Take This Job and Shove It

[George]

There are some industries and companies that are thriving in the pandemic...

Mine is. We keep hiring billable workers who go to construction sites and similar outdoor places that haven't been affected much by the pandemic. That's how my company earns its revenue.

The problem is they haven't hired even one more administrative person to help with all the pencil-pushing that goes along with having more employees. I hate to complain about having too much work when others have none, but there are times when I am not happy with a lot more time-dependent work to complete when the deadlines haven't changed.

[Crazed_Insanity]

There are some industries and companies that are thriving in the pandemic, and many/most companies need stronger digital/data/cloud/etc solutions. Fingers crossed for you.

My employer was in trouble ever since the grounding of the Max planes... that's pre-pandemic... and things only got worse when most of the planes were grounded for a while... Commercial air travel will never be the same again.

I'm fortunate that I'm not really part of the commercial part of the company. Our current customers are mostly US government...

Anyway, things are inherently unpredictable now. Who would've guessed 2020 was going to get hit so badly with pandemic, natural disasters and social unrests?

Yeah, during war times or period of instability, some folks could thrive and make a killing, but most probably are not so lucky. Also although internet can still work well during the pandemic, but if the area is flooded or consumed by fire or destroyed by social unrests even Jeff Bezos will be powerless to make more money in those areas...

[Tom Servo]

Now that it's been a couple of days, a little more background.

I mentioned the new CTO. I had a one-on-one with him back in late August. I talked about my background, about half of it working either alongside or for the previous CTO who was demoted to make room for the new one. (Note: I am stupid). We talked about some other things, and he ended with "what do you think is the single worst decision I could make right now." I said something like, "I've worked for a lot of different types of managers. Some are micromanagers, some give you pretty much free reign. I tend to just roll with whatever the system is, I find it easy to adapt and make whatever it is work as best it can for me. But this company was founded on being tech-centric. The engineers here aren't given timelines except when an external party demands it, but in exchange they're trusted to put out the best quality product in a reasonable amount of time. If that changes, I'd expect significant backlash." Again, I am stupid, strike number 2.

On Monday, my boss canceled our weekly one-on-one saying he was going to be out of the office. Wasn't on his calendar, but I knew that he was in the process of moving, so didn't think too much of it. Tuesday we had a company all hands where they told us that things are going wildly better than anybody had anticipated once Covid hit. We are exceeding expectations in all areas, woooo!

Wednesday I get two calendar invites - a one-on-one with the new CTO and an "all hands" about process and organizational changes. Then the email saying that the former CTO / my current boss was taking a sabbatical. I generally struggle with something known as imposter syndrome, and for the first time, I finally calmed that part of my brain and said "remember the last time you thought this kind of thing was bad news, then it turned out your boss just wanted to call you in to assure you that, despite the company missing targets, you were still getting your full bonus?" So I decided to finally decide that no, this time it was just that they knew that I had known my boss for a long time and admired him, and wanted to make sure that I knew what was happening and answer any questions, and maybe I was being transferred to another team.

Thursday morning, I start seeing people on Slack saying that other people are being let go. That's when I knew it wasn't the imposter syndrome kicking in. I get into the meeting with the guy I'd recently met with and chatted with, who was supposedly very interested in my opinions about the company.

He starts by saying "I'm sorry that the first chance we get to talk is under these circumstances." I am so mad at myself that I didn't say anything about it not being the first time we had talked.

I am told that "the business is headed in another direction and today is your last day." I write software to solve business needs, I'm not sure what direction would make that non-applicable. An HR person takes over the meeting and tells me I'll be getting a copy of my separation agreement. That takes until nearly the end of the day to arrive. It actually lists my last day as the next day. Benefits coverage is good, severance is insultingly low. But, I get to keep my five year old computer! In exchange, I can't say anything derogatory.

I'm asked to provide a time when HR can call me to answer questions. I say pretty much all afternoon Friday. Friday night at 8:30 I get an email asking if they can call me Monday. I want to say "I suddenly have a wide open schedule, why didn't you just start by saying when you'd call?", but I just say "that's fine."

So, now I wait. The severance sucks, but it's also enough that I can't just ignore it and tell them to pound sand. I find out a number of other people are also let go. All of them were told the same reason and given essentially the same package. None of us have had a bad review or been told that our performance wasn't satisfactory. My last review was, verbatim, "keep doing what you're doing."

A shitty part about Covid is that you can't go for drinks with the other people axed and some of your coworkers after a thing like this, but I ended up finding out about an online meetup the next day. Talking to them helps - I find out they did the same thing to other people, nobody knows what they did wrong, nobody can find any reason why they were let go, the people still left don't understand as we were all pretty well regarded, theories start running rampant that maybe this was a "look, anybody can be let go, so you better start working harder or you might be next" kinda thing, to unsettle the crew. I think back to things I said in our one-on-one, but I was also lead to believe that he had forgotten we had that in the first place. Nobody can figure out an overarching theory about why were let go. I think "well, he wanted to get rid of the people who were aligned with the former CTO", but that's only two of us. I hear rumors that people are being told that those of us let go had been repeatedly warned about job performance, which at least in my case and according to the others I've spoken with is not true. I wonder if suing for slander after I've been terminated is not covered by the separation agreement.

We will see what Monday brings. This isn't my first layoff rodeo, I think it's the fifth time it's happened to me. Every other time the company was in major financial trouble and needed to stop the bleeding. I was assured two days ago that the opposite was true. This is the first time I'm mad.

FWIW, as far as I can tell none of this is derogatory, it's just a timeline of exactly what happened.

tl;dr - working in an "at will" employment state sucks sometimes.

[FaultyMario]

Don't know what to say to you, you beautiful Nordic hunk, except that maybe one or two derogatory terms would have been appreciated by the audience.

Hope you land on your feet, mate.

[Tom Servo]

I will. Imposter syndrome aside, I know I'm good at what I do and that my skills are up to date. Will post more after I talk to HR.

[Crazed_Insanity]

If the company is doing fine financially, then why getting rid of people? Must be some sort of weird office politics and you were identified on the ‘wrong’ side?

Anyway, probably better to leave rather than staying under this new leadership...

Surely you’ll land back on your feet like a good kitty!

[FaultyMario]

If the company is doing fine financially, then why getting rid of people?

Because capi-fucking-talism! where did you think the money to buy yachts and Lamborghinis comes from?

[Tom Servo]

I do think it's a political thing, but it'd make more sense if everyone let go was as closely tied to the former CTO as me and one other person on the list. All the others weren't, and some people who were closely tied to him are still there.

Nobody's been able to figure this one out so far.

[balki]

We you all experienced folk?
Sometimes they get rid of anyone above 30 even if it means sacrificing a lot of quality.
Regardless, pretty shitty situation.

[Tom Servo]

The age range of people let go did skew older, but probably not enough to make an obvious case of age discrimination. By law they had to give us a list of all the people grouped by title and age that were considered, and then who was let go.

I was there for 3 1/4 years. I don't know the range of the others, but I'm pretty sure most were there longer than me. The two that I do know of had been there for 5 1/2 years and 7 1/2 years. The company is just over 10 years old, so 7 1/2 years is a pretty long time there.