Coin Flipped

Remember back in Wales when Keith could only work for 30 days, and I said he considered quitting? Well, some former co-workers from Thomson Reuters contacted him last fall and told him they would like him to come work with them. They were waiting for some things to happen in the company and we were waiting to find out about going to Wales, so the waiting was mutually beneficial. They got their waiting finished as we were finishing up our trip to Wales, so that all worked out.

Keith was interested in the possibility of a different job because his current job had flaws – evening meetings (sometimes only once/week) with the group in China that he leads and FTO. He has repeatedly told me that the China team has great programmers, but the problem lies in his lack of Chinese language and their pronunciation of English. No disrepect to them – he speaks NO Chinese and is impressed that many of them have some knowledge of English (one person plays the translator – as well as being a programmer – and a lot is done with him translating through typing. Without the typing what everyone is saying, pretty much nothing would get done.) The lost in translation feeling is never ending, however; Keith is never confident his ideas are actually being understood – and since he is the architect of their team, that is disquieting, making the architect part of his job frustrating.

Secondly, FTO. Do you know what that is? Unlimited time off! WhooooHoooo, right? Wellll, we were not too thrilled when his company put that into place in January. The idea is if you are done with your work, you can ask your boss for time off. Mmmm. Done with your work is a super weird concept in Keith’s job. He says he is usually working with muliple teams on multiple projects, and as one project completes, another is already starting. One wonders when “finished with your work” happens. We were told that he could expect to get as much as 5 weeks off, although they wouldn’t be keeping track. Mmmm. That made limited sense. Keith asked his boss at the end of December if he could take off 3 days in January while we were in Hawaii (two-week trip, but he worked most of the workdays) and was given the go ahead. He asked then if he could be assured that he could take two weeks off for the already paid for brass band tour trip in July and that was too far out at that time. Guess who freaked out with that information? (If you guessed me, you are so right.) I never believed for a moment that they would say no, but hearing that there was a POSSIBILITY of not getting the time off made me very (VERY) irritated. With FTO (flexible time off), you do not accrue time off and are never owed time off; you just have to ask your boss. (If your boss likes you, that definitely helps.) I read a lot of online articles about FTO and the examples are all “if you finish your work (my serious question is if you can FINISH your work, why do you have a full time job? What is your job that you can finish it and go away for two weeks and nothing happens? What?) you can ask your boss for time off. You never have to miss your kid’s program or have to schedule a dental appointment for the evening. (What? Who is working at a tech firm that is not letting their employees go to the spring program to see their kid wearing a flower costume? Or the second grade one where they sing all the patriotic songs? Are there evening dentists? What a good idea.) All the examples gave instances of half day or whole day off…no one talked about going to Germany with the band for two weeks. I did not like it. Surprisingly, Keith also did not like it. (He did not say, “We’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay.” He said, “Mmm. I don’t really like that.” VERY strong words for him.)

So new job was officially offered, and he told his boss last Friday. His boss (who is a very good guy) took him off China meetings immediately, explained that FTO was, in fact, going to be better than we anticipated (yay, Germany), and made some other changes to make Keith’s job more to his liking.

Oh.

Well.

Now what? He was supposed to take the weekend to think it over. He thought really hard. It was a very difficult decision. Sunday night his idea was to flip a coin (mostly a joke) (I think). I was home sick on Monday and when I woke up after my morning nap (SICK I said), my first thought was that whatever he decided had been decided by now and I was anxious to find out. He came in to check on me and I asked. He suggested I call it while he flipped the coin. We flipped. Two out three. Three out of five. Different coin – British coin this time. We pros and cons it again. His boss met with him again and tried to convince him. He went to brass band (while I was failing blood giving) and thought. When I woke up this morning, he came in and said the letters were written and were up on his screen, waiting for me to agree. (Why me? I like to not make decisions.) I said I thought new job. He said that was what was on the screen. It was absolutely killing both of us to let down his current boss and others at his company, but the new job just seemed like the right thing this time, so that is the plan.

He’ll have a week off between jobs. We have a free companion ticket on Delta. Mmmm. More decisions need to be made.