Some Recent History

Tuesday, April 02/19

So a little while back I referenced some changes that had happened in my life but begged off going into details due to some ongoing negotiations and promised some clarity once things were resolved.

Well guess what? it's that time now..........

Last year was kind of a bad year for me both in terms of my physical and mental health.

I had the cancer scare that was the physical end of things and my mental health suffered from it and was also impacted by my feelings towards work.

When I went back to work after my medical leave I found myself feeling more and more outside the mainstream of things and it made me miserable, almost to the point where I dreaded getting up in the morning and making the drive into work. I wasn't happy with my scope of duties or how I was treated by my senior managers, that had really been building since early 2017 when I was pretty much screwed over at bonus time, being told that I hadn't done enough to stand out compared to my peers. Now if I really hadn't done enough to stand out I'd be the first to admit it as I try my best to live in the real world and have on more than one occasion put on my big boy pants and admitted when I wasn't giving my all in past positions. That wasn't the case here since I actually covered off my own position but covered off for the controllers roles before we hired one and then performed all the duties of the accounts receivable position for a month while we looked to replace the one who quit on the spur of the moment and walked out. Now if that wasn't enough to be recognized I'd have been okay, well sort of pissed but I could have lived with it, but when two new hires who should not have qualified for a bonus due to not being part of the organization for the required six months were granted bonuses it sort of made me realize that no matter what I did my career path was limited.

My problem? Well I'm not a millennial, not under the age of 30, and I have a penis.

Sounds kind of funny but I was actually told my first week on the job that I would never had made it to the interview stage had I not known the CFO from a prior position. When I asked why that was, the response was that the target employee was a female millennial so the organization could continue to right the wrongs of society. I am not kidding when I say that, it's word for word what the human resources rep told me as she was doing my orientation.

So combine that little nugget with being pretty much ignored upon my return even though I was part of a five member team and you can see where disillusionment might start to develop.

Over the next few months, July to early October, I started to realize that I needed to make a change or my health was going to suffer and had actually started to update my resume and was getting ready to activate my Indeed profile when the organization beat me to it and told me they were eliminating my position as part of a restructuring.

Now normally that should make a person mad but they did me a huge favour by escalating my timeline. They offered me a severance package that was laughable and than seemed sort of miffed when I didn't sign it right away but my parents didn't raise a fool.

I mentioned to my ex what happened and her first words were "see a lawyer as given your age and recent medical history, this seems a bit fishy". When I mentioned it to a friend who had worked with both myself and the CFO at another position she also advised me to seek a legal opinion.

Well I did and we ended up in mediation over the cause and severance.

I can't disclose any details due to the NDA signed by both parties but I can say my actual net  settlement is larger than the initial gross severance they offered me.

I was off work from November to late January when I applied for an Intercompany Accountant position with the company my former controller was working at as VP Finance. I'd been applying to a lot of positions over those 3 months and was getting lots of interest but it wasn't until late January that things seemed to heat up for me, with five second interviews.

I initially resisted applying there due to the product and my own belief about it but she kept sending me emails and texts to apply as it is a growing business that offers a lot of wonderful opportunities.

I finally bit the bullet and applied online but didn't tell her that I was as I'm not comfortable playing off the connections and people I know, sounds kind of silly but it was what it was.

I went through an initial telephone interview and must have impressed as they set up a face to face in the Kanata office. I went in thinking I was being interviewed for one position only to have them discuss something else entirely. The corporate accounting manager and AP Manager interviewed me and mentioned this other position as a Business Analyst supporting the accounting team with the integration of Sage X3 from Oracle Netsuite, neither of which I've ever worked on before I pointed out to them, they smiled and told me that KAM had suggested me for the position as she knew I was more than capable of doing the job and more. KAM was my old controller 3 jobs ago in case you were wondering. I hadn't listed her or the current VP of Human Resources, my old HR manager from that same job as with KAM, on my application nor mentioned I knew either of them but it seems the screening software they use for online applications notes when someone is applying from a company any of the executive team has worked at in the past so they can be asked about potential employees.

So in the middle of my interview with K & S in comes KAM to see if I've agreed to the other position. They all laughed at the expression on my face and KAM smiled at me and reminded me that she'd been trying to get me to apply for the last three years and she wasn't taking no for an answer.

The funny thing is that the same time I was interviewing at KAM's company I was going through second interviews with a real estate development company and a television production company for finance manager positions. The same day I received the offer on my current position the other two called with offers as well, when it rains it pours right?

So for the past 2 1/2 months I've been working my ass off and loving every minute of it, it's like I've been recharged with a passion for my job again, both my son and daughter have commented on how much happier I seem these days. In the past I've resisted pushing work email to my cell phone but because of my role in the group it was one of the first things I did so I could stay on top of things and I am embracing all the opportunities coming my way.

Best part is I'm literally a 10 minute drive to work on a normal day and 15 minutes with bad weather, compared to the hour one way at the old job on a good day and 90+ minutes on snow days.

I actually managed to get offered a better salary and have some serious stock options, they won't vest for a year and I can only exercise 1/3 each year over the next 3 years but people I work with have told me it's like getting another years salary when you do sell that 1/3. Me thinks there might be a holiday in my future next year.

So here I am employee #3044 working with two former managers who are employees #19 and #128 respectively and life couldn't be better.

Oh did I mention the accounting team I'm part of numbers around 65 and is populated with some amazing people who have really made me feel like I'm part of something special. To top things off around 6 people golf and we've already talked about getting in some rounds at The Marshes golf course that we can see from our 8th floor offices.

I wasn't planning on making this change so suddenly but sometimes things happen for a reason and they work out perfectly.

That's what has happened for me and I'm grateful for everything coming my way.

It's also opened my eyes to dating once again as the towers our offices are located in have several thousand people working in them and thus offer some new possibilities.

My name is Marcus and life has changed for me over the last year, some of it was kind of scary, some could have been scary, but in the end I'm in a pretty good place and now just need to meet that someone special to share it with........it's going to happen in 2019 :)

Questions and comments are always welcome at ooasm2018@gmail.com

I was reviewing some of the old posts and realized some had comments from readers, apologies for not noticing this earlier and I promise to do a better job of staying current with them going forward.

Today's musical suggestion is "Give Up The Funk" from Parliaments 1975 Mothership Collection. Sometimes you've just got to let that 70's funk play through your system lol