The Company Strikes Back!

For maximum effect, play the “Emperor’s Theme” from Empire Strikes Back while reading this.

Well, The Company finally did it. I really have the feeling I got when I worked at WorldCom (and where are they now?) when they were going through all of their cost-cutting measures to include slash-and-burn tactics for jobs. The only difference is that WorldCom’s stock was tanking and The Company’s isn’t.

So what happened?

Well, as I stated earlier, The Company did the massive reorg. The difference was that I was placed on the “Rock” team, meaning I get all of the fun work (SEV 1 and SEV 2 issues). I don’t mind that because if I’m busy, the work day goes by quickly. However, I think I worked more last week than I did the last three months. I guess that’s what The Company wants.

In addition to a greater workload (because instead of ‘sharing the love’ when it comes to SEV 1/SEV 2 issues, I get them all until I’m overwhelmed and then others are brought in to help me), we have to track the issues we work on a new web-based white board. This is so The Company executives can see their brilliant cost-cutting plan produce metrics that support their plan and they can get rid of people. Sadly for them, after one-week, the numbers just weren’t what The Company wanted.

Solution?

Well, you tweak the white board so that instead of tracking how long problems run, you only track when you touched the problem. Further, you have to track when you engaged the support people. Doing all of this extra work slows us down big time (but it gives the executives shorter times to better support their position), and we have Service Level Agreements on when we respond to issues in addition to when we resolve issues. So, I refuse to kill myself for The Company (I will work hard though) and I evoke help constantly. Those who stop what they are doing to help me work the important issues have to track their time on the “Rock” work. Those numbers aren’t pleasing to The Company either. My old department worked a massive amount of issues every day and we’ve already lost a lot of people and couldn’t afford to lose anyone else.

Monday was a dark day. There were 150 employees of The Company who were let go (not sure if that counts contractors or not). Supposedly, managers were going to be let go, but I know of none in my facility that were let go. A lot of really good, hard-working, very qualified people were let go though and that’s sad. I’m sure they’ll get new jobs fairly quickly, but it goes to show how a major company won’t let things like good, hard-working employees get in the way of an executives’ bonuses and other perks. Those extras have to be paid for somehow, and what better way than to slash-and-burn departments without thought or consideration.

So my fellow former co-workers, you are in my thoughts and prayers.

Supposedly, we’ll have another slash-and-burn session coming by month’s end. The Company has shown they don’t much care for who they cut, but it looks like God may have had me answer my phone at Starfest to allow me to keep a job though. The folks on the “Rock” team(s) seem more secure than those on the “Bend” team or possibly even the “Roll” team.

And so it continues… We’ll see how week 2 goes.