Welcome to Day Three PD. It is 9:00 AM, and by now I’d have been sitting at my desk for an hour and a half working away eagerly. Instead I am in front of my home PC, in my jammies and, as a friend yesterday so aptly put it, writing the “what to do when you experience the corporate weight loss program!” I thought I might share some memories (through the fog of shock) of “The Meeting”.
Imagine being escorted from your office by a Director to an elevator and then to a room where you look around and see a handful of colleagues with questioning looks on their faces. There are two representatives from the new EAP (Employee Assistance Program). The Human Resources Manager is not looking up from the piece of paper in front of her. Managers have their heads bowed, looking like they have just lost their best friends. Directors with puffed out chests are trying to look like they have the whole situation well in hand. You know why you are here, but you look around realizing that many have no idea why they are there. Somebody has a stack of envelopes with people’s names on them. There is a case of pop and juice in the corner of the room. It is quiet… so very quiet.
After what seems like an eternity (though it has only been a 5 - 10 minute wait) the last of the chosen ones filter in and words are spoken. The CTO/President (he who had recently taken to identifying himself by pounding on his chest like a gorilla, raising his voice and proclaiming “I am the Alpha President and CTO and I can fire anyone of you!”) spoke of the failed buyout by "The Company" and its parent company and its problems and its finances and blah, blah, blah. You get the picture. I wanted to stand up and scream at him to sit down and shut up. Where was your Plan B Mr. “I am the CTO!”? He of the largest ego didn’t deserve the opportunity to turn this into *his* problem. It wasn’t about him for the people sitting in that room. Now it was about *us*. As the clarity of our fate was setting in, we just wanted to find out what we were entitled to and how soon we could get out of “The Meeting” and go home. I sat in my seat screaming on the inside but kept perfectly and professionally quiet and tuned out. It wasn’t worth the effort.
The HR Manager stood and, through eyes welling up in tears, tried to read from the paper in front of her. She struggled for words as she stood at the front of the room having to be the messenger, the bearer of the bad news to 27+ of her colleagues. Inside I was screaming. Where is the CEO? Why didn’t he have the guts to make an appearance in front of the staff that, until that moment, had kept his company and his product alive? He is a coward, and one who never had a Plan B. She couldn’t go on. She struggled through her tears and handed the paper over to a Director. In a cold and callous tone, he recited the “what happens now”. He points to the EAP folks. One opens her mouth to remind us to “eat properly... get lots of sleep... shock dehydrates you and so the company has been kind enough to provide drinks at the side of the room for you…blah, blah, blah…”
One person asks the question “If funding is secured, will any of us be rehired?” I am amazed that he has the clarity and presence of mind to even ask. The answer from the Director in his cold and callous tone was “Don’t count on it and don’t wait for it. Go out and look for a job.” I am in tears, because the HR Manager is in tears. All I can think of is the poor people left behind. Oh, what they will have to suffer when later in the afternoon they will be brought together to find out that 27+ of their colleagues are unceremoniously gone. I wanted to run. I wanted out of that room. I wanted to go home where I would be safe and my heart might still its frenetic pace.
The next words are “You will be escorted from this room by your Manager or Director to pack up your desk. Your paperwork will be ready tomorrow.” I look around. My Manager? My Director? He was already gone. Where do I go? Who will lead me out the door? Someone get me out of here! Through my haze of tears a hand is extended. It is the CTO. I want to run. I want to turn away. The consummate professional in me extends a hand in return.
Well, here it is, Day Two post-downsize (heretofore to be known as PD). There is still a sense of disorientation. Waking up to hubby's alarm, jumping up thinking I am late for work, then plopping back down remembering that I no longer have a work to go to. Welcome to Diary of a Downsize. In 20 years of working full-time for a living, I have never left a job unless it was by *my* choice.
Let's start with the history. I am a former teacher of (a foreign) language and art who 5 years ago (while single mothering my child and simultaneously going through a divorce after a 13 year marriage) decided to retrain and enter the world of technology. I merged my newfound technology skills with my teaching skills and came up with a career as a Technical Trainer. After working for a local technology-training firm, and burning out quickly at the front of a classroom training 5-day courses, I responded to a former student's email asking me to send him my resume. The company he was working for was looking for trainers. He knew I was unhappy where I was, and that I was watching an exodus of people leaving my place of work to look elsewhere. As if his appeal was not enough, the next day came a phone call from a former trainer (and colleague) who worked for the same company, telling me she had a job available that had my name written all over it. Heh. Who could resist?
So began my career as an Instructional Course Designer for a local Network Security Software Solutions company. That was back in November 2000. What a company, and what a career! I hadn't been so happy in all my working life! I worked with an awesome group of people for a company who seemed to really care about its employees. I joined the Social Committee. I spearheaded a "Cultural Diversity Awareness" program in-house. I began a weekly appearance on a local radio morning talk-show giving updates on computer security issues in the company’s name. Within my 3-month probationary term, I had learned more about the world of technology and computer security than I had learned in 2 years of training technology. I received rave reviews for my work. I got a raise. Stock options were offered with promise of a public offering within 12-18 months. I took Technical Writing courses to learn as much as I could about that part of the industry. I joined the Society For Technical Communicators, realizing that I had finally found my “niche” in the field of technology.
I even got “promoted” to the position of Business Analyst and placed into the newly formed Project Management Office. I was in a position to help strategically align the company’s development with the security market space, and push the products into the world market, where we were rapidly gaining positive recognition. The security market space was the hottest place to be in the world of computer technology in this post-9/11 world. I bought hundreds of dollars of books and did endless hours of research on the Software Development Lifecycle. I was determined to succeed in being the best Business Analyst I could be, and contributing to the ongoing success of the company.
Then came the turn for the worse. Back in January there were signs that even our sector of the industry had been affected. The company laid off 10% of its staff. Those of us who were chosen to stay got the “Rah, Rah, Sis-boom-bah” shpiel that we were the “selected” ones. We were "the chosen ones" who would drive the company and its product into the future. The company was “trimming the fat”, making us a lean, mean fighting machine in the rising competitive market.
Skip to a few months later…the company had been negotiating with an OEM partner who was considering buying us out. Rumours ran rampant. Management finally had to send an email out to confirm the rumours, reminding us that back in January, days before the layoffs, we all signed NDA agreements. Shivers went up my spine, and I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Days later came the “the deal fell through” email. The company was in far more dire straits than they had ever indicated to its employees. It seems the said OEM partner had actually been paying our payroll in anticipation of the coming buyout. Now that they were no longer in the picture, there was no cash flow. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach grew deeper. I had a sense that my position was to be one of the ones that might be on the chopping block. Call it woman’s intuition.
Monday morning began with our weekly team meeting. The four of us sat in our Director’s office with our cups of coffee. He pulled out a bottle of brandy and began to pour it into each of our coffees. That was, for me, confirmation of my worst fears. He warned us that things looked grim. He suggested that he himself would be on “The List” of those chosen to go, given that he had been conspicuously excluded from the emergency meetings of company directors. He had no inside information to feed us, in terms of insight into “The List”. He reminded us to look at this as an opportunity not to sink with a sinking ship.
The cold winds of dire change were blowing chillier than ever before. The Rumour Mill suggested that big layoffs were coming again. The Rumour Mill suggested that at 10:30 Tuesday morning would be “The Meeting”. Everyone watched his or her mailbox for the appointment to accept “The Meeting”. The email never came. Instead, at 10:25 AM, the Directors and Managers (who had not been let go at a 9:30 AM meeting) walked around tapping some of us on the shoulder to indicate that we were expected at a meeting. As a Director stood in the doorway, not leaving when I said I’d be there in a moment, I suddenly realized that he meant “The Meeting”. I was about to walk the “Walk of Doom”. What I didn’t yet know was that my own Director had been on the 9:30 AM chopping block. He was already gone.
