monitoring is time-consuming and expensive), probably some commodities pool stuff (don't ask), a bunch of stuff that is only available to qualified investors (structured notes, weird stuff like pooled funds investing in tax liens or life insurance policies), and Gawd knows what else. Plus I bet there is a lot of hand-holding (time consuming and expensive), risk management around individual equity holdings (imagine investing 50% of someone's portfolio when the other 50% is all in one stock they can't sell), and other services to do.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

like a combination hammer-screwdriver in the example above...because you may rather work behind the scenes and not have much people contact.

pardon my melded metaphor, but retire@40 has hit that round peg squarely on the head.

I will...be 100% honest....and keeping them from the sharks.

if you look you will find yourself in the shark pool. so it seems you are between a hard corporate tooth and your own personal shark cage.

your cage will keep you alive, but from within your cage, you can not beat them. if you keep the other sharks well fed, perhaps they will not eat you.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

oops

 

[saluki9]

I'll let saluki answer in detail, but he said "most" of the money is in ETFs and with DFA funds. That means there is probably some hedge fund allocation (selection & monitoring is time-consuming and expensive), probably some commodities pool stuff (don't ask), a bunch of stuff that is only available to qualified investors (structured notes, weird stuff like pooled funds investing in tax liens or life insurance policies), and Gawd knows what else. Plus I bet there is a lot of hand-holding (time consuming and expensive), risk management around individual equity holdings (imagine investing 50% of someone's portfolio when the other 50% is all in one stock they can't sell), and other services to do.

Wow, If you don't mind I might just save some time and post that into my resume next time I need it. That's pretty much exactly what I do.

Over half of the new clients we take in are corporate execs with large single issue holdings or options. I also act as a liason between the hedge funds and private equity we have our clients invested in.

I could also hire another full time person to handle the unwinding of some of the crap people come into here with.

Plus... Lots and lots of hand holding

 

[saluki9]

I actually can't figure out what someone like him would do. He doesn't analyze individual securities- he says his firm uses ETFs and index funds. He doesn't sell clients. What does he do? The same thing that people here argue about all day- slice and dice, asset allocation, etc?

Ha

Oh yeah, I actually do get paid to do what a lot of you guys do around here all day for free.

 

[brewer12345]

Saluki, if I ever decide to move over to the PM side of things, I will have to pick your brain/get the war stories before I jump.