The day before our kitchen remodel got the green light, I received a meeting invite from boss.
A 4pm invite for a meeting the following day.
I check the invite list – the meeting is for all the consultants.
Sh!t
In CorpWorld, this is a very bad thing.
Historically, sudden team meetings with the boss have been announcements that someone has gotten canned.
This time – the vibe is different. The meeting is to "quell the rumors." The phrase mandates my next action:
I go hunting for rumors.
Now, I'm a pretty dull guy. I have no interest in CorpWorld politics – give me my assignment and tell me who I work with. I blunder into a lot of minefields – but I find you can get a lot done if you ignore factions and just work the problem.
That kind of willful ignorance has its price: being invited to meetings about rumors you've never heard of.
CorpWorld doesn't have a grapevine so much as it has a fire hose of pessimism.
Things are awful! Can you believe how awful things are?
That it never strays from this mantra is why it's so easy to ignore.
I tap in for five minutes and get about ten different anecdotes. Most are crap, but the subtext is unmistakable.
The boss is talking about layoffs. Figures.
CorpWorld is having re-org spasms and one of the side effects is that they are pausing to get a grip on all they are trying to do. Analyzing everything in the pipeline means stopping the pipeline.
And stopped pipelines provide precious little work for people downstream.
Me? I'm downstream.
Sh!t
----
Meeting day, fifteen minutes before the appointed time.
We're all early. In a department as chronically tardy as ours, this says a lot about where people's nerves are. We cluster up: gallows humor to the left, shell-shocked to the right.
There are few things as depressing as a hallway full of professionals waiting for someone to pronounce sentence on them. Some of these people have PhD's, and they look like they are being sent to the principal's office.
The boss arrives, we file into our chairs and brace.
The news is scant – the implications dire.
If work continues to be slow – I will not be able to justify our current staffing level.
That's pretty much the entire meeting. We prolong the agony with a few more questions - I ask if there is a timeline - but there are no more facts to be found.
Rather than squirm through more pointless questioning, I begin demonstrative body language that says "Meeting OVER" and start edging for the door.
Eventually the notion catches on. We leave the room.
The trouble merchants in the group invent sub-plots and begin hand wringing in earnest. Did some of us know more than others? Who knew what? And when?
Knowing nothing means I get to skip this discussion.
I go back to work.
---
Career consultants, this comes with the territory. Résumés are updated regularly, and leases are month to month.
There is a surge of activity on LinkedIn and then "Farewell and Thanks" messages start showing up every few days.
Someone I can't remember sends: It's been great! I'll never forget you guys!
-And I have this terrible sense of relief.
There are too many of us, and some of us have consented to go.
When the involuntary exits begin – perhaps there will not need to be so many.
---
That's actually what got me started today. This morning, the cube next to me was occupied by a nice person who I've sat next to for almost a year now.
The boss came by to tell me that I should not be alarmed when the box people come.
The box people are the ones who collect all your belongings when you've been locked out of the building.
Nice person has been fired.
-and cad that I am, I have this terrible sense of relief.
4 comments:
I had a former employer who made it my job, on a few occasions, to "help" someone who'd just been fired clean out their stuff, and walk them down to their car (not coincidentally, ensuring someone was watching over their shoulder, making sure they don't delete a few folders of files on their way out.) Hated it, hated it, hated it.
By the way, that sense of relief you're feeling doesn't make you a cad. Your duty isn't to the "nice co-worker," it's to ensure that you can continue to be a provider to your family. They come first, and you shouldn't have to feel guilty for being relieved that you can continue to fill that responsibility.
Word's coming down that the bloodletting has stopped - so perhaps my group can stop fretting and start getting back to work.
There's no nice way to do it, really - but modern protocols are pretty dehumanizing. My last job, when they canned a developer they were invited to a bogus meeting (while the rest of their colleagues frantically changed every password they knew of). Then they were summarily escorted out of the building.
In my current gig - the typical protocol is for you to get a call at home from your account rep - telling you you're done.
They either mail you your things or have your rep drop them off.
This lets the ultimate employer (the client) off the hook.
Which makes it a lot easier to do.
Thanks.
Truth be told - the nice person had professional issues.
If the hammer has to fall, it is better for everyone that people are canned for cause - rather than a random selection of able workers.
If we're really where we need to be so those who want to stay and work can do so - we're all better off.
But that calculation takes place so rapidly, you almost forget that this person had kids & a mortgage, too.
When you juxtapose joking around with them in the morning, with feeling relieved that they were fired and not you - it doesn't make you proud.
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