Are You About to be Laid Off?
I don’t know about anyone else out there, but January gives me the freaking creeps. Every company I’ve worked for starts laying off big-time right after the holidays and especially during a recession.
It’s gotten to the point where I have to be in deep denial to actually enjoy the celebrations during December, because I know what’s coming. Email after email from friends and co-workers who explain that this will be their last day, their department is shutting down or their jobs are being eliminated.
I bleed for them and I worry. Will I be the next one to go? Will the company I work for finally fold? I used to think never – now I’m not so sure. If the automakers and banks can sink, no one’s safe.
In all the years I’ve worked, I’ve never seen such a horrible economy. Yesterday, while I was out running errands, I thought I’d stop off at a Winchell’s donut shop and get my usual apple fritter and cup of coffee. When I got to the door, I was shocked to find the place empty of furniture. Just last week, the place was in business and now it was gone. Not only that, but the grocery store at the other end of the mall had also closed. Before Christmas, the department store that anchored the mall had gone into bankruptcy. Now, in a mall that takes up a city block there’s only a Radio Shack, Payless Shoes and a couple of mom-and-pop type restaurants. I don’t have too much hope for any of them staying in business.
It’s so sad. I can imagine what those poor people are doing to find work or to simply pay their rent and eat. A few years back this would have seemed inconceivable. A few years back I wondered how housing prices could inflate at such a rate when the people in my area weren’t millionaires. I knew it had to come crashing down. I just didn’t think it would be so damned hard.
I’ve heard from friends in HR that Monday’s usually the day when employees are let go. I worry about everyone who’ll get the bad news today. And I worry for myself.
If you have the same worries, please leave a comment.
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This *was* a personal reality for me — last June. I came into work on a Monday morning, and the executive associate of the President and CEO of the corporation I worked for (and who I also worked for) asked me to step into the board room for a moment, where I was greeted by a human resources officer, and an armed guard.
The officer told me I was fired, the armed guard escorted me back to my office — in front of all my (now former) co-workers and colleagues — and watched me pack my personal belongings into a small carton they gave me. I was escorted to the elevators and told to have a nice day.
At 9.30 in the morning I found myself back on the main street of my city and forced to call my husband and tell him HE had to leave work and come pick me up, and bewildered passers-by got to watch a grown woman standing on the sidewalk crying and shaking until he got there, because I didn’t have the mental capacity to think of anything better to do right then, and too much stuff to carry it anywhere else by myself anyway.
I gave nearly ten years to the corporation. I used to work my ass off — no lunch breaks, coffee breaks, all that good stuff — and stuck with the corporation when it went through a year of reshaping, reforming, and the most painful reorganization you’ve ever seen. My former boss (the immediate past president and CEO) was fired under the most public and humiliating circumstances, but I stayed in place when asked, and helped stablize the CEO’s office for them.
Writing this post, my heart has accelerated, and my gut is churning, as I live that firing all over again. There was no reason given. No thank-you’s, either. I’ve never heard from anyone in that office ever again. It’s like all those years I gave to them were wiped and gone in the blink of an eye. Worth nothing. Apparently loyalty is vastly overrated in the corporate world.
So I believe the worry is probably justified. Which is a sad comment on the state of affairs in the world. I’ve since gone on to build my own business, and combined with that and my writing income, I’m just scraping by: independence is the better option in my opinion. I never want to live through a day like that day in June ever again. It was the most shocking, humiliating and soul-destroying day — bar one — in my entire life.
Tracy
Wow – that totally sucks. That’s exactly what I’ve seen in corporate America within the last couple of years. It’s frightening. But good for you for starting your own biz!