Death of a Cheerleader

OK, so no cheerleader actually dies in this story, which continues the ongoing saga of “Skinny Project” at The Company. This tale is the tale of The Cheerleader (I love these Doctor Who Time Lord-styled names), a manager at The Company who has apparently lost their job as part of Skinny Project. But let me step back a bit first…

I’m sure most of us who’ve worked long enough have experienced a company that tightens its belt by getting rid of workers. However, in my 20-year work experience, I have never seen a manager let go because of cut backs. In fact, I’ve never seen a manager fired. The closest I’ve seen was a senior manager who lost his empire at Shepard’s and ended up a project manager who took over my “as I have time” job of documenting our procedures before he found another manager job at another company. I’ve seen managers at The Company who screwed up and were given jobs in other sections of the company, where they all are still employed to this day.

As the hideous Skinny Project was rolled out, management had to present it to us and tell us how it would succeed or else. One manager, whom I now call The Cheerleader, seemed to take a lead role in making Skinny Project succeed. This manager told us in no uncertain terms how they had embraced the idea and how they felt it was great for the company. Further, The Cheerleader had bought into the line that there would be no layoffs as part of Skinny Project. The tales presented to us by management of test runs were of how departments tasked with reducing costs and staff ended up getting customers to pay us more money, enough to ensure no job losses. So The Cheerleader stated how they believed things would be great for The Company and that we needed to get on the bandwagon.

And so it was a week ago Tuesday that The Company whacked a large number of employees, with no regard for their “value add” in knowledge and expertise (and many excellent workers are now out of a job). Nope, these are just numbers who are drawing a salary and need to be removed from the payroll. “We’ll worry about the consequences later, assuming there are any which we don’t believe there will be.” There were rumors that some managers would be let go up to the 3rd-line level, but I don’t think any of us believed that.

Then my manager sent an e-mail to our team stating that he’d be gone at the end of the month due to the layoffs that are part of Skinny Project. I was stunned because as I stated, I’ve never seen a manager fired or downsized. But then rumors began to swirl that there was a second manager let go and that The Cheerleader was that manager. While I’ve not seen anything official to confirm this, one thing I’ve learned about working at The Company is rumors are almost always true.

I suppose the end of the month will prove if The Cheerleader still has a job or not (providing they didn’t manage to sneak a job somewhere else, which seems unlikely with The Company apparently trying to get rid of all its U.S. employees sans the corporate executives and their staff). If it is true, I hate to say it but I feel excited about it in an evil, happy way. That’s not a Christian attitude to be sure and I don’t like feeling that way about anyone losing a job when they haven’t done anything to deserve it, but I’ve never liked it when management spews the company line (no matter what company) even when they know it is bad policy. Skinny Project has been a bad, bad thing (thanks to The Man for hosing The Company with such wonderful management), so when a manager spouts about its greatness then loses their job because of this “greatness,” somehow justice seems to have been served.

I wish justice would be served on The Man, but Wall Street is against me, making The Company’s stock rise and rise. If it weren’t for the rising stock price, I’d really think this was another WorldCom.