Things are tough all over

First the good news. Apparently weblogs have some majestic power over the universe because the same day I posted my comments about my most recent job interview experience, I got a call back from the same company for another interview. We're going out to lunch and I'm meeting the rest of the staff. So this is good news.

In other current events, my husband has an interview on Friday. He passed his CISSP exam (with flying colors, I'm sure, but the only result they give you is pass or fail), and having those couple extra letters on your resume is a big thing these days. This is good news because his future former employer is also having some trouble. Since I'm not ready just yet to lay out all the gory details of the 18 months that preceded my unemployed state (other than the occasional rant), I'll share with you his situation which serves as a nice reminder to me that things are tough all over.

My husband works for a consulting company in Chicago and was hired to handle the Wisconsin territory. His salary is composed of a low base plus commission. Because the Wisconsin business is new, he spends a lot of time in Chicago helping out in when they are overbooked. Here are some of the interesting challenges he has had:

• He completed a project that a Chicago engineer had started. Because the customer paid up front for a block of time, the Chicago engineer received the commission before the work was done. My husband did the work for free.
• When my husband does work for a client, he frequently recommends other products or services that result in more sales. When he's outside of his territory (i.e. in Chicago), the services he sells get assigned to Chicago engineers who in turn make the commission (see previous point). My husband sells products and builds the business for free.
  
• His company started offering an evaluation service. If you wanted to evaluate one of the products that they resold, such as SurfControl, they would install and configure a 30 - 90 day evaluation copy completely free of charge. The idea was that a properly configured product is more likely to be purchased and they'd earn more money from increased sales, then the engineer would receive his commission. In reality, the customers figured out they could have an engineer from a SurfControl partner install and configure the product, then order a less expensive license key from CDW to activate the full version of the product. My husband implemented several "product evaluations" for free.
• My husband spent the past several weeks at a Wisconsin client. When the customer was unable to free up employees to test the applications, as they agreed to do in the original statement of work, the project got behind schedule. Despite everything on the SoW being completed except the customer's responsibilities, the customer disputed the bill. According to my husband's contract, he earns commission on billable hours. He did most of the work for free.
• As I mentioned earlier, my husband travels to Chicago a lot, it's about a two hour drive. Most of his Wisconsin clients are a 1 - 3 hour drive. He's always gotten reimbursed the standard government mileage rate. His company's Chicago office recently relocated to a high rent building in the loop. Right about that same time, gas prices shot up and the mileage rate increased. My husband submitted his monthly expense report and two days later the company issued a new policy that mileage to client sites was concerned part of your daily work commute and would not be reimbursed. In response to the $900 expense report he submitted two days earlier, he received a $400 check. Apparently, my husband now tours the state (and travels to a neighboring state to bail out overbooked engineers) for free.
  

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm grateful to have a home and grateful that he has a job. I realize thousands of hurricane, earthquake and mud slide victims would kill to have our problems. But the bottom line is that our net take home income right now is less than 25% of what it was two months ago and it isn't because of a natural disaster. It's because of inept leadership and you just can't buy insurance to protect you against bad business.

Yes, change will be good.