Fired @ Christmas -- Please Advise

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Priority_Mail90 said:
sorry about your troubles, hope it all works out.

One thing though, you should have let them fire you. Not only is it pointless to resign (because a future employer will ask your former anyway and even though you resigned it'll be obvious you were pushed), you left good money on the table, the tax you pay covers this and your employer would have to cough up too.

Would also have given you some income to get rolling.
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One of the written warning letter arguments was that I said No and that it was egregious subordination. They didn't say which No or what this was about. However, I did say "No, Lisa, I'm not your man. I can't stay another hour. I've worked from 1am to 7am on a Sunday and am exhausted. [You have to realize that I've worked all kinds of crazy hours for years without even a thanks.] I'm sorry the problem's not solved, but I'm delirious here and can't keep my head from hitting the keyboard. I need a few hours sleep. Call one of the other techs." They very angrily told me to leave and that a replacement coworker was coming to the office to fill in for me. On the way home, I fell asleep driving in my Jeep. It was the first time I had fallen completely asleep while driving. I don't know how long I had been like that but woke up driving in the opposite lane against traffic. Luckily I was able to snap out of it and no one was on the road.

So, anyway, they wanted to get me out of there for 4 reasons, but I'm wondering if I can sue them for the above reason. Probably not.
 


Hi SuperMike,

Good for you that you resigned yourself, the more power you have over them.

The only advice I can give is something someone ones told me when I started my own company with a good friend years ago. If it's family, friends or a partner, always make sure you have a contract between the parties you start the business with. It should state how the profit is divided, who does what, and at which point you will stop the business and how the end results (profit or loss) should be divided and any thing else you can come up with that could be something you could be arguing about later on. It's better to fight over a contract before you start then that you need to fight over things that's not on paper. We did, and after a few years my partner in the business wanted to get out. We looked at the contract we had and divided the profits at that moment and I continued. We still are friends and have no problems with each other.

Just my two cents.

Parano1dM3
 
audax said:
Congrats on the move and the decision. If your monthly nut was covered by $5k gross per month you'll be able to survive fine doing the AM/freelance stuff.

Good luck!
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Was trying to understand what you're trying to say here. Were you trying to say that you're earning at least $5K gross per month on AM and freelance stuff and feel that if I'm strong enough in those things, I can too? Please let me know if I got that right -- I need to convince my wife a little more on AM. She just doesn't fully believe it can happen.
 
Search and find...

If I were you, I would take a mini vacation where I could refocus on my goals.

Take some time off to "think and grow rich" to your financial freedom.
 
You've done absolutely the right thing by resigning. It made me angry reading how your employer and supervisors took you for granted, similar stuff has happened to me in the past - the best decision I ever made was to start working for myself!
 
It sounds to me like you'll do just fine on your own.

Don't consider this an entrance into affiliate marketing.. instead think of it as the online economy. There are lots of established businesses that need help, sales, leads, SEO, advertising management and more. It should only take a handful of these clients to reach $5k a month, and with far less pressure than performance marketing (which what affiliate marketing really is.)

Hell, just forget the "how long until I make $X?" question. Just focus on one thing and work really hard on it. I asked the same question years ago, complete at a loss for what I was doing or were I was going. That number becomes irrelevant very, very quickly when you hit something that works..

Also think real hard about financial management. Don't finance liabilities, and put your surplus income into assets. This is a two way street, you can make all the money in the world but if you aren't careful you'll lose it just as fast.
 
parano1dm3 said:
Hi SuperMike,

Good for you that you resigned yourself, the more power you have over them.

Parano1dM3
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Sorry, this is bullshit and it's made all the worse by people continuing to perpetuate this myth that you are better off resigning. Fuck that.

Get them to fire your ass if they want rid of you. Not only will it cost them considerably more money (they have to continue to pay the gov.), you'll get 2/3 of your salary from your unemployment benefits.

Sounds like the easiest way for your to get them to force you out would have been to work only 8 hours a day and refuse to stay beyond the agreed work-day hours.

Don't believe this more power over them nonsense. You just gave them all the power because now they can tell the gov. you quit, so they aren't liable for pretty much anything and they are off the hook. In addition to this, quitting means any insurance you might have had for a mortgage that covers payments while unemployed won't kick in......

The real way to have power over them is to use their money to fund your own business, either through unemployment benefits (which is a combination of money you've contributed via taxes and your ex-employer) or some fat severance, which you can usually negotiate if they don't want you to bad mouth them.

And like I said before don't worry about saving face by resigning, that's a load of rubbish. Even if they don't directly tell people they forced you out, they will hint at it.

One thing you could do is goto the employment board (name slips my mind) and tell them you were forced to resign because they were forcing you to work overtime that you weren't physically able to and that you believed was illegal. This could help you get your unemployment payouts and maybe some back pay.

In conclusion, resigning is only good for the company and the people high enough up the food chain where they have a package handed to them upon resignation (usually consisting of cash).

Good luck man, does sound like you'll do fine in the Internet world, as others have said, hedge for now and don't day-trade until you have some reasonable buffer and can sustain a loss.
 
And then it hits you. You're not getting those alerts every hour like a sysop, driving you insane. You're not going to have to drive in, defend why you think a problem is a problem on a server, only to get challenged by stupid people. That's the old life. Then again, you realize you have an extremely hard burn rate of $5K per month and can get by on $3K if you don't focus on the tax man for a couple months. You thank goodness you listed 0 deductions and had HR take out $100 out of every paycheck in case of future tax burdens, so you might get some money back at tax time. You thank the Lord you have 5 fairly fast computers at home (which you got for free from the office from their giveaways) and that you have at least about $12K built up in a 401K that you can either borrow against or drain completely if necessary. But you're going to need a plan, and you need to set goals and budget your time, just like Zig Ziglar's YouTube videos say. You tell your family to dig in and prepare for the worst, to shut off lights, turn down the heat, unplug the freezer in the garage with no food you care about in it, share rides, ride a bicycle to a neighbor's house, eat food economically, wash dishes by hand to save electricity, and Christmas is postponed until further notice. Instead of you going to the relatives 3 states away for Christmas, they're going to have to come to you. Life can be a bowl of cherries, but then again you can end up staring at the pits.

That's what's going through my head this morning. My wife says, imagine our savings just isn't there. What can your brain and fingers do to get us small amounts of fast cash right now? Ghostwriting? Anything. I'm meeting with George, my father-in-law, today. He's already got a home business with rental property but wants something more, and is an incredible salesman with a long job history of that. He's offering to help sell one of my PHP-based tracking systems I wrote, starting with letters and cold calls. I told him that's pure Heaven, that I can't do the things he does and stare rejection in the face without feeling it. I said if he lands me a gig, he can set his own commission (and I know he'll be cool about it), and all future profit from that client that he landed for me will be split on those commission lines, even if they want follow-up tech support after the initial contract.

But for now, I've got $0. That's the motivation.

P.S. In reply back to Priority_Mail90, if I rework things to do the unemployment trick, my previous employer might feel it, but my supervisors would never feel it because it was such a huge global company. Meanwhile, I've done unemployment before and it sucks. You get like a $250 paycheck and have to prove that every week you applied, if I recall, that you applied to 2 places and couldn't get any job. If you fail to do that, the paychecks stop. If you fail to keep a record of it, they backcharge you that amount and threaten to stop the paychecks. So, anyway, I've resigned and it's over. Time to move on and not waste time with unemployment hassles.
 
Looked at your site.

Almost there, but needs polishing.
Link to the download more prominently where you talk about your programs.

Offer customization packages (corp logo, corp colors, etc..) Link to that even more prominently.

::emp::
 
You have a HUGE leg up on a LOT of people, including me, because of your technical experience. You sound like the type that could really "clean up" using Eli's methods from ø Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics ø

Day trading shouldn't be in your vocabulary and hiring employees nowhere in sight. It's you and your computer pumping out websites that aim to drive short term, mid term and long term revenue.

If you're a skilled PHP guy, you shouldn't have too much trouble picking up freelance work on WF and a few of the other webmaster boards. I always have the need for PHP work can't really afford "top dollar". If you do a good job for a few people and are able to create a good reputation, you could do pretty well with freelancing alone.

Good luck with everything. Hope I can help more in the future.
 
Hi,

Maybe put an extra column in your page layout where you promote the paid support feature? So visitors see on every page that they can get paid support?

Or a donate screen where you show how many donations you need for the next feature to be added.
 
I haven't had time to read everyone's replies but if you are 40 y/o and had a $63K job and didn't have sense enough (otherwise known as foresight) to set up Plan B/Safety Network/Additional Income Stream/A Savings Plan then I have absolutely no sympathy for stupid ppl like you.

Here's a free tip - go sell some crap at eBay - duh.

Now please have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Years dimwit :xmas-smiley-022:

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
 
trigatch4 said:
If you're a skilled PHP guy, you shouldn't have too much trouble picking up freelance work on WF and a few of the other webmaster boards. I always have the need for PHP work can't really afford "top dollar". If you do a good job for a few people and are able to create a good reputation, you could do pretty well with freelancing alone.
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I'm open for business for PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Linux and anything built on that. Currently I'm looking to pick up a couple gigs this month. Right now I'm ready to look at requirements to give you cost and phase time estimates. My rates are low, considering the circumstances.
 
Grafix said:
...if you are 40 y/o and had a $63K job and didn't have sense enough (otherwise known as foresight) to set up Plan B/Safety Network/Additional Income Stream/A Savings Plan then I have absolutely no sympathy for stupid ppl like you...
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Hey, now that you've gotten that off your chest, don't switch to the soft stuff. My wife and I gambled on, instead of keeping savings, paying down debt faster. We gambled and evidently lost. However, I've been warning her for two years now that we need to be saving up two months salary in the event of a crisis. Our credit situation, actually, used to be far worse -- it was a nightmare. After 6 years of hard work, budgeting, and three mortgage refinances (which spanned 12 years), we managed to get it down to where it is. It's still not perfect, but it's better than where it was. At least we're not stuck with a $500M house in a glutted market and a variable mortgage rate -- like all those people in California right now. We also no longer owe the IRS the $17K after 9/11 and the market bottomed out for awhile.

However, your message is loud and clear, my friend, and I can guarantee you when I get through this, my first goal will be $10K in emergency savings and then conquer debt with the snowball technique after that. I hope others who come here, who may still have a day job, consider your harsh words as well because they're true.
 
I don't have much input because it looks like you're close to having everything under control, big guy.

At least you have options. You're better off than 90% of people IMO.
 
When you think that I used to drive 1 hour to work and back, and consumed all that gas for it, and had $9-$11 rip-off lunches with greasy, lousy food, and used to see expensive movies (4 people + popcorn and drinks) each weekend, and used to have expensive meals out every weekend, had to keep buying expensive clothes every 6 months because I would wear them out so fast, and wasn't home to control the thermostat properly -- phew! That's at least $1K there.

So instead of thinking I needed $5K because that was my gross salary each month, I really only needed $4K. Net of $4K is like $2.5K after taxes. So, in a bind (I mean, forgetting about the tax man for awhile), all I really needed to come up with was $2.5K to pay my bills, and everything else is icing on the cake.

Things have gotten better. I signed my first real contract this morning and began work. I really enjoy doing PHP/MySQL/PostgreSQL work again. It's what I do best, not Linux Sysop or Helpdesk work. I worked the day in my sweats, cooked my own breakfast (and had the time for it), got up at an early time (unusual for me), took a power nap after lunch, wasn't walking on eggshells, actually had time to have dinner with my wife and relatives, felt more relaxed, was smiling again, and my phone wasn't going off the hook with server alerts or a need for me to come back to the office.

I didn't have dumb people to work with today like with my old day job, cracking their dumb jokes like they do, asking their dumb questions, teasing me, threatening to challenge my decisions with emotion rather than logic. I didn't have overbearing, slave-driving supervisors who come by with new deadlines and priorities, even though I hadn't yet finished my old deadlines and priorities. My current clients impress me immensely with either their knowledge or professional yet easy-going attitude.

I've also had a terrible sinus issue, headaches, bad asthma, stomach aches, and, even at 40 years old, high uric acid in the blood that contributed to, believe it or not, gout. However, after 6 years of feeling awful, the sinus issues went away, the asthma is there but somewhat diminished, the headaches and stomach aches are gone, and I'm proud to say that I've had 3 days here with absolutely no symptoms of gout traveling from foot to foot, heel to heel, knee to knee -- I'm gout free, it appears. (I've also stopped drinking carbonated sodas and switched to tea, chocolate milk, apple juice, and water.)

So I'm sitting here thinking, like duh, why didn't I do this sooner? I'm healthier, happier, more awake and alert, more confident, more relaxed and professional, and, if I play my cards right, either just as efficient at earning $5K on my own as I was for my employer, and being able to keep more of it.

And when I get my AM work underway this weekend, things are going to be even better than this eventually.
 
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