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| Friday, June 20, 2003 Safe! At this morning’s meeting, it was announced that eight people were given their “notice” yesterday leaving 94% of our division intact. Everyone affected by the organizational shifting was also notified yesterday. WHEW! I feel for the people who were laid off… but I’m relieved that I’m still employed… but I am a little disappointed that people weren’t reassigned into different teams. A few teams were reassigned to my department but individuals weren’t moved around which is the impression we’ve been getting for the past couple of weeks. IMHO, our staffing has been minimally optimized so now I’m wondering how much the HR consultant was paid. Thursday, June 19, 2003 9:29 pm Tick Tock I’ve picked up a few more puzzle pieces today. One I can’t mention yet but it’s a good thing that affects one of my coworkers. The others make me a tad nervous. 2:50 pm – I’m discussing a project with Mira and at the tail end of the conversation she mentions that she isn’t looking forward to her 3 o’clock meeting. She gave this look of dread which confused me for a bit because I thought she brought it up because it was somehow related to our discussion. She didn’t say what it was for but Angie overheard that there was a “last minute” management meeting. Hmmm… 4:15 pm – I shoot over an e-mail to Mira with a few documents attached. I joked that we would review them tomorrow as long as I’m still employed. No response from her and she’s the type to acknowledge everything – even simple statements. Hmmmm… 5:10 pm – I ran into an elevator just as the doors began to shut. Amy and Mira were in it. Amy had her back to me and was really animated about whatever she was telling Mira so I didn’t want to interrupt her. Mira on the other hand was facing me and didn’t once make eye contact with me. When we got off of the elevator, Amy was surprised to see me and Mira mentioned that I got on from the other side of the floor. Hmmmmm… So my conclusion is that something will happen to me despite Mira's confidence last week that our team would be untouched. I don’t think I’m going to get laid off but that’s only because there haven’t been any warning signs. Based on Mira’s actions this afternoon, I’m suspecting that I’m shifting over to another team. I could be naïve though and my ass could be booted out tomorrow morning. If I were laid off, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, right? I’d get a severance package and I could finally get my butt moving on taking the GMATs and going to b-school. Depending on how much I get and what the unemployment benefit is, there could be a possibility that I’d have to move back home. Heh. I’d ace the GMATs in that case because I wouldn’t want to be living at home for longer than necessary. Well, it’s getting late and I shouldn’t lose any sleep over this since I can’t do anything about it right now. Wednesday, June 18, 2003 Unsettled The work environment is a little stirred up. There’s been a consultant here for over a year and no one has paid her much attention until now. When she was first introduced, I’m sure people were wary of her analysis of our internal processes but I think time has made her less threatening… until now. On Tuesday, I walked over to a conference room only to find that the door was shut. It’s really common for meetings to run over so I always poke my head in. I listened for a bit to see if I could recognize Mira’s voice but I couldn’t so I peeked in to interrupt. The aforementioned consultant and our finance director were the only ones in my eyesight. I let them know that we had the room soon and closed the door. Mira appeared and, as I was letting her know that they were finishing up, out walked all of the occupants. I didn’t recognize anyone else in that group but Amy and Mira did. There was someone from human resources, our VP’s right-hand woman, and another individual I can’t seem to remember. Scary. We were told that a reorganization is coming up but this group was probably discussing more than just a shuffling of resources. People might be clearing out their cubes. That was Tuesday. This afternoon, we received notice that our Thursday 8:30 AM department meeting was cancelled. An hour later, it was replaced with a Friday 9:00 AM meeting request from our VP with the comment that he hopes that everyone in the office will attend the meeting to discuss the “organizational and staffing changes.” Scary. A part of me is confident that I’m safe especially since an old project of mine is suddenly important and in the 2004 budget. Another part of me though fears that I’m just an expendable FTE in upper management’s eyes. |