Friday, April 17, 2009

The Disappeared

I knew the minute I patted myself of the back about making progress, something catastrophic would happen.

This time was no exception.

Wednesday was a bloody and brutal day at the place where I work.

95% percent of my department as well as 9 other people from our location were laid off in a precise and efficient manner.

That’s if you’re looking at it from a corporate perspective.

If you choose to take the human view of things, you may have a different opinion.

Instead of retelling Wednesday’s bloodletting, I’ll tell you how my previous employer went about the process in the summer of 2007.

My whole group was notified 60 days out that our department was being eliminated and that we had that time to post internally.

Everyone and their mother knew that unless you had the in” with peeps from another department, you weren’t going anywhere.

But at least we had 60 days to wrap our head around what was going to happen, make financial arrangements, dust of the resume, clean out our desk and say our goodbyes to our work friends.

In short we had closure.

Now I know with people and things being what they are these days, you have to look out for #1.

No entity embodies this philosophy better than corporate America.

You don’t know if someone is going to screw with your internal systems or if they’re going to walk in with a gun and shoot the place up.

The world is a scary place.

That being said, it’s difficult enough to try to figure out your next move when you have 60 days notice. Imagine being called from your desk one minute and the next you’re being handed your severance package---if you’re lucky.

That might just screw with your head.

The flip side of the coin is that you’re good enough to secure employment and trusted enough to be granted access to a secure office in a secure building; it’s ironic in a manner of a half an hour you have someone looking over your shoulder watching you clean out your desk.

That’s some cold shit.

But you’re probably wondering, what does this mean for Woody?

That, my friends, has yet to be determined.

3 comments:

The North Coast said...

I hope you make it through.

Everyone I know is either being laid off or getting their hours and pay cut, including self

Pay and hours were cut, but it's still at least a job, right?

This is all so horrible. Have fun replacing your job at age 55 or so. Have fun retiring when your 401K got blown up because the managers put half of it in credit default swaps, or some other bizarre bullshit tied to ever-increasing housing prices.

And the people who set us up for this are walking free and getting to stay in their $40MM houses and keep their yachts, thanks to all the idiotic financial "rescue" programs we're being taxed to pay for.

And the pols are still voting themselves payhikes. Observe that our AlderCretins all got raises to $110K a year.

Foxy Knitter said...

My sympathies. I'm being laid off, too. At least I got 30 days' notice. It was still brutal, and this is a nonprofit, not a corporation. Nonprofits are just as corrupt and evil as for-profits.

kwintessential said...

My contract ended in April, but I managed to keep in contact with a friend and got another contract job in May. Its extremely hard out there, and what I am noticing is how people are going through so many rounds of interviews, and still not get selected! Five rounds and only to find out that you are not the one! We need more jobs created, and I am hoping this stimulous package begins to work before the end of the year.