At previously noted, 4 weeks ago I had been informed unofficially that myself and the two onshore members of my team were to be laid off in the ‘near’ future (sometime prior to end of March).
It appears this is still the case for both members of my team but as of this past Tuesday, for myself, it seems that, once again (with the help of others who value my skills as well as my intelligence [lol], etc.), I just may be able to land on my feet by accepting yet another position within another area of this mediocre and unstable company. The postion has not be officially offered to me yet, I don’t think…I wrote an email to the guy asking for more info on the position and he’s not responded yet.
The thing is, for 4 weeks now, I’ve been of the mindset that it’s now time to move on, to take the layoff and be at peace with it, and use the 6-7 months of severance/accrued vacation time to search and obtain a job using the marketable (Remedy Development) skills I have, as well as do some other stuff that I’ve been wanting to do my whole life (if you really want to know, ask, and I’ll provide the list – I’m already boring too many people with this monologue as it is).
So, I’m at a crossroads, do I accept this new position, which, by the way, probably has NOTHING to with what I am currently doing and love, or do I show solidarity with the affected members of my team by accepting the layoff and “walk out the door” when they do, and stay with the original plan and take these next 7 months to find the ‘right’ job with the caveat that it may take longer than 7 months to find a job.
And, actually, I’ve not been formally offered the position yet – so, the layoff may happen before the actual offer/transfer takes place. Can you say: “let’s wait until the last minute to see what we can do for these people we’re laying off”?? “Maybe we can find them jobs in other areas of the company so we won’t have to put them thru the anguish of teling them they are being laid off.” How stupid is that??
I wrote the majority of this on Wednesday (3/11), but didn’t get a chance to post it. The layoff of my team (and me?) was supposed to happen this past Thursday but HR is either procrastinating or screwing up?? So, it didn’t happen this week. We’ve heard now it’s been postponed until this coming week. I am not sure if I’m in this group or in a group to come before “end of March”, or if I’ve been “saved” with this new “C-RIM” project.
A friend figured out something that completely surprised us both – someone that we didn’t expect to be affected by this nonsense IS being laid off. I’ve never met them in person since we work in different facilities, but I’ve dealt with them over the phone on a weekly basis for two yrs now and they were nice to work with. I feel bad for them, more so than I do for myself. I wish them well. Everybody will feel bad about this when they hear.
Oh yes, the other news I forgot about. On Wednesday, a director, who thinks they’re hot stuff, was hot about something that happened with an external client (yes, THAT client, the one we all know and love) the previous week and wanted changes to be made in ASAP and invited myself and several others to attend a conference call that afternoon.
I tell (my boss) about the meeting, and that I woudn’t be attending since it was moot – if I was going to be laid off, I wouldn’t be around to make the changes this director wanted. I asked him to inform this director about the coming layoff – since it seems, they are CLUELESS about my team being laid off (you would think, if they are a director, they should know which teams are getting the axe). Not sure if my boss did or not, but this director IMs me about 5 minutes into the call and asks if I’m going to join the call. I said “Nope, I’m busy”. Well, they didn’t like that one bit. They then indicate to me: “this is so-and-so’s priority” (so-and-so is this person’s boss – who is the latest person brought in to manage the datacenter). I re-iterate to them: “I’m busy”. This director isn’t used to being blown off, I can tell. LOL. What the heck, I’m gone pretty soon. I don’t care. (ok, I do, but, this person REALLY irritates me).
They immediately write an email to me, and copy in the whole mgmt world (MM, CW, JN, WS, JB, CV, DD, the other JS, but curriously leave out my boss), saying “BRIAN! We have an urgent need to automate several actions in to ensure that we can eliminate unnecessary manual escalations and actions and depend on instead for escalation”. I obviously have to respond, but can’t respond letting “everyone” on the c.c. list know that I KNOW that I’m being laid off in a week. So, I respond to this director and just c.c. in the people who know about my impending layoff (MM, CW, and my boss), saying: “I’ve been told is being shut down and it is very likely that my team will be reduced in the future”. This director responds with: “Ha! Well, we’ll see about that!!!!”. Ok, it wasn’t those exact words, but you know what I mean.
So, I eventually am c.c.’ed in an email she writes to her boss, saying: “: I will need your support to ensure that we have the resources required to automate the actions that are identified below. We must have a resource available that can implement the changes to “.
In the meantime, I sit down and come up with an estimate of how much effort it’ll take to make the requested changes: about 200 hours (5 weeks dedicated time), and I send out an email informing everyone of that. And, that’s where it sits for now. I’ll either be laid off between now and the end of the month, or, xrfer’ed to the c-rim project, or kept long enough to do this new 200 hours of work (giving me an extra month), or laid off AND then brought back as a contractor to make the changes they so “urgently need”. This last possibility isn’t so far-fetched as it sounds – Mgmt in this stupid company tends to do stuff like that – all the time. Lay someone off, and then firgure out they made a mistake because that person was the only one that knew how to do the job and then they hire them back as a contractor, making 2-3 times as much money as they were making before they were laid off. I kidd you not. GO FIGURE!
Then, I have people in Plymouth (MI, not MN), rooting for me (BB, RV, and TG), wanting to hire me, but don’t have any head count openings. Bob (a former co-worker) wrote a very touching email to me, telling me how surprised and sad he was to hear about my impending layoff. He is such a nice guy, I really enjoyed working with him when we were on the same team together, and miss working with him. He is the type that follows one of my favorite quotations: “Don’t worry, Brian, we’ll get it done, EVEN if it KILLS us!”. He worked many hours for me, endlessly, without complaint and I hope somebody now recognizes the job he’s currently doing. I know TG (and, probably RV) thinks very highly of him.
Again, I’m at peace with this, I think. What’ll happen, will happen. Just have to wait and see.
More next week – same Bat Time, same Bat Channel!
