Having just done a layoff two weeks before - after having done two
(permanent) workforce reductions already this year - we are now
going to be doing furloughs of 2 days per month (i.e., a 10% pay
cut).
No you may not use PTO to cover the time. Please update your
programs, as the saying goes.
This is beginning to feel a lot like a death-march, even though I
think that is really more of a programming industry term.
..
No, actually instead I was terminated that Wednesday evening (a
couple months of Wednesdays ago) at 4:45pm - with a drive home
through tornado warnings, flood warnings, a sloppy, dangerous
voyage through the remnants of Hurricane Ida tearing up eastern
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and really savaging New York. Fortunately
I just had to escape Jersey. Getting my termination done earlier in
the day just wasn't a priority I suppose, though my boss only had
to be in the room for about one minute, leaving the HR Director and
Security Director to handle things.
(They terminated the HR Director not long after that as she's now
looking for a job as well. Hey, no furloughs.)
I packed up my office things, mementoes from past jobs, notebooks,
reference books, and the like, all under the eye of the Security
Director (just policy, not surprising, and we'd worked together and
I liked working with him). He helped me get the boxes into my truck
in the pouring rain and said goodbye and I got on the road back to
PA. The roads were already getting to be a mess and traffic was
getting stupid so I just resolved to take it easy, not think about
work, let the numbness continue and not think about the future just
yet. I had to turn back from one route, flooding was already too
bad, re-routed back to I-78 that I was hoping to avoid. Fortunately
driving a big, very visible white truck helps with merging and I
got into the flow of interstate traffic okay, the entrance ramp
being low it was full of water but we powered on through it - no
other choice by the time you could see it. I then had to avoid
semi's not holding their lanes very well in the wind, crawling and
crawling along, and other drivers not watching the road. Not much
tailgating fortunately and a few hours later I made it to my exit,
bladder screaming by this time, plunged through another exit-ramp
pond through sheer momentum and made it to the Wawa station and a
restroom. Fifteen more minutes and home to tell my wife the crap
news - she took it well - and then dragging the wet boxes of work
stuff inside and upstairs. Done.
Obviously it was time for me to begin looking for a new gig but
they certainly could have shown a little professionalism about it
and yet they did not. It had been made clear to me over the course
of two years there that I would not be permitted to support my
people when it got in the way of them being used as convenient
scapegoats for the engineering and production folks wholly unable
to do their jobs even adequately. It was time to move on. The
simple truth is that there are significant profits to be made there
without huge investments but it would require major changes -
mostly in how leadership is done - and the 'leaders' just can't
face that.
I suppose I just should have known better than to even interview
for a job in fucking New Jersey, but I was getting desperate while
managing the shutdown of the last company I worked for. There were
times that I pondered that maybe it was merely a money-laundering
operation for some organized crime outfit, then abandoned that
hypothesis - no mob-run organization would ever let its books get
bad enough for their bank to get directly involved in things.
I had promised myself that I wouldn't stay until the bitter end for
another company when it began to be obvious that things were going
south. Turns out I didn't have to at least.
For those left behind it is probably a death-march now. They are
truly struggling to get enough weekly shipments out the door to
keep the bank that holds their debts from bringing in someone to
run the company directly for them (as an alternative to just
calling in their debts - they apparently owe too much for the bank
to just give up and shut them down). As the old saying goes: you
can't cut your way to profitability, but they have been trying. I'm
sure the bank folks are pushing that line because they don't know
anything about running an actual company.
I'm not happy to be out of a job but glad to no longer be facing
one untenable or potentially unethical situation after another.
A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his
choice made for him by circumstance.
(Hunter S. Thompson)
