I'm shaking in fear.... (Layoffs)

[Koinek]

Two weeks ago, my employer announced job cuts that would be announced today. I've heard today that HR employees are making the rounds informing staff about their positions being cut and sending them home for the day.

I work in a tiny private office at the far side of a building with creaky hard wood floors. Every time I hear someone walking outside or coming up the tiny staircase that leads to the attache-area I'm in, I start getting really worked up.

This is very very scary stuff. I hope the administration will send out an e-mail letting people know that the cut employees have been informed and that the layoffs are over. I can't rest easy until then. I really really hope I get to keep this job.

 

[aftermath]

Good luck. I hope you get the news you want.

 

[Mr Awe]

Best of luck! I can imagine this would be super stressful. Hopefully the all clear message comes soon!

Mr Awe

 

[auntiehill]

Oh, geez. Talk about stress! My fingers are crossed for you.

 

[WillsBabe]

I'm thinking about you. I've been through this process and it's horrible. Good luck.

 

[An Officer]

It must be like waiting for the gilotine to drop. Horrible. Sorry KK! I'm sure you'll avoid it... think positive happy thoughts and distract yourself. Good luck!

 

[Amaris]

Two weeks ago, my employer announced job cuts that would be announced today. I've heard today that HR employees are making the rounds informing staff about their positions being cut and sending them home for the day.

I work in a tiny private office at the far side of a building with creaky hard wood floors. Every time I hear someone walking outside or coming up the tiny staircase that leads to the attache-area I'm in, I start getting really worked up.

This is very very scary stuff. I hope the administration will send out an e-mail letting people know that the cut employees have been informed and that the layoffs are over. I can't rest easy until then. I really really hope I get to keep this job.

My thoughts and prayers are with you, KK. Dell did the same thing to us, but dragged it out over 6 months of layoffs, false alarms and grapevine antics to keep us on our toes.


J.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I once went through layoffs, they got us all in a room together and explained they would be laying people off and they explained the criteria they would be using to determine who it would be. They then sent us back to work and called us into a room one by one and told us whether or not we were being layed off.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

I hear ya - my company has been through three rounds of downsizing just this year. So far I've been spared, but every single day I have to wonder if it will be my last at this particular company.

You do start to learn how to live on a day-by-day basis and just appreciate the moment. Otherwise you'd go crazy.

And I've been laid off twice before - once in the mid-90s when the company I worked for abruptly shut down, and then in 2000 when the department I worked for was closed. I got a call from my supervisor at 10:30 in the evening on a Friday with the news that I needn't show up for work on Monday.

 

[Koinek]

Alright...I'm ok. Also another friend of mine survived too. Phew...

Thanks for the support guys. It is appreciated. I was really wound up this morning. I didn't relax until the afternoon when President let us know that everyone had been informed already if they were being laid off.

Hopefully I don't have to go through this again. Thankfully I'm work in education so there isn't as much market fluctuation. Our business had got bloated over the past 10 years and our budgets had been incompetently prepared.

 

[kimc]

Alright...I'm ok. Also another friend of mine survived too. Phew...

Thanks for the support guys. It is appreciated. I was really wound up this morning. I didn't relax until the afternoon when President let us know that everyone had been informed already if they were being laid off.

Hopefully I don't have to go through this again. Thankfully I'm work in education so there isn't as much market fluctuation. Our business had got bloated over the past 10 years and our budgets had been incompetently prepared.

I'm glad you survived. My advice though is that once managment views layoffs as a panacea they will be tempted to do more. Getting your resume together and putting out feelers might not be a bad idea.

I'm saying this as someone who did not do that even after watching three rounds of layoffs. I was working on my grad degree at the time and didn't want to take the time to do a job search on top of that. Then my number came up in round four...

I've promised myself that next time I'm in that situation I will be quicker about getting the search started.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do - just passing on what I've learned the hard way.

 

[doubleohfive]

What do you do in education?

 

[An Officer]

The job market is horrendous at the moment... my job rate went down to nil for at least two months... really crazy for a while. It's only now picking up again for me a little. Everyone is tightening the purse strings. I'm seriously thinking about getting into something else. A lot of people are in the same boat KK... just another little bump in the road of life, it'll pass, god willing. Keep smiling.

 

[DanCPA]

glad you made it

but, you should be have ready a resume in case more cuts are needed...
a lot of companies are suffering at the moment

 

[RJDiogenes]

Good to hear that you and your friend survived. A similar thing happened to me about seventeen years ago; the hospital I worked at was closing and reduced staff in steps over the course of about a year. Luckily, I survived until the end (and after, actually).

 

[Hoser]

Glad to hear you've survived it, KK. I went through at least six rounds before they got to me in October. It's tough out there/here.....
Even so, constantly living under the fear of the axe is no way to live.

 

[Lindley]

At the all-hands meeting today, my company announced that even though they hadn't had enough direct-charged work for all employees in the past year, they had elected to keep everyone going on IR&D tasks and other indirect charges rather than enact layoffs, on the theory that the availability of external contracts would rebound. The downside is we may not get Christmas bonuses this year, but I can't really say I mind.

 

[FPAlpha]

I can understand you... last year my company reorganized a warehouse and let many people go.

How they did that was really shitty to.. they knew exactly who had to go but kept everyone guessing. It was mere weeks before christmas and as you can guess the atmosphere was really subdued and depressing.
The kicker was that our bosses knew that no one from our department was to be laid off but they couldn't tell us for whatever reason.

Right now our workload, i.e. the volume we ship around the world for our customer has dropped almost 50% from what it should have been. We are feeling the financial crisis directly though everyone was surprised it came so fast.
Currently there's no talk about lay offs but there's no chance we'll steadily employ some temp workers (which is a shame because most of them are good workers and deserved to be employed fully) but it can't go on like this forever if work doesn't pick up (we are bored out of our minds sometimes in the office when your whole workload is done by 1pm).