Home › Forums › Random Thoughts › Thank U for F U Money
- This topic has 32 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 2 months ago by
Jay.
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06/14/2018 at 8:50 pm #42543
A vent about my job and why I love ebay. Today I was deducted salaried pay for taking 15 hours of vacation a few weeks back, despite the fact that I’ve consistently worked over 60 hours a week for a company that literally begged me to work for them about a year ago. I don’t get overtime for any week I work over 40 hours but they were very quick to deduct pay from me the first week I worked less than 40 hours. Initially this job was supposed to be a few days long, then a few months. Its now been over year and they are stringing me along. Not anymore. I’ve developed an exit plan. I did some calculations. If I put my head down, shut up and stay at the job, I can be debt free within 3 months. So that is the plan. In the meantime, I’m not working more than 8 hours a day for “the man” any longer. Once my 8 hours are up, I’m switching over to ebay. Tonight I blew the dust off of my ebay death piles and started listing for the first time in months. I can hardly wait to turn in my resignation letter and get back to ebay full time. Just 3 more months….sooner if my ebay sales take off.
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06/14/2018 at 9:10 pm #42546
Julie,
They may offer you a sweetheart deal when you turn in my resignation in order to try and keep you.
Maybe you can play your cards right and push back a little now (no resignation letter) – just enough for them to see that you are willing to walk away. Maybe you can bluff them and they don’t call you on the bluff. But, in 3 months or less, there will be no bluffing needed!
Mark
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06/14/2018 at 9:54 pm #42550
Obviously do what you need to do to for your financial health, but that’s a very shabby way to treat en employee who puts in those hours. They couldnt pay me eniogh to stay.
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06/14/2018 at 10:31 pm #42553
Julie B,
I would offer that you take the middle ground here. There are many companies who work the same way – if you are not on site they will dock you but if you stay and work overtime, it is considered as expected and even normal because you are hired as a professional to do a job and see it through to the end. If you completely back down and do not get your job done, it could leave you in a place of receiving a bad review or on shaky ground.
I would offer that you priortize and bring up prioritization when you are speaking with someone about an assignment or simply given an assignment. Maybe when you are given an assignment, respond with something like -“Looking at my schedule, it looks like I can have that to you by…..”. If they give you an urgent deadline and you are already working on something for someone (especially if you are under a deadline), I would offer that you communicate with the original person that you have been given/assigned a task with an urgent/immediate deadline by such and such, so you will need to extend the deadline for completion for the task you are working on. If the individuals involved know each other, the onious will be on them to figure out whose project will get done first. I would also offer that you reduce your hours slowly. So for instance, if you usually work 2 or 3 hours extra to get work done beyond your scheduled assignment, only stay one hour for at least a week and then back it down to 1/2 hour.
Based on what you have shared about yourself in these forums (i.e. your area of expertise), there are many years ahead of you of work possibilities and you never know where your furture path is going to lead, so it would be good to leave on good professional terms in case you should need a reference in the future. I would offer that you may not want to share your frustrations with co workers because people talk and sometimes not so nicely and not accurately.
It may be important to leave all doors open and exit with an excellent reputation. With that in mind, make sure to give plenty of notice you are leaving and assist if possible with ideas as to who can handle the work you are leaving. It may feel like it’s about them but actually this is about you empowering yourself and creating the next path in your life.
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06/16/2018 at 9:32 am #42631
Julie B: I side with Adventure E here. Do a slow throttle down. Work the work side numbers as a gradual back off. We all know that corp. will try the hard court press but hard to push a player who has a minor injury. So to speak. So come up with your own “minor injury” that allows you to start the back down or roll back.
Then work those extra hours on your own business. Yes it will still mean 60 hrs. maybe even 90 hours a week, but you will be at home, in place with the family and can do it own your own schedule.
And as AdvenE says you can get away with your resume intact, a good reference if you need it.
Now according to new trends, a resume should only show your last 10 years of work experience [give or take what and where you read], but as you put distance between you and this last job, at some point down the road, it may be the only thing you have listed on your resume and you want it to be an OK reference. In my case my resume would be blank based on the 10 year rule of thumb, despite running multi-million dollar companies as Exceutive COO, been own my own long enough for a new company not to care what I did 15 years ago. But in my case I moved into retirement. HaHa LOL.
In your case, not knowing your age, you need to look ahead and think if you would ever need to re-enter the work force [corp. or not] and think how your resume and a background check would go. If you are older, then do as AdvenE suggest, get everything paid off, back down slowly and if the boss then decides to “let you go” for whatever reason you can also collect unemployment insurance for a period of months. Have your online selling platforms hitting on all cyclinders, then just “Do It” for the remainder of your life.
I have no idea what my resume looks like now, when it was last updated, or what it even says any longer and don’t care.
We all know it is a big, big, step.. and wish you all the luck..
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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06/14/2018 at 11:36 pm #42554
Good for you Julie.
A lot of these employers don’t know how to deal with someone who doesn’t need their job or their money.
As Mark says, they may offer you a sweetheart deal to stay.. Whether you do or not, is entirely up to you.
Being debt free is cool.. very cool.
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06/15/2018 at 6:46 am #42565
Good for you Julie! Your view of your job changes immensely when you have a second income stream that you control.
Keep working hard on your plan. You may execute in in 3 months, or the situation may improve. Either way, you are in a better place by working hard on eBay!
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06/15/2018 at 8:07 am #42568
My last job was like that. I was on call 24/7/365 with no backup. If something went wrong off hours I had to be there – most of that time literally just sitting there twiddling my thumbs waiting on maintenance.
If the time came I needed to leave an hour early though, oh boy what a piece of crap I was.
Once I started my current job I had already had it in my mind I would eventually do ebay full time. I’m quite open at work about my ebay business, but I don’t reveal my numbers. My coworkers actually think I make a lot more than I actually do with ebay, so my perceived FU money is a lot higher than my actual FU money.
So from the start at this place I made it clear that I’m not playing the free overtime game. I do my job and put in my 40 hours (even though I never have 40 hours of work). If an emergency pops up I will work over, but I am absolutely taking that time back as credit time once the emergency is resolved. The power of FU money is real. It is truly freeing.
Good luck on your FU money plan Julie. I second the suggestion here that you attempt renegotiating before you turn in your resignation. Once you’ve made that decision to leave, you’ve got nothing to lose by throwing out there a list of requirements for staying.
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06/16/2018 at 9:43 am #42632
RTWV: Same for me as T-Satt on the hours. T-Satt and I have a similiar background in the corporate numbers and operations arena.
As salaried and head officer it was 24/7 for me for years. I usually worked about 2 years for year year of time span. My employees worked 2080 hours, me well over 4,000 hours per year. But I did get paid the big bucks and percentages of profit bonuses. But at some point it just no longer mattered. Time to get off the merry go round. Wife was worried it would kill me eventually and I couldn’t argue. Yes things got much tigther but we still make it, just with a lot less, which is OK. Just getting a little extra sleep every morning is very satisfying. 🙂
mike at MDCG in ATL
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06/15/2018 at 8:11 am #42569
Retro: “I was on call 24/7/365 with no backup. If something went wrong off hours I had to be there”
2 jobs ago, that was me. I changed my ringtone on my phone after I left. I still can’t stand that old ringtone. When I hear it I get flashbacks…
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06/15/2018 at 12:11 pm #42584
For about a year afterwards I would often wake up between 12am and 3 am in a panic and look at my phone expecting a missed call from work. Amazing how you don’t realize how much stress a job is putting on you until you’ve moved on.
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06/15/2018 at 5:35 pm #42607
I sometimes joke that calling millenials on the telephone without warning is an act of violence.
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06/15/2018 at 8:45 am #42572
Thanks for everyone’s comments! Its been a situation where I’ll get all worked up about it until my blood boils and then later when I’m calmed down I wonder why I was so upset only to then get all worked up again later. Some of it is my ego I suppose.
One helpful exercise from all of this is last night I calculated my income versus my expenses (including the aggressive pay down of debt) and divided each to find how much “extra” I have to live on per day. The “extra” of course has to cover non-recurring expenses such as vet bills, groceries, home repairs, savings, etc. I like knowing that “daily” figure versus a monthly figure. I think knowing the smaller increment will make me more frugal. I’ve calculated it with my current income and debt and later today I’ll calculate it under the scenario of not having the regular job to see if the daily figure is something I can live within.
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06/15/2018 at 9:18 am #42574
Pay off that debt and get the hell out of there! In my experience, it never gets any better no matter what they promise.
I bet you can get your debts paid off even faster than you realize now that you’re furious about it. Put extra work into ebay and every penny of profit goes toward debt. Plus you’ll find that you are less willing to spend money on other things because it could go toward debt.-
06/15/2018 at 9:36 am #42575
Yes, this situation has been very motivating for paying off debt. I was already paying it down aggressively but now I’m trying to pay it down at hyper warp speed!
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06/15/2018 at 9:51 am #42578
You can do it!
It won’t really feel like a sacrifice because you’ll be so focused on the end result. After trying to lower all of my “fixed bills”, I did things like eating all the food in the cabinets so that I only bought the most basic groceries, anything and everything in the house that could be sold was, borrowed movies from the library rather than going to see the new blockbuster, worked on projects around the house that just needed time or I already had the necessary components. Any checks I got from work, beyond my paycheck – things like bonuses or reimbursements for mileage/food for meetings… went toward debt.
The biggest motivator was to make a spreadsheet with a graph that showed how much I owed on my debts. Any time I put more money toward it, I updated the spreadsheet and the graph. I must have spent hours staring at that spreadsheet thinking up ways to help that graph tick on down to 0. -
06/15/2018 at 10:15 am #42579
I once worked for a place that didn’t give us lunch breaks, and didn’t pay us for overtime. I only worked there for 2.5 years before bailing to work elsewhere.
The funny thing is, 15 years later, I get a call from some lawyer who wanted to know if I was who I am, and worked at this company. I provided some basic info (employee number, job, etc) and a few weeks later I received a settlement check for just under $25,000 for all the OT and lunches they ripped us off for, plus interest.
Guess a group of employees complained, and the government decided they owed us back pay.
It was a great unexpected bonus, but it is good to see that employer’s that don’t follow the law can sometimes get bit.
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06/15/2018 at 4:47 pm #42594
I dont think its ever good form to make a scene and show an employer your displeasure. Revenge is better served cold. Save up, pay down debt, get your eBay business greased up, and just quietly leave with a smile.
If you’re willing to work 60 hrs/wk (!!!!!) for someone else, you can work that much for yourself and keep all the profits.
Someone would need to pay me at least $150k/yr + full benefits + matching 401k + 2.5 weeks paid vacation for me to consider giving them that much of my time. And that probably wouldn’t be enough now that I’m on the other side.
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06/15/2018 at 7:03 pm #42611
Good form, certainly not…but there is something inherently satisfying about putting someone in their place. Standing up to boss who’s a bully, especially in front of others is a great way of showing everyone else what type of person they really are. But then again, maybe I’m just an agent of chaos.
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06/15/2018 at 7:15 pm #42612
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06/15/2018 at 4:57 pm #42599
Jay: “If you’re willing to work 60 hrs/wk (!!!!!) for someone else, you can work that much for yourself and keep all the profits.
Someone would need to pay me at least $150k/yr + full benefits + matching 401k + 2.5 weeks paid vacation for me to consider giving them that much of my time. And that probably wouldn’t be enough now that I’m on the other side.”
Amen brother. That was where I was when I left that world. And I was running spreadsheets in my office one night on what our numbers would need to be to live on just eBay. Then I came upon a website called Scavenger Life. And I would close my office door and listen to these podcasts (I started and Episode 1 and listened every day until I was caught up) and it was more confirmation of my numbers. My numbers said I could do it, my wife agreed, and here was this couple in Virginia that was already doing it.
Never been happier…
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06/15/2018 at 5:07 pm #42602
This comment could nit make me happier. Worth the time we spend each Sunday recording and editing our weekly brain dump.
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06/16/2018 at 9:59 am #42634
Pretty much the same for us, only I had moved away from corp. some time earlier, then did s remodeling business on my own but 2008 put that down. So started the Ebay thing with a neighbors stash of items while my wife still worked as a dental assistant for a few years. I got the Ebay going but found Scavengerlife a few years after I started, but early in Jay and Ryanne’s starting SL when they were back with Mikey and Wendy.
I think I recall SL having a dozen or so people that watched and no call ins in those days as well as Jay asking on several podcasts “Come on people, post something on the Blog and ask questions”. Now.. have plenty of things to talk about and many SL members who reply.
But glad i found SL and learned week by week from all the experiences shared here on SL. Also funny to listen to the old podcasts as compared to now. J&R have changed their minds on some things, their approach has changed and Ebay and policies have changed, but it all falls into the category of evolution. SL has evolved, the members posts have evolved, issues, how to handle them and the Ebay platform all have evolved. SL gives me atleast a more of a stable platform whereby topics can be discussed in a rational [most of the time LOL] manner and just worked out to a solution – conclusion that helps us function, grow and succeed. Not a lot of ranting and lunacy here.
Mike at MDCG in ATL
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This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
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06/16/2018 at 10:14 am #42636
Im glad you started commenting back in the early days. If not, we may have stopped posting out of boredom.
We like to evolve. It’s all about how to sell online without a lot of drama.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by
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06/15/2018 at 5:12 pm #42604
Glad to make your day! You helped make ours what they are now!
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06/15/2018 at 5:38 pm #42608
You full timers are awesome! Good luck Julie!
I hope I will get to that point within 2 years while my kids are still young.
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06/15/2018 at 8:36 pm #42619
My “Take this job and shove it” moment came when my employer suggested I find a 24 hour day care for my then infant son, because needing to pick my son up from daycare was not acceptable to her. The boss that told me this also had an infant in daycare; however, it was major priority that she leave on time daily to pick up her child from daycare.
Nope. Not playing that game.
I went home, made up a spreadsheet of all my debt, and how quickly I could pay it off. Found a better job that allowed me to keep my son home with me instead of putting him in daycare, and paid the debt off even faster. My employer was *stunned* and nasty when I quit. I didn’t even finish my 2 weeks notice, because they made it so uncomfortable and impossible to do my job.
I have a hard time picturing myself going back to work for The Man ever again. If I ever do, it will just be for the social interaction once we’re empty nesters!
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06/15/2018 at 9:01 pm #42620
Anonymous
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What do all your full-timers do for health insurance?
Where is the best place to buy it?
Anyone use MediShare? They advertise like crazy on radio-
06/15/2018 at 9:37 pm #42622
http://healthcare.gov
Its like shopping on Amazon, but for healthcare.The biggest win for workers in the Affordable Care Act was that insurance companies can no longer turn you down for a pre-existing condition. As long as that stays in effect, then individuals can still work for themselves with good healthcare.
If that protection goes away under the current administration, then workers will be forced to work for a corporation to be under their policy umbrella that guarantees them healthcare.
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06/15/2018 at 10:47 pm #42625
We use Samaritan Ministries, which is similar to MediShare.
Love it, and the cost is much cheaper than anything else we had available.
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06/16/2018 at 7:24 am #42630
I have healthcare through healthcare.gov as well.
In case people are curious for some real numbers with healthcare – slightly fuzzy numbers because I’m doing this from memory. South Carolina only has Blue Cross Blue Shield plans. My income is going to be very low this year and so I qualified for $250 (I think) in subsidies. I am single person who is relatively young and healthy – no chronic diseases and will probably only use this insurance in an emergency. In order to use the subsidies, I had to chose a mid tier or higher plan (silver is mid, gold is higher, I don’t know if it goes up any more than that as I didn’t bother to look).
I had about 5 silver plans to choose from and chose the one that looked like it would be best in a catastrophic situation. After subsidies, it’s costing me around $23 a month. I was able to set up recurring payments and have it charged to my business credit card.
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