At the office.

For some time, I've been aware that my employer was going to let a number of people go.

Just business.

Recently they did just that. And despite 'preparing' myself, even then I was still not prepared at all.

To take a step back, I had seen this before. Or at least I saw a variation of this some years back. 

...

Back then, we were told that the company need to move forward (they used a specific term to describe what they were doing, but I won't use it here). But those of then who were there knew what it meant - people would be losing their jobs.

At that time, no one knew what the 'criteria' would be for this. After all, the company seemed to be making profits, and at record levels. But yet this was being framed as a 'crisis' of sorts.

I took the advice of a few around me - I updated the resume and waited with baited breath for that day.

When that day came, I sat at my desk. I kept doing my work, not knowing what would happen or how.

I kept working and after awhile everything seemed silent around me. I look around at other cubicles and saw a few people, but no one was really interacting with anyone. Then I got a meeting request in my Inbox from my then director for me to meet at a conference room, and thought - well this is it.

When I got there, I saw a bunch of colleagues from other parts of our group. I went in and the director was there standing at the head of the table. He let us know that we in the room had survived, that those whose jobs were eliminated were offered the option of either a severance, or have their role transition to a outsourced firm. I was told that my job was retained and that I'd be moving to a new portfolio (little did I know what that would bring, but that's a story for another time).

I later learned that a number of people who were let go had issues in HR, performance issues, or some dispute with either their manager or someone higher up. So I figured that the company was using this moment as an opportunity to 'clean house' if you will. Perhaps fortunately for me, I survived.

...

Now fast forward to the present year, and when I learned that this was coming, I thought the layoffs would follow a similar path as to this was I described above.

Wow, was I off.

Once again, we knew which day it was coming. Oddly enough, because it landed on the same day of the week as the last one, I was feeling like it was going to be the same.

No, not even close.

I woke up that morning and checked my email. No notice from any executives, no messages of any sort. I slowly started contacting a few people digitally that I knew, and some seemed alright (or at least same as me - no message).

Then some of those colleagues started reporting back. Turns out the messages were sent hours earlier. Have a dozen, a dozen, whole teams, teams plus managers, directors, and so on. I started feeling sick. Someone even told me my whole team was taken out. Then I started freaking out. 

But still no message for me.

All of a sudden, I get an email from our organization's executive, and nearly had a heart attack when it arrived. Only it told me that all those who've been let go have been contacted, and informing of some 'organizational changes'. I breathed a small sigh of relief, but then started wondering about all the people I know and all the people I work with.

When I got to a management meeting later that morning, I found out the worst. Who ever told me about our team was right - everyone and the manager were let go. As an aside, in the meeting itself, the manager blurted this out saying he'd been in touch with 'everyone'. Obviously he hadn't been in touch with me, and I let everyone in the meeting know this - perhaps that's saying something about this person, but who knows. In any event, the real shock in the meeting came when the director announced that he too was gone.

I almost fell out of my chair. I had to admit, I was struggling to remain focused. It made no sense. 

As the day wore on, I started taking count of people I know who were no longer employed. Folks I've known my entire time I've been here, folks who've been there most if not all of their adult life, 'lifers', as they like to say.

Then the next day - finding out about even more colleagues, old friends, mentors, and so on. And even then, I kept scouring all of my email folders to see if by-chance that termination email went somewhere else. Throughout the day, I kept hearing about more people being pulled into meetings with HR, to discuss how long they are being retained for (in exchange for severance) as part of a 'transition'.

Meanwhile, the survivor's guilt set in me. Why did I survive? Will I survive the next one? Others around and above me were smarter, more experienced, more accomplished, more personable, and so on. I had always believed (until this time), that being perceived as 'valuable' was more important that being perceived as merely 'useful'.

But given that we were told the decisions were 'role-based', I guess this is the one time where being 'useful' was evidently more important than being 'valuable'.

I had started a post continuing a series from the last couple of years - this post, and this one. After I confirm my cardkey actually works next week (the rest test!), then I'll have some more thoughts.

But for now, I"m relieved to still be working and paid. I still have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table  - for my family and me.