Hello! A few months ago, I posted a frantic description on how I decided to up and leave my previous employer for greener grass (link!).
Some things happened since then that would be nice to have documented somewhere. This post is for me, I guess.
The Final Cut
Following my resignation notice, they actually made good on taking my input for employing my replacement. I thought this was pretty humbling – I could work side by side with management to air some grievances, and ensure they not only find the right person, but the appropriate team structure for them to get a good footing into the future.
It would turn out I got my hopes up and I got goofed. Immediately after the initial meetings and a hand-off to my boss on salary ranges and work title, it became instantly obvious that they couldn't possibly afford a team member with those qualifications. They would look into hiring someone internally from the IT department to cover the bases, and were not keen on any structural changes that would be beneficial to my team members.
I knew this would be a poor idea. Some sucker was gonna get goofed into my exact seat without any knowledge of finance. They would suffer the exact same sense of doom that I did.
I immediately asked to revise the new role with a far more overreaching description and salary, then had it run by HR. In doing so, the external recruitment ended up being a failure. My plan was to ensure that someone internally take the bait, and then cause them and various more of my team members to resign.
In late January, my replacement joined my team through internal recruitment and was set to take my tasks at 50% while retaining his current tasks within the IT department.
Sure enough, he didn't know a lick of finance. I was assigned as his handler, and the 2nd phase began. I ensured to give him every detail of my low pay, how the company blocked my requests for pay raises and promotion, the hours I regularly put in. He was extremely upset on my behalf, and pissed off on how the company had fleeced him on the work description.
The final nail in the coffin was giving him access to the salary reports, and preliminary budgetary setup for 2022/23. We were able to figure out the pay raises across the board for IT would be no higher than 2% — 1.6% was for most folks, 2% for management. That is to say: not even enough to cover inflation. There was a departmental budget increase of a 7 digit number that was set aside for expansion plans into European territories with high employee turnover and low salaries.
Meaning? Social dumping on a large scale was in the plans as opposed to fairly compensating an extremely stressed and overworked IT department.
Following this finding, I immediately contacted (anonymously by snail mail) most IT staff with the data we'd pulled. We did this ahead of the yearly salary negotiations with management.
The following week, our Head IT Architect turned in their resignation for a position in the govt. pensions agency. Taking a pay raise of 15%.
In early February on a Monday, my replacement called me privately. He had just turned in his resignation on Friday for a project lead position for an insurance company. Pay raise 20%. Immediately following these news, I knew the plan had succeeded. There was no recovering from this, any way you fold it.
An emergency meeting was now being held. There was no point in training him anymore, since he was leaving in early May. I was tasked to refocus on simply updating any documentation. As it would turn out, I was historically neglectful in documentation due to constant scope creep and lack of time. By now, less than a month remained, and the writing was on the wall: no amount of regular work hours would be enough to transfer my brains to paper. Not for a lack of trying, either.
A senior system specialist in my team came to me shortly after this meeting asking for a resume reference. I agreed.
Early March came. Despite my major contributions, the department heads decided not to hold a farewell party. I hosted my own at a bar for my selection of coworkers. Was a blast, reportedly.
On advice from our senior sysadmin, I encrypted all my personal notes the night before handing back my laptop and work badge.
… And then it was over. I took a weeks' unpaid vacation to remove the fog of insanity that was working life up to that point.
Where am I now?
I took a position in public broadcasting. The current world situation meant that I basically had to hit the ground running. I've joined a larger, less stressed-out team with a more important mission, in a part of the entertainment media industry that I care more about than finance. Most things work perfectly, and it's nice to turn a page and not feel so ostracized after all these months. The biggest boon is the 4-day workweek. I have more time for my family, for my friends, and for myself. I never put my mental health first until now, because I am now able. Maybe there's more to living than just surviving.
In leaving my old job, I ensured to keep good relations with my old clients. Having taken a beer with a few of them, I found out that my team was indeed in shambles for weeks after. My team members always put me in the fray for dealing with people, and I was respected for my diplomacy with difficult stakeholders. Things turned so sour that the entire department was told off in a formal fashion. Extremely sad to hear, but I guess they didn't value the people skills that they took for granted.
They reached a turning point, and are currently recruiting to replace my old manager (so the current one can focus on another team), and add two or three more team members (my actual replacement, a finance systems architect, and a team lead). I bid them the best of luck — they're gonna need it. Hey, it sounds just like the restructuring I proposed months ago. If only that were entirely avoidable, eh?
That would be the end of the story. But my old employer has still not paid out my unused paid vacation days. As they accumulate until the termination date, I left my old company with 43 PTO days that would be reimbursed monetarily. I already received my final pay stub, so I got left in the dark on this matter. Calling their HR didn't work. I called every day for two weeks and it just went to a voicemail. Mailing my old boss didn't work either – he replied, but forgot to follow up. In fact, I only received an update after pestering my old boss' boss, and then demanding they tell me what's up. And that only happened 4 minutes ago. Final pay stub by the end of April. Or else, I lawyer up.
Too long; didn't read!
My resignation led to three other resignations and a restructure. New job is awesome, relevant to my interests and studies. 33% pay raise. Old job owes me PTO in excess of 6500 USD.