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dubshow
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Johnny_P wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:21 pm
Detroit wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:36 am
If the process doesn't work, wouldn't the company be pretty much done?
Likely. I don't really care though.
:mahtroy:

want to travel south and sail away? :seayore:
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dubshow wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:54 pm
Johnny_P wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:21 pm

Likely. I don't really care though.
:mahtroy:

want to travel south and sail away? :seayore:
Not to swamplandia.
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Johnny_P wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:57 pm
dubshow wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:54 pm

:mahtroy:

want to travel south and sail away? :seayore:
Not to swamplandia.
dats racist
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[user not found] wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 9:08 am Job looks awesome Pex!
Thanks Bendy!
Day 2 of on-boarding is done. Tomorrow we are going to a local soup kitchen for the morning and then some final system stuff in the afternoon (ADP type stuff).

Oddly enough the one lady I’ve been sitting next to happens to be a product manager I’ll be working closely with which is cool.
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Much of this is helping me process, so please excuse the rambling. Thanks for any input if you care to.

Service manager gig progress so far is... interesting?

New service director has been with the company 12 years at a sister store. I've had two phone interviews so far, about 20-30 minutes each. Yesterday, she mentioned that she was interested to talk because she wanted to know why I left after 10 years and kept trying to dig into it. I was very diplomatic and explained I felt pigeonholed with limited opportunity for advancement by the old service director, and an opportunity fell into my lap that I thought I'd regret if I didn't take.

Today, she called me and started digging into it again and told me that the only reason she's still considering me is that of the 5-6 people there she'd talked to at the company, I was very highly regarded from a technical standpoint by all of them, which is something that she's in severe need of because they want to deploy a new CRM tool (which they've tried and failed with several times before). She then said that if I was any other candidate, she would have thrown out my resume because of my lack of management experience... and mentioned it several times between other lines of questioning, including saying "your lack of personnel management experience is alarming and I should really be focusing on a more rounded applicant".

"So why aren't you?"

I think I caught her off guard with that, and a few questions later I find out she's never worked in a service department before, let alone run one. She's a numbers person from the finance department... I explained I was much more of a process person and people management hasn't been a requirement for me up to now, but I know how a service department should tick over and technology is a strong suit for me.

After a bit more back and forth, she told me she was sending me a personality test "to figure out how I would need to manage you" :rolleyes: and I'm going in to sit down with her and the GM on Thursday evening.

There are obviously people there that still hold me in high regard.

After I called her out, there's definitely a few red flags waving right now. Her lack of service department knowledge is just as alarming to me as my lack of people management. As is her ability to manage a 60-70 person service writer/technician/valet department compared to the 3-5 finance managers she's used to. I plan on making sure I drill into this on Thursday, especially with the GM there. I want to try and figure out why it's taken almost 6 months to hire a replacement service director.

The other service manager has been in that spot about two years and her strength is definitely in the HR side of things. Before that, she spent 2 years building and staffing a BDC to serve the three stores in the group. Before that she worked for AutoTrader as a sales/lead rep. She's great with people but her only service department experience is since they moved her to that role.

My plan is to position myself as someone who knows how the place should run and implementing the CRM tools. Other Service Manager focuses on personnel a bit more, and as the new Service Director comes up to speed we start to set long term goals and direction from there, as we all have pieces to learn.

There's something that's irking me about her attitude a little bit though, and I'm starting to have some doubts. And that's without even talking money or schedules.
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[user not found] wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 6:57 am
fledonfoot wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 10:17 pm Much of this is helping me process, so please excuse the rambling. Thanks for any input if you care to.

Service manager gig progress so far is... interesting?

New service director has been with the company 12 years at a sister store. I've had two phone interviews so far, about 20-30 minutes each. Yesterday, she mentioned that she was interested to talk because she wanted to know why I left after 10 years and kept trying to dig into it. I was very diplomatic and explained I felt pigeonholed with limited opportunity for advancement by the old service director, and an opportunity fell into my lap that I thought I'd regret if I didn't take.

Today, she called me and started digging into it again and told me that the only reason she's still considering me is that of the 5-6 people there she'd talked to at the company, I was very highly regarded from a technical standpoint by all of them, which is something that she's in severe need of because they want to deploy a new CRM tool (which they've tried and failed with several times before). She then said that if I was any other candidate, she would have thrown out my resume because of my lack of management experience... and mentioned it several times between other lines of questioning, including saying "your lack of personnel management experience is alarming and I should really be focusing on a more rounded applicant".

"So why aren't you?"

I think I caught her off guard with that, and a few questions later I find out she's never worked in a service department before, let alone run one. She's a numbers person from the finance department... I explained I was much more of a process person and people management hasn't been a requirement for me up to now, but I know how a service department should tick over and technology is a strong suit for me.

After a bit more back and forth, she told me she was sending me a personality test "to figure out how I would need to manage you" :rolleyes: and I'm going in to sit down with her and the GM on Thursday evening.

There are obviously people there that still hold me in high regard.

After I called her out, there's definitely a few red flags waving right now. Her lack of service department knowledge is just as alarming to me as my lack of people management. As is her ability to manage a 60-70 person service writer/technician/valet department compared to the 3-5 finance managers she's used to. I plan on making sure I drill into this on Thursday, especially with the GM there. I want to try and figure out why it's taken almost 6 months to hire a replacement service director.

The other service manager has been in that spot about two years and her strength is definitely in the HR side of things. Before that, she spent 2 years building and staffing a BDC to serve the three stores in the group. Before that she worked for AutoTrader as a sales/lead rep. She's great with people but her only service department experience is since they moved her to that role.

My plan is to position myself as someone who knows how the place should run and implementing the CRM tools. Other Service Manager focuses on personnel a bit more, and as the new Service Director comes up to speed we start to set long term goals and direction from there, as we all have pieces to learn.

There's something that's irking me about her attitude a little bit though, and I'm starting to have some doubts. And that's without even talking money or schedules.
This is am excellent approach. As someone that's promoted many people from individual contributor roles into people manager roles my one piece of advice is trying to slip something like this in:

--
As a service writer, particularly at Porsche, you actually have to manage people every day, but people with wildly different knowledge and expectations than your own. The customer. It's all about communication, transparency, explanation of the process, and education. I see these as highly transferable skills to internal leadership.
--

I see some red flags with this lady (she's in over her head, how long will she be around, will she lash out when she struggles) but it also could be a huge opportunity if you end up as her Sherpa.
:dat: :dat: :dat:
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[user not found] wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 6:57 am
fledonfoot wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 10:17 pm Much of this is helping me process, so please excuse the rambling. Thanks for any input if you care to.

Service manager gig progress so far is... interesting?

New service director has been with the company 12 years at a sister store. I've had two phone interviews so far, about 20-30 minutes each. Yesterday, she mentioned that she was interested to talk because she wanted to know why I left after 10 years and kept trying to dig into it. I was very diplomatic and explained I felt pigeonholed with limited opportunity for advancement by the old service director, and an opportunity fell into my lap that I thought I'd regret if I didn't take.

Today, she called me and started digging into it again and told me that the only reason she's still considering me is that of the 5-6 people there she'd talked to at the company, I was very highly regarded from a technical standpoint by all of them, which is something that she's in severe need of because they want to deploy a new CRM tool (which they've tried and failed with several times before). She then said that if I was any other candidate, she would have thrown out my resume because of my lack of management experience... and mentioned it several times between other lines of questioning, including saying "your lack of personnel management experience is alarming and I should really be focusing on a more rounded applicant".

"So why aren't you?"

I think I caught her off guard with that, and a few questions later I find out she's never worked in a service department before, let alone run one. She's a numbers person from the finance department... I explained I was much more of a process person and people management hasn't been a requirement for me up to now, but I know how a service department should tick over and technology is a strong suit for me.

After a bit more back and forth, she told me she was sending me a personality test "to figure out how I would need to manage you" :rolleyes: and I'm going in to sit down with her and the GM on Thursday evening.

There are obviously people there that still hold me in high regard.

After I called her out, there's definitely a few red flags waving right now. Her lack of service department knowledge is just as alarming to me as my lack of people management. As is her ability to manage a 60-70 person service writer/technician/valet department compared to the 3-5 finance managers she's used to. I plan on making sure I drill into this on Thursday, especially with the GM there. I want to try and figure out why it's taken almost 6 months to hire a replacement service director.

The other service manager has been in that spot about two years and her strength is definitely in the HR side of things. Before that, she spent 2 years building and staffing a BDC to serve the three stores in the group. Before that she worked for AutoTrader as a sales/lead rep. She's great with people but her only service department experience is since they moved her to that role.

My plan is to position myself as someone who knows how the place should run and implementing the CRM tools. Other Service Manager focuses on personnel a bit more, and as the new Service Director comes up to speed we start to set long term goals and direction from there, as we all have pieces to learn.

There's something that's irking me about her attitude a little bit though, and I'm starting to have some doubts. And that's without even talking money or schedules.
This is am excellent approach. As someone that's promoted many people from individual contributor roles into people manager roles my one piece of advice is trying to slip something like this in:

--
As a service writer, particularly at Porsche, you actually have to manage people every day, but people with wildly different knowledge and expectations than your own. The customer. It's all about communication, transparency, explanation of the process, and education. I see these as highly transferable skills to internal leadership.
--

I see some red flags with this lady (she's in over her head, how long will she be around, will she lash out when she struggles) but it also could be a huge opportunity if you end up as her Sherpa.
all :dat: x2

Def watch out for a weak manager questioning your abilities. Use what Bendy said and flex your skills. You wouldnt be entertaining this job if you knew your werent capable of performance.

Locally, one of our larger dealer networks is transisition to individual stores top down leader ship with the local GM and sales,service roles. They did away with the exact position (i think) this lady holds. They had too much overlap and "what would you say you do here?" management types. It caused a rift in the service side with guys loyal to the mulit group service manager. Now the function very locally with a:

1.GM
1a. sales manager
aa. sales people
bb. floor manager (head of sales people)
1b. service manager
aa. all things service
bb. techs, etc
1c. finance manager.

so it comes down to the store GM about the stores performance in all aspects. Makes sense to me :iono:
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yeah, thinking about it some more on the way in today I'm very wary of her lack of experience. She's also made a few off the cuff comments about "what you service people do" that have struck her as so different from her F&I background that alarm me... about the constant work, longer hours and working through breaks and stuff.

I get the feeling to start that I'd be carrying her more than she would be helping me... at least to start with.
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[user not found] wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:09 am
fledonfoot wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 9:49 am yeah, thinking about it some more on the way in today I'm very wary of her lack of experience. She's also made a few off the cuff comments about "what you service people do" that have struck her as so different from her F&I background that alarm me... about the constant work, longer hours and working through breaks and stuff.

I get the feeling to start that I'd be carrying her more than she would be helping me... at least to start with.
Is there someone above her you can talk openly and off the record about what the long term strategy is there? Is it for her just to right the ship and then move back or is this hers indefinitely?
I'm still close with one of my old service managers who is now service director at a sister store. This is hers indefinitely.
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fledonfoot wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 10:17 pm Much of this is helping me process, so please excuse the rambling. Thanks for any input if you care to.

Service manager gig progress so far is... interesting?

New service director has been with the company 12 years at a sister store. I've had two phone interviews so far, about 20-30 minutes each. Yesterday, she mentioned that she was interested to talk because she wanted to know why I left after 10 years and kept trying to dig into it. I was very diplomatic and explained I felt pigeonholed with limited opportunity for advancement by the old service director, and an opportunity fell into my lap that I thought I'd regret if I didn't take.

Today, she called me and started digging into it again and told me that the only reason she's still considering me is that of the 5-6 people there she'd talked to at the company, I was very highly regarded from a technical standpoint by all of them, which is something that she's in severe need of because they want to deploy a new CRM tool (which they've tried and failed with several times before). She then said that if I was any other candidate, she would have thrown out my resume because of my lack of management experience... and mentioned it several times between other lines of questioning, including saying "your lack of personnel management experience is alarming and I should really be focusing on a more rounded applicant".

"So why aren't you?"

I think I caught her off guard with that, and a few questions later I find out she's never worked in a service department before, let alone run one. She's a numbers person from the finance department... I explained I was much more of a process person and people management hasn't been a requirement for me up to now, but I know how a service department should tick over and technology is a strong suit for me.

After a bit more back and forth, she told me she was sending me a personality test "to figure out how I would need to manage you" :rolleyes: and I'm going in to sit down with her and the GM on Thursday evening.

There are obviously people there that still hold me in high regard.

After I called her out, there's definitely a few red flags waving right now. Her lack of service department knowledge is just as alarming to me as my lack of people management. As is her ability to manage a 60-70 person service writer/technician/valet department compared to the 3-5 finance managers she's used to. I plan on making sure I drill into this on Thursday, especially with the GM there. I want to try and figure out why it's taken almost 6 months to hire a replacement service director.

The other service manager has been in that spot about two years and her strength is definitely in the HR side of things. Before that, she spent 2 years building and staffing a BDC to serve the three stores in the group. Before that she worked for AutoTrader as a sales/lead rep. She's great with people but her only service department experience is since they moved her to that role.

My plan is to position myself as someone who knows how the place should run and implementing the CRM tools. Other Service Manager focuses on personnel a bit more, and as the new Service Director comes up to speed we start to set long term goals and direction from there, as we all have pieces to learn.

There's something that's irking me about her attitude a little bit though, and I'm starting to have some doubts. And that's without even talking money or schedules.
You're a very good service writer. You know what works and what doesn't, how to get the technicians to do what you're asking, how to manage customers, etc. You know how the whole process works, the next logical step for you is this position. So yeah lack of experience or whatever, you have 10 years at their dealership, 2? years at a prestigious luxury brand, I think you're more than qualified. After 12 years if you don't know what each and every position in the service department does and how it all fits together then you'll never know.

Aren't there days you're the only service person at Porsche?

She sounds like she has no idea what she's doing.
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[user not found] wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:25 am
fledonfoot wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:14 am

I'm still close with one of my old service managers who is now service director at a sister store. This is hers indefinitely.
I come back to my thesis at the end of my first post today. This will either be a smashing success or a disaster, in-between is unlikely and which it ends up as is not predictable.
That's where I am with this, too, and my gut feeling isn't too great.

I'm going to take the interview tomorrow and push her buttons a little bit and see what happens.
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[user not found] wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 11:28 am
fledonfoot wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:30 am

That's where I am with this, too, and my gut feeling isn't too great.

I'm going to take the interview tomorrow and push her buttons a little bit and see what happens.
A question I often ask which either is loved or hated (and if they hate it, I don't want to work there): I think we can agree I have the technical skills, can you help me understand your leadership style and things you do to help me get my job done?


I, personally, would be looking for her to answer with things "my job is to remove roadblocks" "advocate for you and your team to have the resources you need" "act as the bridge between you and the rest of management"

Though obviously your values may be different, I think it's still a good question and sets the stage for "stay outta my way and get my back and we will all be happy"
Awesome. Much appreciated.
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Sounds like you'd be largely on your own to make things happen - which could be a good thing. If she doesn't know/care what "you service people" do then it's up to you to carry the team. Could be :notbad: if you want that responsibility.
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troyguitar wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 12:11 pm Sounds like you'd be largely on your own to make things happen - which could be a good thing. If she doesn't know/care what "you service people" do then it's up to you to carry the team. Could be :notbad: if you want that responsibility.
I don't think it's caring - it's not knowing.

That's not necessarily good to be on my own, though. She's in a position to set the direction - the captain of the ship. At a place that's had morale/malaise issues in the past and that started to develop a reputation as a shop to avoid because of management, I think a strong hand is needed.
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fledonfoot wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 10:17 pm Much of this is helping me process, so please excuse the rambling. Thanks for any input if you care to.

Service manager gig progress so far is... interesting?

New service director has been with the company 12 years at a sister store. I've had two phone interviews so far, about 20-30 minutes each. Yesterday, she mentioned that she was interested to talk because she wanted to know why I left after 10 years and kept trying to dig into it. I was very diplomatic and explained I felt pigeonholed with limited opportunity for advancement by the old service director, and an opportunity fell into my lap that I thought I'd regret if I didn't take.

Today, she called me and started digging into it again and told me that the only reason she's still considering me is that of the 5-6 people there she'd talked to at the company, I was very highly regarded from a technical standpoint by all of them, which is something that she's in severe need of because they want to deploy a new CRM tool (which they've tried and failed with several times before). She then said that if I was any other candidate, she would have thrown out my resume because of my lack of management experience... and mentioned it several times between other lines of questioning, including saying "your lack of personnel management experience is alarming and I should really be focusing on a more rounded applicant".

"So why aren't you?"

I think I caught her off guard with that, and a few questions later I find out she's never worked in a service department before, let alone run one. She's a numbers person from the finance department... I explained I was much more of a process person and people management hasn't been a requirement for me up to now, but I know how a service department should tick over and technology is a strong suit for me.

After a bit more back and forth, she told me she was sending me a personality test "to figure out how I would need to manage you" :rolleyes: and I'm going in to sit down with her and the GM on Thursday evening.

There are obviously people there that still hold me in high regard.

After I called her out, there's definitely a few red flags waving right now. Her lack of service department knowledge is just as alarming to me as my lack of people management. As is her ability to manage a 60-70 person service writer/technician/valet department compared to the 3-5 finance managers she's used to. I plan on making sure I drill into this on Thursday, especially with the GM there. I want to try and figure out why it's taken almost 6 months to hire a replacement service director.

The other service manager has been in that spot about two years and her strength is definitely in the HR side of things. Before that, she spent 2 years building and staffing a BDC to serve the three stores in the group. Before that she worked for AutoTrader as a sales/lead rep. She's great with people but her only service department experience is since they moved her to that role.

My plan is to position myself as someone who knows how the place should run and implementing the CRM tools. Other Service Manager focuses on personnel a bit more, and as the new Service Director comes up to speed we start to set long term goals and direction from there, as we all have pieces to learn.

There's something that's irking me about her attitude a little bit though, and I'm starting to have some doubts. And that's without even talking money or schedules.
Right? Slow your fucking roll, lady. What on earth do people think they are doing alienating people they will depend on from the get go?
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fledonfoot wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 12:53 pm
troyguitar wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 12:11 pm Sounds like you'd be largely on your own to make things happen - which could be a good thing. If she doesn't know/care what "you service people" do then it's up to you to carry the team. Could be :notbad: if you want that responsibility.
I don't think it's caring - it's not knowing.

That's not necessarily good to be on my own, though. She's in a position to set the direction - the captain of the ship. At a place that's had morale/malaise issues in the past and that started to develop a reputation as a shop to avoid because of management, I think a strong hand is needed.
Man, I'd say advice from [user not found] and others in here is good... go to the interview, feel it out. Horrible bosses aren't fun, so proceed with caution, but it definitely sounds like you're more than qualified for the job.
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I have an interesting situation developing here... as many know, I've been quite bored with this role since starting. The company is pretty cool, great PTO, insane growth (we've made at least 5 acquisitions since I started 10/1/18) but at the end of the day, I just don't like sitting in a damn open office cubicle all day making phone calls. I also miss "pro audio", my job here is trying to sell products designed for residential environments to professional systems integrators designing and building commercial AV solutions.

As such, I have been applying for some jobs, sending out feelers, etc. Yesterday, I got a call from an audio console manufacturer based in New Bern, NC (cool town on the coast). They're a small company with only 85 employees, manufacture here in NC, and a direct competitor of SSL (my previous Bang Bus company) in the broadcast audio world.

I had a great talk with the Sales Manager and he mentioned things like "I told the president he would be insane not to hire you". He called back today for some details around my current pay, which seems odd given we haven't even met in person. They said I likely wouldn't need to relocate to New Bern (four hours away) if I'm cool spending some time there and traveling all over the country. Pay seems as good or better than here with a higher percentage as a base salary which is nice. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about seeing an offer from these guys ad will for sure expect an on site meeting soon, but I have some reservations:

1. I would be competing directly against my old bosses and mentors. These guys were awesome to me for five years, taught me so much, and I now consider them good friends. This is a weird ethical dilemma for me.
2. Solid State Logic (Bang Bus Company) was truly the best of the best product wise in this area... this is kind of like going from Porsche to Honda.
3. Broadcast industry is kind of an olds thing that in many ways will die with the boomers.

BUT there are a lot of pros here:
1. Small company which I like a lot.
2. Back to the industry I really enjoy and worked really hard to get in to.
3. Pay is good (it's good here too)
4. It gets me the hell out of cube life
5. Slinging products that are actually interesting to me would be a lot more fun
6. No stupid call center mentality micromanaging, likely a lot of autonomy

To further complicate, my boss is now talking about adding some outside sales positions to our commercial team here, this could be a cool opportunity but it's a total unknown, it may just not get approved, they could hire from outside, etc. Plus, we just merged with/acquired Control4 so it's kind of a clusterfuck right now and the focus seems even more than before on residential AV which is just not my thing. I find the whole concept of "smart homes" to be absolutely :disgust:
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[user not found] wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 11:59 am Play the room of course, it can piss some otherwise good leaders off, but it had value in the right situation.

Good luck, either way!
I know everyone else in the room, and they know me.

Thanks again for you - and everyone else - bouncing things off.

Interview is tomorrow at 7. Let’s see what happens.
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fledonfoot wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 7:43 pm
[user not found] wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 11:59 am Play the room of course, it can piss some otherwise good leaders off, but it had value in the right situation.

Good luck, either way!
I know everyone else in the room, and they know me.

Thanks again for you - and everyone else - bouncing things off.

Interview is tomorrow at 7. Let’s see what happens.
:like:
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Chief Master Sirloin of the Wasteful Steak
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Good luck, Fled! :like:
:wap: Where are these mangos?
Detroit wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:19 pm I don't understand anything anymore.
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razr390
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D Griff wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 7:07 pm I have an interesting situation developing here... as many know, I've been quite bored with this role since starting. The company is pretty cool, great PTO, insane growth (we've made at least 5 acquisitions since I started 10/1/18) but at the end of the day, I just don't like sitting in a damn open office cubicle all day making phone calls. I also miss "pro audio", my job here is trying to sell products designed for residential environments to professional systems integrators designing and building commercial AV solutions.

As such, I have been applying for some jobs, sending out feelers, etc. Yesterday, I got a call from an audio console manufacturer based in New Bern, NC (cool town on the coast). They're a small company with only 85 employees, manufacture here in NC, and a direct competitor of SSL (my previous Bang Bus company) in the broadcast audio world.

I had a great talk with the Sales Manager and he mentioned things like "I told the president he would be insane not to hire you". He called back today for some details around my current pay, which seems odd given we haven't even met in person. They said I likely wouldn't need to relocate to New Bern (four hours away) if I'm cool spending some time there and traveling all over the country. Pay seems as good or better than here with a higher percentage as a base salary which is nice. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about seeing an offer from these guys ad will for sure expect an on site meeting soon, but I have some reservations:

1. I would be competing directly against my old bosses and mentors. These guys were awesome to me for five years, taught me so much, and I now consider them good friends. This is a weird ethical dilemma for me.
2. Solid State Logic (Bang Bus Company) was truly the best of the best product wise in this area... this is kind of like going from Porsche to Honda.
3. Broadcast industry is kind of an olds thing that in many ways will die with the boomers.

BUT there are a lot of pros here:
1. Small company which I like a lot.
2. Back to the industry I really enjoy and worked really hard to get in to.
3. Pay is good (it's good here too)
4. It gets me the hell out of cube life
5. Slinging products that are actually interesting to me would be a lot more fun
6. No stupid call center mentality micromanaging, likely a lot of autonomy

To further complicate, my boss is now talking about adding some outside sales positions to our commercial team here, this could be a cool opportunity but it's a total unknown, it may just not get approved, they could hire from outside, etc. Plus, we just merged with/acquired Control4 so it's kind of a clusterfuck right now and the focus seems even more than before on residential AV which is just not my thing. I find the whole concept of "smart homes" to be absolutely :disgust:
The mature part of me (still a small part) is fearful of the possibility of your relationship probably tanking if you start traveling at the SSL rate again.

Your girl is obviously very happy that you aren’t traveling anymore. Now that you’re in a very committed relationship, you shouldn’t be making a decision only for yourself but for the unit.

Eeyore but true
:doughnut: :narc: :doughnut:
Desertbreh wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:05 pm DFD. The forum where everybody makes the same choices and then tells anybody trying to join the club that they are the stupidest motherfucker to ever walk the earth.
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ChrisoftheNorth
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D Griff wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 7:07 pm I have an interesting situation developing here... as many know, I've been quite bored with this role since starting. The company is pretty cool, great PTO, insane growth (we've made at least 5 acquisitions since I started 10/1/18) but at the end of the day, I just don't like sitting in a damn open office cubicle all day making phone calls. I also miss "pro audio", my job here is trying to sell products designed for residential environments to professional systems integrators designing and building commercial AV solutions.

As such, I have been applying for some jobs, sending out feelers, etc. Yesterday, I got a call from an audio console manufacturer based in New Bern, NC (cool town on the coast). They're a small company with only 85 employees, manufacture here in NC, and a direct competitor of SSL (my previous Bang Bus company) in the broadcast audio world.

I had a great talk with the Sales Manager and he mentioned things like "I told the president he would be insane not to hire you". He called back today for some details around my current pay, which seems odd given we haven't even met in person. They said I likely wouldn't need to relocate to New Bern (four hours away) if I'm cool spending some time there and traveling all over the country. Pay seems as good or better than here with a higher percentage as a base salary which is nice. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about seeing an offer from these guys ad will for sure expect an on site meeting soon, but I have some reservations:

1. I would be competing directly against my old bosses and mentors. These guys were awesome to me for five years, taught me so much, and I now consider them good friends. This is a weird ethical dilemma for me.
2. Solid State Logic (Bang Bus Company) was truly the best of the best product wise in this area... this is kind of like going from Porsche to Honda.
3. Broadcast industry is kind of an olds thing that in many ways will die with the boomers.

BUT there are a lot of pros here:
1. Small company which I like a lot.
2. Back to the industry I really enjoy and worked really hard to get in to.
3. Pay is good (it's good here too)
4. It gets me the hell out of cube life
5. Slinging products that are actually interesting to me would be a lot more fun
6. No stupid call center mentality micromanaging, likely a lot of autonomy

To further complicate, my boss is now talking about adding some outside sales positions to our commercial team here, this could be a cool opportunity but it's a total unknown, it may just not get approved, they could hire from outside, etc. Plus, we just merged with/acquired Control4 so it's kind of a clusterfuck right now and the focus seems even more than before on residential AV which is just not my thing. I find the whole concept of "smart homes" to be absolutely :disgust:
Through the people I've met at various jobs and companies, I've noticed there's some people that can handle #cubelyfe and others that just can't stand it and need to be out of the office free range. I noticed this most in brand work with field reps. Dudes would take a promotion bringing them in from the field to the office, and they'd go stir crazy and be out within a year, back in the field. It's just how their wired. Which is rad, because companies need those sorts of people desperately.

Knowing you a bit, you're one of those dudes. Slogging away 8-5 (or whatever) in a cube is misery, and not much is going to change that. It's really important to be able to enjoy (at least not hate) what you do and where you are or you'll go crazy. New company has risks but could get you back into the game you love. I say keep exploring and go for it if things line up. Also, ignore the talk of your current company possibly adding field jobs. A bird in the hand man, company org planning can change with the wind, I wouldn't put any hope in your situation changing from what you have now until something is specifically offered to you.

Further re: competition and old companies. I work in an ancient dying industry that's tiny. Old industries like these won't disappear, but they're going to change drastically. Olds won't be able to adapt and will retire or die, but there's still going to need to be someone doing something. You really think broadcast will disappear? Nah bro...instead, you have the opportunity to stay fresh and adapt with whatever changes are afoot. Working for a competitor doesn't necessarily mean pissing off former colleagues. I stay in touch with a lot of people I used to work with on a personal level, just keeping the relationships alive soas not to burn any bridges.
Desertbreh wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:40 pm My guess would be that Chris took some time off because he has read the dialogue on this page 1,345 times and decided to spend some of his free time doing something besides beating a horse to death.
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D Griff
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razr390 wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 12:05 am
D Griff wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 7:07 pm I have an interesting situation developing here... as many know, I've been quite bored with this role since starting. The company is pretty cool, great PTO, insane growth (we've made at least 5 acquisitions since I started 10/1/18) but at the end of the day, I just don't like sitting in a damn open office cubicle all day making phone calls. I also miss "pro audio", my job here is trying to sell products designed for residential environments to professional systems integrators designing and building commercial AV solutions.

As such, I have been applying for some jobs, sending out feelers, etc. Yesterday, I got a call from an audio console manufacturer based in New Bern, NC (cool town on the coast). They're a small company with only 85 employees, manufacture here in NC, and a direct competitor of SSL (my previous Bang Bus company) in the broadcast audio world.

I had a great talk with the Sales Manager and he mentioned things like "I told the president he would be insane not to hire you". He called back today for some details around my current pay, which seems odd given we haven't even met in person. They said I likely wouldn't need to relocate to New Bern (four hours away) if I'm cool spending some time there and traveling all over the country. Pay seems as good or better than here with a higher percentage as a base salary which is nice. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about seeing an offer from these guys ad will for sure expect an on site meeting soon, but I have some reservations:

1. I would be competing directly against my old bosses and mentors. These guys were awesome to me for five years, taught me so much, and I now consider them good friends. This is a weird ethical dilemma for me.
2. Solid State Logic (Bang Bus Company) was truly the best of the best product wise in this area... this is kind of like going from Porsche to Honda.
3. Broadcast industry is kind of an olds thing that in many ways will die with the boomers.

BUT there are a lot of pros here:
1. Small company which I like a lot.
2. Back to the industry I really enjoy and worked really hard to get in to.
3. Pay is good (it's good here too)
4. It gets me the hell out of cube life
5. Slinging products that are actually interesting to me would be a lot more fun
6. No stupid call center mentality micromanaging, likely a lot of autonomy

To further complicate, my boss is now talking about adding some outside sales positions to our commercial team here, this could be a cool opportunity but it's a total unknown, it may just not get approved, they could hire from outside, etc. Plus, we just merged with/acquired Control4 so it's kind of a clusterfuck right now and the focus seems even more than before on residential AV which is just not my thing. I find the whole concept of "smart homes" to be absolutely :disgust:
The mature part of me (still a small part) is fearful of the possibility of your relationship probably tanking if you start traveling at the SSL rate again.

Your girl is obviously very happy that you aren’t traveling anymore. Now that you’re in a very committed relationship, you shouldn’t be making a decision only for yourself but for the unit.

Eeyore but true
Nah, she's cool with it. This wouldn't be 100% travel like that, probably 50% travel, 50% WFH. She is pretty supportive of it all and has been :sad: to see me be rather unhappy at work. Also, we dated for three years while I was traveling every week and got to the engaged point through all of that. It has its challenges but it works. Seeing someone every day also has its challenges :lolol:

I mean if CF happen, it could be different, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
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D Griff
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Detroit wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 9:04 am
D Griff wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 7:07 pm I have an interesting situation developing here... as many know, I've been quite bored with this role since starting. The company is pretty cool, great PTO, insane growth (we've made at least 5 acquisitions since I started 10/1/18) but at the end of the day, I just don't like sitting in a damn open office cubicle all day making phone calls. I also miss "pro audio", my job here is trying to sell products designed for residential environments to professional systems integrators designing and building commercial AV solutions.

As such, I have been applying for some jobs, sending out feelers, etc. Yesterday, I got a call from an audio console manufacturer based in New Bern, NC (cool town on the coast). They're a small company with only 85 employees, manufacture here in NC, and a direct competitor of SSL (my previous Bang Bus company) in the broadcast audio world.

I had a great talk with the Sales Manager and he mentioned things like "I told the president he would be insane not to hire you". He called back today for some details around my current pay, which seems odd given we haven't even met in person. They said I likely wouldn't need to relocate to New Bern (four hours away) if I'm cool spending some time there and traveling all over the country. Pay seems as good or better than here with a higher percentage as a base salary which is nice. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about seeing an offer from these guys ad will for sure expect an on site meeting soon, but I have some reservations:

1. I would be competing directly against my old bosses and mentors. These guys were awesome to me for five years, taught me so much, and I now consider them good friends. This is a weird ethical dilemma for me.
2. Solid State Logic (Bang Bus Company) was truly the best of the best product wise in this area... this is kind of like going from Porsche to Honda.
3. Broadcast industry is kind of an olds thing that in many ways will die with the boomers.

BUT there are a lot of pros here:
1. Small company which I like a lot.
2. Back to the industry I really enjoy and worked really hard to get in to.
3. Pay is good (it's good here too)
4. It gets me the hell out of cube life
5. Slinging products that are actually interesting to me would be a lot more fun
6. No stupid call center mentality micromanaging, likely a lot of autonomy

To further complicate, my boss is now talking about adding some outside sales positions to our commercial team here, this could be a cool opportunity but it's a total unknown, it may just not get approved, they could hire from outside, etc. Plus, we just merged with/acquired Control4 so it's kind of a clusterfuck right now and the focus seems even more than before on residential AV which is just not my thing. I find the whole concept of "smart homes" to be absolutely :disgust:
Through the people I've met at various jobs and companies, I've noticed there's some people that can handle #cubelyfe and others that just can't stand it and need to be out of the office free range. I noticed this most in brand work with field reps. Dudes would take a promotion bringing them in from the field to the office, and they'd go stir crazy and be out within a year, back in the field. It's just how their wired. Which is rad, because companies need those sorts of people desperately.

Knowing you a bit, you're one of those dudes. Slogging away 8-5 (or whatever) in a cube is misery, and not much is going to change that. It's really important to be able to enjoy (at least not hate) what you do and where you are or you'll go crazy. New company has risks but could get you back into the game you love. I say keep exploring and go for it if things line up. Also, ignore the talk of your current company possibly adding field jobs. A bird in the hand man, company org planning can change with the wind, I wouldn't put any hope in your situation changing from what you have now until something is specifically offered to you.

Further re: competition and old companies. I work in an ancient dying industry that's tiny. Old industries like these won't disappear, but they're going to change drastically. Olds won't be able to adapt and will retire or die, but there's still going to need to be someone doing something. You really think broadcast will disappear? Nah bro...instead, you have the opportunity to stay fresh and adapt with whatever changes are afoot. Working for a competitor doesn't necessarily mean pissing off former colleagues. I stay in touch with a lot of people I used to work with on a personal level, just keeping the relationships alive soas not to burn any bridges.
:word: good thoughts, thanks dude.
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So I walked in and immediately remembered why I felt like I had to leave that place in the first place. It's dingy, dark (and it's a 30 foot tall glass fronted building) and full of miserable looking drones in cheap polo shirts, arguing over $5 coupons and slinging $50 oil changes. I looked at my old desk and the memories of the chaos that place was just came flooding back. This was going to be a tough sell for even myself as I kept remembering all these stupid little things.

I was kept waiting 20 minutes past our scheduled time and was in the middle of drafting an email saying "thanks but I'm leaving" when my old service manager came out and brought me in.

Sat down and immediately gets off to a bad start when she tells me she didn't have time to look at the personality test and struggles to pull out my resume. Her office is chaos with papers and reports everywhere, and when she pulls it out she again mentions the same "I need an experienced, well rounded candidate that's ready to go" spiel. We go back and forth with the usual questions, and she ends with "so, Jim, why should I hire you again?".

To which I responded - without skipping a beat - "You shouldn't, because I can tell already this isn't going to work the way you need it to, and it'll likely be a disaster". My old service manager tried hard to hide his laughter but couldn't. (On our last call on Tuesday evening we had a discussion about our names, where I mentioned I prefer James vs Jim for various reasons, and she mentioned she was the same way with Patti vs Pat. I've had this conversation with ANYONE that's ever asked me if I have a preference, and I've found it's a handy personality test of my own.)

At this point I just decided I wanted to prod a little further, especially with my old manager there.

She's obviously in over her head and wants/needs someone turnkey that can come in and do her job for her while she pores over the numbers to figure out how to fix it. She doesn't have much of a plan in place right now because she needs to figure out where the weaknesses are. It's rough. They're 3500 repair orders behind pace YTD vs last year, and that was after a 10% drop over my last year there. They're losing customers from both stores north of Philly, and the market is so saturated with dealers up there - 6 Toyota dealers in a <30 minute drive - they're really struggling to claw them back and have basically been throwing discounts and coupons at the problem to get cars through the door... so they've been trying to improve all of the metrics and shooting themselves in both feet trying to do it.

I ended up talking shop with my old manager for a few minutes and largely ignored the "interview"... It's more of a mess than I even thought it could be, but it seems they've finally woken up and realized how bad it is.

She finished by offering me a job as an advisor and an open door policy with the managers so I can start learning what I'm missing. "Well, to be honest if you're down 20 cars a day and the pay plan hasn't changed, I don't really think coming back is a smart financial decision until I see what direction you're moving this place".

Not meant to be.
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