You’ve got to be f’ing kidding…

That was the first thought that went through my mind last Thursday morning.  After 10 years at this company I was told I would no longer be needed as of December 31st.

I knew a few weeks ago that this day might come.  The officially announced their intention to replace all the in-house programming we’ve done for the last 20 years with an off-the-shelf product.  I thought I’d probably be ok – after all, this project was going to increase my responsibilities.  But I knew if they weren’t real bright, they’d do things a different way.

They did things a different way.

I really don’t think they understand what they’re doing.  They’ve left one guy in the department to basically do all the work.  I think they’re planning on bringing in contractors (it helps to have friends in the business that recognize your company’s name) but that’s not going to work out well – it’s not a vanilla environment here.  And people here are used to a quick response, they won’t do well with “We’ll be out tomorrow to fix your problem.”

I’m trying to be nice about this.  There’s a ton that just pisses me off, but I’m not sure how much good it would do to vent it here.  Everything from how they came to the decision (and by ‘they’ I mean one person overrode the majority vote) to the sorry excuse for a severance package they’re offering.

I should be thankful for a couple of reasons.  They could have given us no warning (we saw it coming anyway) or absolutely no severance.  And actually, if they would have kept me to do everything on my own, I probably would have left on my own anyway.

I know I’ll be ok.  I’ve been through this before and came out ahead, I’m sure I will again.  I’ve been looking for a change for a little while anyway, this is just the kick in the butt I needed.  Out of all of us that they let go, I’m probably in the best shape (one guy they’re letting go just had his first child) — I think I’m more upset that I won’t be working with some of the people I’ve met here anymore.  There’s a bit of sadness that I think is normal.  I’ve been here almost my entire “professional” life.  You get a little attached after 10 years.  This will be good though… something new, better, exciting.  I don’t know how good it will be for this company though.  I hope it works out, mainly because of most of the people left here.  I fear that it won’t because of the incompetence of a select few.  Maybe more on that later… I think I might have to sign something saying I won’t badmouth them 😀

One thought on “You’ve got to be f’ing kidding…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *