The Glade 4.0

Late to the thread, but... this.

I mean, talk to facilities and desktop support, and set up the physical move for after hours. Then pull the developer in for a quick FYI that you need to move the team together, and that you're willing to compensate in an equitable non-monetary fashion (bigger cube, comp day(s), work from home days, etc... based on what you know the employee already wants)

What manager would give the impression that it was a negotiable offer that could be accepted or refused? Or the impression that the five pieces of particle board that bound a physical space were "owned" by an employee?

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Well if it's not negotiable then I'm going to lose my job...

That's not really what I was referring to when I said negotiation.

He certainly doesn't have to negotiate, but I generally try to avoid painting my bosses into a corner.

"I need you to move to a new cube."
"No."

This doesn't leave much room for the manger to try and accommodate me. There's always something else I value as much as one particular benefit. For example, a raise, company vehicle, more leave time, etc. etc. I never say no. I say "how are you going to compensate me for this loss in benefits?"

It removes the potential for blind stubbornness from bad managers, and any potential accusations of insubordination. If we can't come to terms (i.e. the window has $50k in value to me), then both the manager and I tried to come to terms, and we failed. Nobody comes out looking like a goat.

If he didn't want trouble, he shouldn't have asked me to move...

FIFY

Not really a fix, as it ignores that this isn't the manager that hired Lex.

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Lex will do as he likes. This is the history of Lex as we k ow him. Once his mind is set, rationally or not, he is stubborn. He likes his window view. He does not want to give it up. He is telling us this, not asking for advise. Having realized this, I moved on. I suggest you all do the same. Lex will let us know if he wins or not. If he feels like it.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Lex will only let us know if he wins; he loves to brag. If he gets fired we'll probably never hear about it.

I'll let everyone know the outcome. The most likely outcome is a permanent stalemate, which counts as victory for me.

And during the ranking process you will be labeled "not a team player" and it will impact how be of a raise you get. Could be worth it to you though.

Aegnor, it will greatly amuse me if Lex is ever rated as a good team member.

Ever.

Maybe if it is his project and he is the team leader, there might be a chance. Otherwise, no hope.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Its not. Because money is overrated.

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Holy shitsnacks!

There's an engineer, we'll call him Mr. Jones, and he's been talking to several of his colleagues and students about Lex's situation. Now, while everybody pretty much agrees that Lex is being an obnoxious twit, they also agree that they don't want to work for Lex's manager. This manager is likely to approach them with that type of bullshit, and nobody wants to deal with that.

By way of comparison, Lex is someone these people are willing to work with. He's like Milton from Office Space. Just don't borrow his stapler, and everything's cool. Lex basically wants to sit in his cubicle and write code all day, and most of these guys don't like writing code. In other words, Lex does the stuff they don't want to do, and they don't have to talk to him. As long as Lex gets his code finished by Friday, nobody knows or cares what goes on in that window cubicle. It's a situation that makes everybody happy. Everybody except the manager. It's the manager who's **** everything up. Everything runs smoothly without the manager, which means the manager is the one who isn't doing their job. It's the manager that's getting a bad performance review, not Lex.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

^ That's interesting.


By the way, I'm still not going to move. I have a 1 on 1 with my new manager in an hour. But I've already made up my mind. I would rather lose my job.

At this point, it may be a bit late as you're meeting with your manager as I type this, but the general consensus of people who's opinion you might actually care about is that there is a better way for you to handle this, both personally, and for the rest of your fellow engineers.

You are under thirty. You may be remarkably talented, but you are under thirty. You will be regarded as a smart-mouth kid until you turn thirty. People think they can push you around because you're under thirty. That's just the way the world works. Understand that. You're losing your window cubicle one way or the other, but while that's the end of it for most people, it's the beginning for you.

Accepting that you are losing your window cubicle, you go hunting. You get offers. There are people out there who want to hire you. Once you have a job lined up, you go in to talk to your manager. Decide how much you want to be paid at your current job, and then inform your manager what will be required to retain your services. You did lose prime office real estate. You should be compensated for it. With another job offer, you have a lot more teeth. Your manager will have nothing to threaten you with at that point, and will know it.

This is not about keeping your window cubicle. This is about ensuring there is a consequence for stupid management decisions. Your manager should now either waste company resources trying to hire a replacement for you, or pay you more money. Your manager pissed off an engineer, and that should cost the company money.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

If I listened to other people, I would have sold my Bitcoins in 2012. I'm 26 years old and if I can't trust myself, I guess I deserve to be nowhere in life.

edit:

Fixed incoherent statements

What'd your manager say?

I spoke with my manager and I'm able to keep my window cube! We both seemed happy with the decision.




side note: the endless hundreds or thousands of hours I spent trying to (mostly unsuccessfully) pick up girls must have helped my persuasion skills...

Grats to you both

Yeah, I'm extremely happy with the outcome. It went better than I expected.

He shouldn't tried to push around a a skilled EE

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History of the Condom
In 1272, the Muslim Arabs invented the condom, using a goat's lower intestine.
In 1873, the British somewhat refined the idea, by taking the intestine out of the goat first.

I just got a raise today too, possibly resulting from this.

Grats! That's good money for a 26-YO single male. When I was 26 I only made 3/4 of that and was putting my girlfriend through grad school.

Live it up! Go to Europe.

I value company loyalty a *ton*. That's why I haven't switched companies or tried to sell software outside of work. However, I got really pissed off when they tried to take my window cube away. It made me really emotional since I had done nothing wrong. I've since decided (verbally to my new manager) that if I don't pull my fair share of work, I'll agree to move to a different spot closer to the team. So it depends on my productivity.

Update:

I'll now have two cubes with my name on it, my current spot near the window and one near the team. So I get to decide where I want to sit.