Laid off

Well, last week, much to the shock and surprise of everyone around me (no, not really), my company laid off about 60-75% of the current workforce and announced plans to close the place down in about 2 months or so. When the site director made the announcement, I think he was a little shocked at the reaction he received (which was not one of shock, or awe, or sadness, but joy, cheering and laughter), since we all pretty much knew it was coming despite management's insistence that it would not happen and that the site would remain open for a long time to come.

It's funny too, that one of the guys on my team kept saying - "We'll be closing by the end of July". Another one, 6 months ago said we would not survive another 6 months based on having gone through the same thing at other locations. And a former manager had told me just after his own layoff that he suspected there would be more layoffs in May, or the announcement that the place was closing down by then. Obviously these people all had good insight, or good contacts. Myself, I was just running on rumours, as were most of the people.

The problem with it all is that there were announced layoffs last spring, to the tune of 10% of the then-current workforce over the next year. At first it looked like things were going that way, but then strange things started happening: more people than expected being laid off, sudden changes in management, sudden shift changes, people getting pulled from phone calls to be given their walk of shame. And then whole teams and their managers were getting moved from one department to another only for the manager to suddenly be missing a few days later. People were offered the option to be laid off or demoted, choosing demotion and then being let go a month later. There were just so many uncertainties that it had become an extremely unpleasant place to work over the last little while. Stress levels were high, and every day was started with "I hope they just get it over with and axe me today." We still helped our customers and did it better than anyone else (according to the numbers that management gave us, but considering their inability to tell us anything else with honesty, I now wonder about that as well), but we all just wanted someone to come out and say that "yes the rumours were true and we were all about to be canned", or "no, the site is strong and we have no need to worry", or even "there will be some changes, but the site is going to go on". Something that would at least have let us know.

Instead, we heard constant rumours of this date or that date; this department, or that team; we would all be moved to a new line of business, or the overnight shift would be abolished. Always rumours that were denied by our manager until our meeting on Monday of last week. At that point, he finally conceded that the overnight shift might be ending, but that we would be moved to day shifts instead.

But one guy on the team insisted he would see us all at the bar on Wednesday after the massive layoffs he heard coming down the pipe. Of course, he had said things like this before and so we didn't believe him.

On Tuesday, we came into work. My shift started at 8, going until 7 in the morning. Two of my colleagues had been scheduled for training at 6:30, so they were to be leaving early this day. Except that training had been mysteriously cancelled for no particular reason that anyone could say. And, we all had these mandatory meetings scheduled for anytime between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. the next day. Considering we leave at 7 a.m. and are supposed to be asleep by 9-ish, this was kind of a big deal to us, but it was at that point that someone found an article online that the information had been leaked about a massive layoff, and extra security being called in for the meetings. That's when we knew, Buddy had it right! DAMN! ;)

I guess at that point we all kind of decided that we had been screwed over enough times for too many things; too many promises had been broken, and too many times we had been disappointed with the choices that the managers and the executives and higher-ups had made. Plus, we were all about to be let go, so we started giving away the store. "Computer won't start? Might be memory or the motherboard. I'll send you both!" Happy customer. "Your monitor doesn't work? I can't find the exact information based on that serial number, but what the heck - have a new one!" Happy customer. "Third biometric unit that's not working? Let's exchange that system for a new one - it's probably something else, but let's not bother with troubleshooting to figure it out since you have been at this for over 2 weeks now!" VERY happy customer. For that one night, this particular company had some very happy customers. (Yes, I am purposely not mentioning the name of the company or even making any particular clues as to who they are - I have nothing against them; they had a business need that we fulfilled and that business need was now too expensive to be profitable. It sucks, but it happens).

Anyway, the next day we were let go with very comfortable severance packages. I didn't mind so much that I only had 4 hours of sleep in about 40 hours or so (after getting laid off, I decided to go watch my daughter dance at her competition. I was supposed to meet some of my colleagues at a neighbour's house after, but I was so exhausted, I just went to sleep when I got home at midnight.

So now, I am trying to figure out what to do. I have some options. I could jump right back into the fray and get another job which means that the severance is all extra money; I could take a couple of weeks to de-stress and get back into a daytime mode (since I have been on night for about 10 months); I could take the summer and work on a few other things, and then start looking for work in earnest while on EI. I have some people telling me not to wait and to get right back into it, but I don't know. I have other things I want to look into and do. I have a course I am trying to get finished as soon as I can, a website's navigation to fix up (paying job), another website to completely re-write (paying job), and I want to see if I can write, or at least partially write one of the 4 books I have started. Having paid time off makes this the perfect time to do it. And since I do seem to have this proliferation of words that I seem to like to spill out onto the page, perhaps I can actually get it done and submitted. At least at that point I can find out whether or not I actually have what it takes to become a successful writer.

And on that note, I think my fingers are telling me I have other things to do so I had better stop typing and get to those other things. Thanks for reading, and hopefully you will come back and read me some more sometime.


Cheers!

Slyde