My company has recently gone through a series of layoffs.
4,000 positions eliminated.
Included in the count of 4,000, the company started eliminating those with “needs improvement” job performances. Really just speeding up the inevitable. Then any consultants were let go. Then any open positions were zapped – left unfilled for the foreseeable future. This all seems reasonable and fair to me as the first to go. But its just never enough. More trimming of personnel was needed.
That’s when management started playing duck..duck…goose with jobs. It seems like the luck, or un-luck, of the draw. It came down to what projects you are assigned and who’s been doing it the longest. I know an employee with 10 years at the company who was let go. She took a new position on another team, making her the new girl. Gone.
Hopefully, these lay-offs will mean the rest of us are OK. Timing is everything. Stockholder meeting first thing Tuesday. Keeping the shareholders happy is the driving force. So, lay-offs. Restructure. Recovery. But what about the shareholders who are employees, too? Does framing lay-offs around economic recovery, which undoubtedly it is, make it easier to announce new Vice-presidents being hired? This lay-off suddenly doesn’t seem as “fair” as it first did. But then, mucky-muck executives like to have a crowd of other mucky-muck executives in case they need someone to blame.
My team has recently gone through a rebuilding phase, so all of us on the team of 5 are new. With two years under my belt I am a “senior” member of the team. Luckily, none of the lay-offs hit too close to home. I feel sad about the people who have lost their jobs, but my more immediate and strongest emotion was relief.
Relief that I don’t have to deal with severance and unemployment, relief that I don’t have to look for a new job, relief that my family doesn’t have to face a potential financial crisis, relief that I am still a telecommuter, because who knows if I could duplicate that benefit if I were starting over someplace new – probably not at first.
Does that make me a bad person? Selfish? Unsupportive?
I think it makes me normal. Maybe I am admitting to what everyone else who still had a job Friday afternoon was thinking…..
“Employee of the month is a good example of how somebody can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.“
