Work/life balance

:sob::sob::sob: always get them mixed up

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I hear ya. Although I’m not far off 40 already. My change from teacher to developer has paid off. With Covid, we are now fully remote with no intention of returning to an office. The only thing is that I don’t think I’ll stay in this job beyond June. I’ve reached my ceiling here. Hoping I can find a another remote job where I can do only meaningful and productive work rather than busy work. I like that i can get most of my work done in 4-6 hours a day and then spend time studying, working out or whatever else it is I want to get done. I’m hoping though that within the next few years I’ll be able to take even more control. Retirement is a joke. My pension isn’t great. Pensions are getting worse overall. If can create decent passive income, then I can enjoy life now instead of 25+ year from now.

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I am glad coding worked out for you. That’s was a brave and massive switch for you.

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Thanks. I’ve even decided to work towards a Computer Science degree, but it’s mostly for me to get a better foundation and understanding of the theory. I want to go beyond web development and can’t wait to take the module on Operating Systems and Networking. It’s an Associates degree at University of the People. So tuition free, just $100 per exam. And I was able to transfer all of my general education courses over for $17 per course, so it’s pretty cheap. Just had to take a stupid Online Educational Strategies course to start. That’s been boring as it’s covered things I’ve covered before and taught before, but it’s just about done and it’ll all be CS courses from here on out, plus a course in Stats using R.

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Very nice. I started a consulting business earlier this year before COVID got out of hand. Gotta say the current economic climate it’s a risk to go fully independent but again you never know what might happen to your job if you have one. For me it’s nice to have some control and ownership.

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Fair play to all to all of you thinking outside the square trying to have your own side business etc, not an easy thing to do and I hope it all work out for all of you.

My job is secure job with pretty good pay and good entitlements within Melbourne’s public transport system eg ( 4 weeks annual leave a year, 13 RDO’s, 5 bonus days & 15 sickies ) but I’d love to be able to have the balls to do something for myself haha.

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I’ll probably retire around 45 to 50…taking over my father’s properties and fully going into property development. I love finding absolute shit holes and turning them into blinding value.

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You can be on homes under the hammer!!!

Don’t want to giving my ideas away haha.

So I figured this would be the best place to put this and is probably as much a rant as it is a post about work life balance.

I’m a head chef at a golf club situated in the South West, I’ve been there since September 2019, I took a permanent position there as I started there as an agency chef due to then sacking off the previous head chef. When I first started there, I loved it, the staff were amazing, I had the support of my superiors (a board of directors), to a point it seemed like a dream job and the pay was fairly reasonable. Hours where great as my day was a wrap but 6pm most days (very unusual in hospitality), the relationship was great, they loved what I was doing, stabling the ship, bringing consistency and making them very good profits.

Fast forward on to first lock down where a calamitous director of the board called me to say redundancy was on the cards, to another director of the board calling me an hour later saying that wasn’t the case, I then started back in the July of last year and worked solidly,through until October, surprisingly making good profits and keeping people engaged (difficult to do when you have 600 members who are repeat visitors).

Now onto reopening this year… Started back at the beginging of May ready to get the ball rolling for when hospitality reopened on the 17th. At the time I had 2 front of house supervisors, one absolutely excellent, the other very lazy and very happy to ride the success of the team but hide behind them and not dig in when things got tough.
She left, probably mostly because of me for the simple reason she wasn’t pulling her weight and correlating correct information for event and function where we’d cater for lots of people, thus making my life hell, I pushed for the other supervisor to be made front of house manager as they were an excellent candidate for the job and super qualified.
Over the course of these months since reopening, I’ve given everything to that place, I bought a house and moved closer in the April, then back to work in May and from then on did mostly 80hrs a week, spending very little time in my new home. We are now at the end of the season, I’ve had zero support for the whole summer and worked by myself, catering for as an example an event on a Friday for 140 people, a wedding for 100 on the Saturday and then a meal for 160 people on the Sunday for a competition, all in one weekend… Some days I’d start at 6am, work right through until 12am and then he back in the following morning for 5/6am to make sure that I (as I worked alone) was ready for any of these events or functions, I’ve literally given that place my soul since May.

Over the course of the summer we’ve had staff leave (hospitality is fucked), we’ve advertised aggressively via many platforms to recruit staff but getting people to just turn up for an interview in the first place was a mission. Every single one of my team (waiters/bartenders/front of house manager) has pulled together and worked so hard this summer to be able to offer our members something close to a full pre pandemic service but the lack of understanding from these people of why on certain days we’ve had to close completely because we have no staff to cover it or I just need one day off in that week at the end of 13 straight shifts in a row. When we’ve gone to our “board of directors” asking to scale back the service we’re able to offer because we have no staff and I’m mentally and physically exhausted theyve ignored anything we say. My staff have endured some of the most disgusting attitudes, rudeness and abuse from some people I never expected, to the pint where some have handed in resignations, my front of house manager has done so too, the most professional perfon I’ve ever met and they’ve broken her with a complete lack of support over issues we’ve approached them all summer with, we are now both getting accused of writing one of the resignations of one of the most hard working 18 year olds I’ve ever met, because this kid was intelligent enough to put into words how this place of work has become toxic because of the lack of support from the board of directors, to the members being abusive, rude and horrible, because according to the chairman tonight “an 18 year old would never say that” and have accused me and the leaving front of house manager of having input when neither of us have. After working a while summer, sweating bloof and tears this is how they’ve resorted to treating us… All whilst they overlook that the course manager drinks on shift and they have cctv footage of this bit because they haven’t given out any staff handbooks highlighting you shouldn’t drink whilst at work they won’t do anything about it.

I can’t stay there anymore and work in conditions like this or under people like that who literally give zero fucks about good staff and are okay with people being treated like shit.
Having said that I’m also really nervous about leaving the security this job offered as I bought my first house in April, by myself in the middle of a pandemic (still not sure how I pulled that off!), I thought this job was going to keep me busy for the next few years but things seem to have turned sour very quickly and my heart and head are very much out the door.

Sorry for the massive post and any typos as I did this via my phone.
Please also be nice to hospitality staff (unless obviously they’re being crap to you) we and the industry are going through a hell of a lot right now.

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Not to belittle anything you’ve said there but ‘posh golf clubs wankers in being a bunch of cunts shocker’.

Sounds like an exhausting and soul crushing experience all in all and especially when you were previously very happy there. That’s gotta be really tough. Being a one man band just can’t work…does your contract cover sick pay? Is there an alternative way to make your point perhaps? I guess you’d end up screwing over your staff though if you did that.

It’s clear as day hospitality is fucked everywhere you look though. I honestly have no idea how it’s kept going…I bet that board have been creaming it off the furlough schemes and similar all along too.

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You would not believe the levels of entitlement I’ve experienced over the last 4 months, it’s like nothing I’ve ever had to deal with ever. Some of the most horrid things being said to people who’ve worked so hard right down to kids who’ve given up a summer and grafted before they scoot off to uni, some genuinely brilliant people.

It has been soul crushing and not something I’d ever want to put myself through again if I’m honest, the amount of work that’s gone into making the summer doable has been insane and put serious strains on everyones mental health.

Absolutely they’ve been creaming it off, I’ve seen the paperwork and balance sheets that they so much like to keep a secret. They’ve had grants for this, loans for that, it’s incredible.

My contract does cover sick pay and I think I need to dig it out and see what is allowed within my contract. My colleagues won’t mind as most of then have given or are going to give resignation notices anyway and it won’t hugely impact them. But I need to get my head together and get job hunting, in all fairness there is a lot available right now.

I have holiday booked for the last two weeks of September, at the moment, I don’t plan to return in October… I think this will hit them right where it hurts.

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Keep us updated with what the future holds for you @BergkampsLoveChild seems like this story is just getting started, I sincerely wish you all the best and hope that you find peaceful employment somewhere where they will appreciate your talent.

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Your bosses sound like right cunts. They’ll get their comeuppance when you fuck off and leave them up shit creek, which is exactly what they’ll deserve.

Glad to hear that your job market is at least fairly decent though, that’d a massive positive. Good luck getting the fuck out, I’m sure your next employer will appreciate your commitment and talent.

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Quite honestly and this is applicable to everyone.
Do the job hunting as soon as things start going south. Don’t wait for it to detoriate to such levels.

Covid has hit the industry but not to the extent these executives keep banging on about. These recessions are often used as an excuse to underpay or overwork people.
I recently gave my car to servicing and the driver told me that the dealership didn’t pay their staff for 4 months but they came to know that Volkswagen gave the dealership the complete salary to be disbursed.
They will quote Covid to justify a lesser hike or no appraisal but their is no such crunch in their actual bookkeeping.

And regardless If you don’t feel like your efforts are appreciated, stop and evaluate your position.
Well in your case, it is obvious you need to move.

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Well you were right and I actually could sniff something was going on from people weird behaviour over the weekend.

Got into work at 7am this morning, waited until I got into my chef clothes and they called me into a meeting in front of 3 of the directors… My contract of employment has been terminated because they want to go in a different direction, So I asked if I’d been sacked (because let’s face it, I have!) and they said no, we are just terminating your work contract with immediate effect and to gather my belongings, knives and hand over my keys and work laptop over on the spot, had to factory reset on the spot as a chrome book and linked to my gmail.

Have spoken with citizens advice and will call acas tomorrow as this stinks. I’ve not even had written confirmation of any of this or reasons why and an email went out to 650 members informing that I’d left the club and wished me well (cunts).

Citizens advise have asked if there is a company grievance or appeals procedure in place (haven’t had a staff handbook because it’s sat in the back room in the main office and the general manager is always too intoxicated to give them out) and to write and ask them for the reasons for terminating my employment as I’ve never had appraisals or any performance related meetings or any other issues that have been raised since starting there.

I’m not letting this go and letting them think they’ve won by treating anyone like this.
If this is the consequence of standing up for what’s right and not taking staff being abused andade to feel shit, I take this every fucking time!!!

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Sorry to hear this mate.
Doesn’t sound like they have a clue what they’re doing, either they’re sacking you (in which case they’d have needed to tell you on what grounds), or it’s compulsory redundancy in which case you’re in for a payout.

If they try to argue the former, great to get initial guidance from citizens advice, but don’t be afraid to get a lawyer involved, many will be happy to assist on a no win no fee basis.

I’m sure you already know this by now, but this is the minimum redundancy pay you’d be entitled to if they can’t prove dismissal due to misconduct: Redundancy: your rights: Redundancy pay - GOV.UK

But important to check your contract as it may state higher than the statutory levels.

Also, “You have the right to ask for a written statement from your employer giving the reasons why you’ve been dismissed if you’re an employee and have completed 2 years’ service (1 year if you started before 6 April 2012).
Your employer must supply the statement within 14 days of you asking for it.”
So make sure you formally ask for it ASAP.

Hope you’re okay!

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Fucking cunts but at least you don’t have to give them an ounce more of your energy now. Maybe they think employment law has changed already cos of Brexit but they’ve almost certainly broken not just those but also more than likely their own policies as per that hidden handbook.

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Absolutely disgraceful behaviour by your employers (ex) - definitely follow this up as their procedures are severely lacking that should be grounds for unfair dismissal. I know its energy sapping and stressful but try and follow this through - they have over stepped the mark big time.

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Definitely going to push and take this as far as I can. I’ve done nothing wrong and there’s never been issues with my performance. I bought my first house in the area to be closer aswell, so more than showed my commitment with that and the hours I put in over the summer.
The whole thing stinks.

I’ve got more than enough work lined up already though as good chefs are like gold dust right now which makes this all the more baffling! For the time being though I’m going to persue this and take some time out to enjoy my new home, also have a campervan booked for 5 days towards the end of the month, so going to head down to cornwal and surf!

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