Dave Knapik is a Chicago-based programmer, photographer and writer.
After a five month stretch of unemployment in London which ended with me having to move back to Chicago, I’m very pleased to announce that I found a brilliant new role within a week and a half of returning. Starting today, I’ll be the Marketing Web Application Developer at National-Louis University. Wish me luck!
As my regular readers are well aware, until recently I worked at Design UK, a small design agency based in Soho, London. I enjoyed a fulfilling career as the developer of their CMS product, LavaSuite CMS, until the company faced extreme financial problems in September 2009 and were forced to make almost a quarter of their staff redundant. One of those people was me.
We all know that the world economy is in a rather unfortunate place at the moment, so redundancies are a sadly common occurrence these days. My case was more tragic than most, however, because I am a US national on a work permit that only allowed me to work for Design UK. When I was made redundant, I had a brief window during which I could try to find another UK-based company to sponsor my visa. That task proved impossible in the end and I was forced to say goodbye to all of my London friends and move home to America, homeless and jobless. My wife had to quit her job, because her right to work was tied to mine, and we had to put moving expenses for our belongings and flights home on my credit card. Due to this redundancy, I am now in debt in excess of £4000.
I’ve only been back in the States for two days, but I’m already getting back on my feet. I had a job interview today that went really well and I’m confident that I will find a fantastic new role soon. Nevertheless, the pain of being severed from the life I made for myself as an immigrant in the United Kingdom still exists. I was quickly getting over it until this appeared in my Monster job alerts today:
ColdFusion + Java Developer at Design UK, London, W1B 5LZ
Fast growing independent digital agency is looking for an enthusiastic, experienced, self motivated ColdFusion and Java developer to join our Product team to work on eCommerce and CMS systems.
Ideal candidate would have experience in developing CMS solutions. The core of the role will be CF development, but you will be involved in broader scope of technology. Knowledge of general Computer Science is a big plus too.
I stared at the screen in disbelief as the reality hit me like a punch in the stomach: the company that made me redundant and forced my move back to my home country was now hiring for that same job only five months later. The company that put me in debt after it promised me bonuses every six months but never gave me nor any of my colleagues one was now looking to hire for the very same roles it cut less than half a year ago.
Is this fair? Well, obviously not. Is it even legal? I’d be shocked if it were.
There’s nothing I can do to ever reclaim the life I just lost. There’s nothing I can do to reclaim the money I owe because of Design UK’s dodgy, possibly illegal employment practices. My story is over, but I’m worried about the ColdFusion developers that apply for a job at this “fast growing independent digital agency”, because the last time I checked, paraphrasing “made one quarter of the staff redundant” as “fast growing” is a stretch even for a creative writer like myself.
If you stumbled upon this post because you’re researching your application for this role at Design UK, please take the time to read the past several posts on this blog to familiarize yourself with my experiences during my final days at this agency. Despite the pain and hurt they have caused me, I had hoped they would sort themselves out and get their business working again. No matter how many numbers they could hope to show me now, however, I cannot believe that my round of redundancies was above board and that in five short months the company is now doing amazingly well. As much as I would like to assume the best in people, I cannot come to any other conclusion than the fact that I was shafted. I don’t know why, but I was.
My sincere advice to any self-respecting, professional developer, unfortunately has to be this: avoid this lying, insincere agency like the plague. If you got this job, they would most likely do the same thing to you that they did to me. Nothing can fix what I lost as a result of their actions, but if I can help another person like myself avoid a similar fate, perhaps what I experienced didn’t occur in vain.
UPDATE: After examining the list of visitors to this site, I found a number of recent hits from a Design UK server (duk.designuk.com). It seems as though they Googled me on January 29th and then came here, which coincidentally is the day that they posted my old job on Monster. They’ve visited repeatedly since then and seem to be particularly fond of this post. Although Googling me and reading my site on the day they reposted my old job certainly seems suspicious (as in, “hmmm, let’s make sure he’s left the country and can’t easily bring legal action against us”), I must say, I’m well chuffed at the increase in site traffic. Ta!
Welcome to the third instalment of our saga, wherein our hero runs out of options and is forced to move back to his hometown with no money, no job and no hope. Well, there was the PJ Media Romanian money laundering option, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.
Yesterday began with my first talking therapy session with an NHS counsellor. When I explained my current situation—how Design UK unjustly made me redundant and how PJ Media completely botched every attempt they made at procuring a work permit for me, resulting in my need to move back to America—she noted that I still sounded hopeful that something would work out to allow me to remain in the UK. I quickly clarified, “Oh no, I’m sorry. There’s no saving this situation. I’m moving back to Chicago on 1 February, I just haven’t fully accepted this yet. Any hope you hear in my voice is simply denial.”
Indeed, this is the plan. On 1 February 2010, Rin and I will board a one-way flight to Chicago with our two cats, Chloe and Toulouse. We have purchased extra baggage allowances for several suitcases which will contain all our clothes and a few household items like a pot and pan for cooking and some forks, as we’ve learned from one international move already that you don’t want to wait for the boat with all your boxes on it to arrive two months later before you eat. As it’s an early flight, I’ll leave in darkness, with my life in my suitcase. I’ll leave like a dirty fucking immigrant, the same way I came.
The cost of the flights and the excess baggage was approximately $1,200 (USD). The cost of shipping the rest of our belongings by boat will be close to £1,600 (GBP). All of this went on my credit card.
On 18 December 2009, shortly after I posted my last entry, I received a telephone call from the person who would have been my future boss at PJ Media in Marlow. He apologised profusely for completely fucking up my work permit application yet again and said that he had a new option that just might save me. He apparently spoke with someone at the Home Office who helped him find a loophole: if they could somehow off-shore my salary, they could employ me straight away, although technically it would be in a legal grey zone that could risk my deportation. As they had a company office in Romania, they decided they could have me start on Monday, 21 December 2009 as a contractor by simply paying from their budget into the Romanian office’s budget and then paying me from that. Then, once they could properly sponsor my visa in late January, they would, and I’d be totally legal. Come again?
In order to work in the United Kingdom, I require a work permit sponsored by the company that employs me. In order to simply live in the United Kingdom, I require what is called “leave to remain”. When you visit as a tourist from the United States, you are granted leave to remain as a visitor, and generally that can last up to 90 days. When you’ve been living in the United Kingdom for several years on a work permit that ended a few months ago, you can be fairly certain that you no longer possess anything resembling proper leave to remain. As I considered his offer, I knew that if my acceptance put me in a legal grey zone, I would probably occupy a space closer to the black, illegal, should-be-deported edge of that gradient than the white, legal, upstanding citizen side.
I told him I’d have to discuss it with my wife and that I’d ring him back on Sunday. The discussion with Rin mostly involved the words “money laundering scheme”, “illegal”, “dodgy” and “no”. Can you blame her? If it was just me making the decision, I’d have done it. This should give you some idea of who the most sensible person is in this relationship.
When Sunday came around and I had to ring with my answer, I told him that we had no choice but to return to the United States. I told him that I’d already put my family through enough of a struggle with this and that I couldn’t risk our deportation and whatever potential loss of our belongings and our cats that would entail. Nevertheless, I added that I was desperate for money. I said I could work for them as a contractor for a few days each week until my end of January departure, after which point I would work for them remotely from the States as a freelancer. He said that he would need to discuss this option with his colleagues the next day, adding that “my decision” was unfortunate.
In fact, through the rest of our conversation, he kept referring to my return to the States as “my decision”. One thing I was too shocked to clarify with him at the time was that nothing in the past few months has felt very much like “my decision”, least of all this. I was hired by a major corporation (owned by “Dragons’ Den” star Peter Jones) for a job that said that they would have my work permit sorted within a month or two. It dragged out so long that I ran out of money, then was given an illegal option as my last hope. Apparently upon deciding that deportation was rather unfashionable these days, I came to “my decision”. My fucking decision.
Although he said he’d have to discuss it with his colleagues the next day, I received a call at 7:30 a.m. on Monday morning, for which a voicemail was left asking me to come to Marlow as soon as I could that day. I didn’t listen to the message until 12.30 p.m., at which point it seemed silly to spend two hours getting to Marlow for only 2 or 3 hours of work. I rang back and left a message indicating that I’d plan on coming in the next day and would be there first thing in the morning so we could get started planning how to get the most out of the next few weeks of work.
That evening, the boss rang to tell me not to bother coming in at all. Apparently, in the time between his 7.30 a.m. urgent voice mail instructing me to come into the office for work and the end of the day, he had spoken with his colleagues and they decided that there was no way I could be of use to them unless I was going to always be in their office. He said that unfortunately the role had no room for telecommuting, which was really odd, because earlier that day, it did.
The extent to which I’ve been fucked about by employers and potential employers in England is shocking. My first job here promised me the moon and gave me Sweet Fanny Adams. They said I’d learn new programming languages and help craft cutting edge social software applications, but what they really meant was that they’d stagnate my existing skill set and have me reskinning sub-standard web sites which they had produced several years earlier. My second job gave me two stellar employee reviews, noting that I performed so well that they were hard-pressed to find areas in which I could improve, then my boss quit and my new manager put me at the top of his redundancy list.
It’s almost a shame that I never got to see what the third job would have been like, considering it started with a money laundering offer and all.
This is the view from the kitchen window of my flat in Kensal Green in the afternoon. Soon after this was taken, the sun would set, as it’s winter now and the days have grown quite short. It’s a view I’ve become rather accustomed to seeing since I was made redundant. The chimneys, the Victorian rooftops, the vacant sky. It’s beautiful and sad. It comforts me and it torments me. I want to work, however it’s December and I’m still waiting on the work permit that my new job promised me by October.
Back in October when the visa didn’t come and hit its first delay, I told them very truthfully that I only had enough money to last me through November. I was assured that once I started working for them, I’d be given an advance to help pay my rent and bills, so I waited. What else could I do?
November came and they realized that the company that they had hired to work on my visa application had actually done nothing at all with it. In other words, in late November, I was told that all the waiting I had done up until that point was in vain: no progress whatsoever had been made. They assured me that now they were taking matters into their own hands and would push this forward immediately.
For this company, getting me to work there is a two-step process. First, they need to be able to sponsor a foreign worker. When I first accepted the position, I was told they already had this approval in place. That was quite sadly wrong. Second, I need to apply for the work permit to work for them. Once those two steps have been completed, I’m cleared to work.
When I say that nothing had been done by late November, I mean nothing: they weren’t even allowed to sponsor a foreign worker yet. Immediately they submitted their application to be a sponsor. I was told this would take several weeks. Today, 18 December 2009, was the day they were supposed to have this authorization. Two days ago, however, I was contacted by my recruiter and told of the latest hiccup: the company had forgotten to post the job publicly with a Job Centre, which they needed to do in order for me to apply for a work permit for that position. I was told this week that they did that immediately and that now I would have to wait until 12 January 2010 to apply for my work permit. My permit application, if I’m lucky, could get expedited and I could start work for them in late January.
The trouble is, I barely have any money. Since the bad news of mid-November, I’ve been putting every expense I can on credit. This debt will haunt me for years to come, but it’s helping me survive now, when I’m not even sure if I’ll have years to come. Rent is, probably thankfully, something you can’t put on a credit card.
Since I’ve been putting so much on credit, I can afford to pay my rent for January, but that’s it. They now say that I’ll have this job by late January and that they will advance me February rent once I start working for them, but if another unforeseen glitch occurs, I’m completely screwed. I’ll be unable to pay my rent and I’ll face eviction. I’ll have to pack up all my belongings as fast as possible, secure international movers within days and also buy last minute plane tickets for my wife and my cats and put those on credit as well.
It’s looking like my hand is forced to make a decision now. I need to buy late January plane tickets to my home country by next week, otherwise they’ll be insanely expensive. But is that the best choice? I have a job that wants to hire me, so they say, waiting for me here, but I have nothing at home. Going back in late January means staying with my wife and two cats in a friend’s spare room in their apartment while I look for work and try to save money for our own place. It will take a while to get back on my feet.
Aside from all this, there’s the stress of being wrenched out of my life here in London. Over the course of three years, one builds up a substantial life in a place. I have loads of good friends I’ll leave behind, plenty of travel left undone and tons of loose ends that will never get tied up. It’s fucking rotten.
I’ve begun aggressively looking for jobs in Chicago. Next week, it seems very likely that I will have to purchase one-way tickets to Chicago for the end of January. Everything completely sucks right now, but it will suck a lot less if I can line up a job before the move. At least then I’ll have an immediate source of income and will know I’ll soon be back in a more stable situation.
I’m an honest, hard-working web developer with many years of experience. I can do client-side creation of rich user interfaces as easily as server-side code and database administration. If you know of anyone in need of these skills in the Chicago area who would not only like a fantastic addition to their development team, but also to help out a hometown boy, please put them in touch with me. You can find my latest resume here.
Will it all work out? Everyone says it will, somehow, but what else are your friends going to say? No one would tell you even if they thought you’d soon be eating out of a garbage can.
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a few weeks now, but when you lose your job, I’ve found that you tend to lose a lot of your motivation along with it. Yeah, I was made redundant by Design UK on the 21st of September (hey, tomorrow is my anniversary!). Luckily, I have enough money to hold me over until the end of November and even more luckily, I have another job lined up that is very kindly and patiently working on my visa right now. So I’m not completely fucked. I’m up Shit’s Creek, but I do have a paddle.
Never before in my life have I lost a job, so this knocked me off my feet a bit and came as a shock, even though it really shouldn’t have. After having had a boss that was quite alright indeed, when he left for greener pastures, I was stuck with an authoritarian nightmare of a task master. I work best with a manager who I can “work with” rather than “work for” and so it wasn’t long before I found myself topping their redundancy charts.
Now before you say, “Oh, it’s probably for the best. You were miserable there!” allow me to tell you what’s best: a fucking pay cheque you can count on each month. That’s the bottom line. When you’re in a bad situation with rotten luck, one thing you’re never short of is advice from people that haven’t a clue.
It’s been a weird month. Emotionally, I’ve run the gamut from shocked to confused to angry to bitter and back again. I resent the former colleagues that kept their jobs, even though that doesn’t make any sense and I know it’s not their fault. On the plus side, however, I’ve taken the time to focus on my photography, learn a few new tech skills and play with my cats. You truly have no soul if you can stay depressed with a kitten in your midst.
The tech education has centred around iPhone development, as I have a top secret, truly awesome project that I’m working on to be debuted early next year if all goes well. I’ll get to combine coding with music and photography, so that’s one part of my life that’s completely falling into place. The people I’ve met as a result of this work are lovely and I couldn’t be happier that we’re collaborating. I promise I’ll be incredibly less vague once I have it nearly ready (I’ll need beta testers, of course!).
The new job should start in three or four weeks, which I’m sure will fly by in haze of Objective-C classes and afternoon beers. I will almost certainly regret not having done more with this time off, but it’s really hard to tell time right now. Days of the week have lost all meaning and it’s all one big amorphous expanse of time deprived of units with which to measure it by.
Shit, I should get to the post office before all the people with jobs get home and make me wait in a queue. Time might be one of my only commodities right now, but I still don’t like queuing. Three years in England or thirty, I’ll always hate waiting.
Did I mention this visa I’m waiting for? Oh yeah, the post office. Procrastination is another bad habit exacerbated by a period of redundancy. My already fragile work ethic is in danger of fading into non-existence.
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