I had left DC for Vancouver at the beginning of October; I worked in Vancouver for 2 weeks and then headed to India. I love working in Vancouver. The pace of life there is much more to my liking; it is hectic but not horrid. I do my 8 (or 10 or 12) hours and then I go out and do whatever I want. There are people I know there, friends whom I have known for a decade now. I also know the city fairly well and I've never once felt uncomfortable there. Anyway, I was in Vancouver, I had a great time outside of work. At work was a slightly different story.
I've always felt that after the merger, the Vancouver office was the bastard child of confused parents. These parents mean well and try and provide for the child, but they haven't a clue as to what makes the said child tick, what sets them off and what keeps them happy. Why would I say that? Well, lets see. For starters, these guys are not setup for visitors such as me. Now you may wonder why that is important seeing as I work in the DC office. Well, if we're all about team building and working well virtually across timezones and continents, these satellite offices should expect something of a steady stream of visitors. When I visit Vancouver, I expect to see almost the same amenities available to me here as I do in DC. That means that the printers are available and the same (which they are not), that means I get a couple of monitors and decent machine to work off of (which I did not), that means I get a phone (I had to run across the hall and use someone else's) to join the myriad of conference calls I seem to need to attend.
Its not like the folks there don't have decent amenities... they have a bathroom, they have a fridge, they have water and coffee... and many have dual monitors. But that's not always enough I find. Recently, we were told that all employees got Boxing Day off. It falls on a Friday this year and more than likely, people would have taken that day off anyway... and those who came in would probably be busy with the telling of Christmas stories. The gesture was a very nice one by our CEO. That was followed about a half hour later by a sheepish email from HR clarifying that the people who already had Boxing Day off (read Canadian employees) are not getting an extra day off. That was dumb for two reasons. Firstly, we strive to keep the number of holidays the same. They took a bunch of holidays away from the Vancouverites (Easter Monday was one) and replaced those with so called Personal Days. The Canadian employees get 4 I think and the Americans get 5. That was done to even out the holiday count. Now, if most of your co-workers NOW get an extra day off but you don't... how would you feel? The second reason it was dumb was because they could have anticipated this reaction from those in Vancouver, figured out a real solution to their extra holiday proposal and then sorted this out. The way it turned out, the folks in Vancouver likely have a bad taste from the extra day given to the rest of the company and then being told no to their request for an alternative day. This could have been handled so much better. They could have said something like... take a half day off for Christmas Eve and a half day off for New Years Eve (like we used to have before the merger). Or they could have said... since you guys are now short a day, why not just take Christmas Eve off or take New Years Eve off. Let the teams involved know (there are just 2 or 3 teams that work out of Vancouver) and then close the book. Oh well, I don't run HR, so I wouldn't know. This much I do know, If I was given one less holiday than everyone else, I'd be pissed.
I also found out that the people working out of Vancouver have a less than ideal time when it comes to work over the phone. While I was there, I had far too many meetings that spanned lunch time. That is just plain rude. And its not like they didn't know. I've mentioned a bunch of times to people that booking meetings between 3 and 4 Eastern Time makes a joke of the lunch time of the West Coasters. The last Friday I was there, I had meetings from 10am to 2pm! The one at lunch time that day was one that all of our larger team had to attend because they were going over process changes for how we develop things for the next release. I also find that people forget that attending meetings and paying attention is work. I bet you anything, my manger thought I slacked off on Friday because I spent half my work day in meetings. He's mentioned to others on my previous trips to Vancouver about how I take 2 hour lunches etc. I hate that. I work my butt off. And the odd day, I might be away for lunch for an hour and 15 minutes at the most (and I have to stress that is the VERY odd day).
Another really annoying thing with meetings over the phone is that a bunch of people in DC are usually having their own side conversation in a meeting room that the folks on the phone are oblivious to. It get annoying quickly when they start talking about stuff that is a) not on the agenda and b) assumes a bunch of stuff people in the meeting room are aware of but not the rest. That does not engender team building or cooperation or anything warm and fuzzy. That just makes you either not care or in my case, frustrates me. In situations such as ours, I think meeting room based meetings should be banned. It will make us better communicators if we can do our work using the phone and a tool like webex. I know face-to-face time is important, but it is unfair to half the team if they are not afforded the same luxury.
I know I am complaining lots, but I have thought a lot about it and I felt the need to write. I complain only because I want to make it better. If I didn't care, I would have checked out a while back and tried to find a way home. The thing is, I do like my job; I just don't want to have a shitty time doing it and I don't want to do it from DC. Maybe that is asking a lot, but I figure there is no harm in asking. I also met up with some friends of mine who told me that the employment market in Vancouver is alive and well... despite the odd story of layoffs.
Comments
1) You can't possibly expect these people to have dual monitor setups just sitting around, right? Waiting for the odd visitor?
2) Lunch meetings might not be 'respectful', but the fact that the Vancouver office is still open seems to be to be something of a gesture to like 5-6 employees there. They probably aren't likely to go out of their way to make it convenient for a very small subset of the workers there at the expense of ease in scheduling. The problem is likely not the disrespect, it's the fact that there are too many fucking meetings at that place.
3) It's also not a timeclock job where you are entitled to 12-1 lunch, right? And if you feel really strongly about it, I have an idea - decline the invite, instead of complaining about it on your blog. I made a habit of denying all meeting requests that came after 430pm, because that bumped into my time.
4) If you actually got to work out of that office you would probably get 2 monitors and a phone.
5) Glad you had fun in Vancouver =)