Redundancies...

Hi Y'all. This is kind of a long, rambling and depressing post, I know, but writing it I found, was kind of cathartic considering the past few hours. Nobody has to reply, I just kind of needed to get it out there...sorry...
Oh yeah, and it's not like we didn't know it was coming. It's just more of a shock when it does finally happen...


Today I found myself in a strange train of thought.
I realised that I am nothing more than one of those horses trotting around a show ring. I am being judged on my looks, my temperament, how many teeth I have and how many people I have bitten over the last five and a half years.
It was a strange morning. It felt…off…if you know what I mean…And then I had to think. Why? Why are all the managers scurrying about?...well, more than normal. That’s what managers do, did you ever notice that? They scurry. They don’t walk. Not when there’s something important going on. They scurry around on their little pinny legs, darting meaningful looks at one another over partitions and desperately trying to avoid eye contact with people they know they are going to have to give bad news to in about an hour’s time….aaah. There we go. They were scurrying because they did know something. And now, my manager is scurrying over to me. Bad sign.

“What was that Dymphna…? Go into the MD’s office with Ciara? Ok. Why isn’t Shareena coming? OH. She has to go into the conference room? And we go in here. A different room with…a variety of people from the 5 other teams….Ah. I think I know what’s coming…” Now we really do feel like some kind of animal. Maybe not a horse now. More like cattle. Being separated for the cull. But still, they haven’t told us what is going on. Although, deep down, we already know. Looking around at the faces, they are the ones that have been side by side with you. Ranked alongside you. More thoughts of “who has the shiniest coat” comes to mind as the door opened and someone beckons two more out of the room, telling them they were in the wrong place. And that makes you feel even worse. The worried eyes that stay fixed on your face as they leave. And you know they are thinking ‘I’m the only one supporting a family of 5.’ And ‘I’ve just gotten married…and bought a new house. Oh god. Maybe it’s a good sign that Brendan is in with them first. They’ll tell us all after that we are staying. After all, they always tell the people who are leaving first…don’t they…?”
The answer to that question, though, is no. It turns out that they don’t. They tell the cattle that are staying in the fields first, so they can put them back into pasture before they turn to the job of culling the herd.
And then there is that silence. One part of you is going ‘THANK YOU GOD!’ while the other part is urging you to look around and see. See whose faces are there…and work out who isn’t?
Teresa isn’t in the room… She used to mind me when I was little. I played with her daughter. She showed funny pictures of me when I was a kid to everyone, mortifying me. She won’t be doing that next year. That’s sixteen years of work down the tube. No retirement plan for her.
Mary Murphy isn’t in the room either. The woman’s been like a grandmother to me. One I’ve never had. Always with the kiss on the cheek and the tender squeeze of the shoulder to let you know she cares…well, I say tender, but for a 64 year old woman she has the grip of a body builder. She only works so she can bring her special needs son into work. She’s ok. Has now sworn she’ll never work in an office again. Coming up on retirement too. Kind of saw that one coming.
Shareena isn’t there either. But then, I knew that. New house being built. Not good.
Eileen isn’t there either. But she’s ok. She’s going to work with her ex husband. Odd, but she’s ok.
So is Liz. After all, she wanted to go to Australia for a few months…she’s…not devastated…but she’s ok.
And He is staring at you. Him that you know now they only made MD so they could make you redundant. You see, apparently this company generally only has Dutch MD’s…unless they want them to do something dirty and underhanded. Like letting you go. And He is still staring at you, waiting for you all to say something. But we don’t say anything. He uselessly points out that there’s a jug of water on the table if any of us want some. Some valium mixed in with it might be nice. Or, as Ciara O’C pointed out, Whiskey would have been better. So we all get up and leave. Not like there’s anything more to be say, anyhow. And then we pass the conference room. There’s silence in there. And the 13 of us stand there, staring at the door. Glancing out the window, there’s Jim. He was in the room with them. And he’s at the smoking shed. The guy hasn’t smoked in 2 years. But then, he knew he was going. He asked for it.
And Carol is in the bathrooms crying. Just married, new house…worked there for over 10 years. All her friends are here. Were here. Damn, it’s hard when you start talking in the past tense.
And then back into the ranks we go. No one knew we were being told. We’d asked for that. Didn’t want a repeat of the other week when we’d sat down for four days shitting bricks waiting for Thursday to come. Ruined my week, I know that, since I was on holidays when I got the call. And then they didn’t tell us. We walked out that day and went home…well, I say home. I really mean the pub. I didn’t drink, but a lot of others did. 7 o’clock that evening when I went to get some shopping they were still in there. Drinking. Not silent any longer, more rowdy than anything else. People staring at them as they proclaimed that to work is to die. That was when we called Colleen’s husband and asked him to make the ¾ of an hour drive to come pick her up. She’d forgotten to tell him where she was going and hadn’t turned on her phone. He was worried. We didn’t see her again until the following Tuesday. Turns out she can’t remember her husband coming to collect her. She apologised. Another girl who hasn’t had a great year. Her mother died after a long, long illness. Want to give her a hug but I can’t. She’s not really a hugging person.
Mary S is beside me. Staring at the ground. I know she feels guilty. Probably because she is relieved she is staying too. But guilty, because Carol is her friend and she is going. She looks sick to the stomach. She hasn’t had a good year either. Hasn’t had a good two years to tell the truth. Lost family member after family member until all that’s left is one elderly uncle and a cousin in a different country. Her aunt went senile. She’s been left both home houses, but now has to decide which one to sell so she can pay inheritance tax. It’s killing her. Everything is killing her. She’s so bad, she refuses to go home. There’s no one there for her, you see. She’d just be rattling around her house on her own. Probably start drinking and she doesn’t want to go down that road again.
Anne is also smoking. She’s the one with 5 other mouths to feed. Her husband can’t work since the accident that nearly killed them both and their children. Screwed up his back. He’s a taxi driver. So they’ve been surviving on her wages. She has her brown envelope clutched in her hand like a lifeline. I guess, for her, it is. It’s what keeps the roof over their heads and food on the table until she finds something else.
Ciara’s trying her hardest not to cry, and like me, she is staying. But her friends aren’t. The one’s she goes on break with. The one’s that take care of her kids when she’s sick. Her Friends with a capital F. But, she reminds me that they are getting rid of 2.5 more people in September. And she’s the only .5 left. She knows it’ll be her gone then. After all, they need someone to fill up the fraction. So now, we’re not cattle. Or horses or sheep or ducks. We are fractions. Parts of numbers. Not even a whole thing. That sucks too. Knowing that you aren't even a person any more. Not to the people...sorry, the managers who have sat across the dinner table from you more times than you would like to count.

I also realised how bad it is to find out that from all the people that work with you, with some of them having put in ten or twelve years more work than you at the same job…you are staying and they are going. It sucks. It actually sucks. Big time. Either way, people are staring at you. If you are staying, you have the eyes of others on you. Some eyes are saying ‘you aren’t going to be here in 12 months’. Some are saying, ‘bet she feels lucky.’ And others…the one’s that matter. The people who trained you in. The people who covered your mistakes. Your friends, they are looking at you thinking ‘why her? What makes her better than me at this? I’ve been here for longer. I can remember when she started. Why did I cover for her mistakes. Why didn’t I let people know she was completely useless at the start. Sure, she knows what she’s doing now…but…’ and there’s always the But. The big, big But.

But why?

But…

But…I want to keep my job. I like my job. The people I work with are my friends. In some cases, they are their only friends. After all, you work side by side with someone for fifteen or sixteen years, you are bound to either become good friends or dig a letter opener into their backs. You form cliques. The JA’s stick together. The Senior JA’s stick together, and the part time JA’s…the .5’s if you will…they all stick together. Sure, we work as individuals, and we laugh as one whole unit. But we support each other as cliques. As friends. And now, the cliques will be gone. The Part timers are decimated. The SJA’s are untouched…for now…and the others are just worried. Our happy little family is gone. That’s sad. Even my team won’t be the same. It’s the only one to be ripped apart. Our Manager (who had a small nuclear melt down today and started ripping up papers like it was confetti with a look of sheer (scary) determination on her face has also been made the big R word.) So now, I’m not king of the hill any more. I have to slip into another team. Obey orders when I’m kind of used to my orders being obeyed. Try not to upset anyone. Of course, it’s a big weight off my shoulders. No more managers breathing down my back. But how long until they look at me and see that I’m…replaceable…not needed…just a number...redundant…

*hugs*

I agree with Rinso, it was a great way of expressing the situation, and having been through something similar not that long ago (my company went from 40 to 15 people in less than a year, I stayed and watched people who had been there for 20 years get kicked out. not nice) I can say it pretty much expresses what I felt then, and it was very well written.

I hope all your colleagues and friends find new jobs soon.

Thanks guys...things have calmed down here a lot now, but there's still a lot of anger in the air. It is slowly clearing though, and we are now getting down to the more serious business of organising Leaving Get Togethers. Lots of food and drink to be had by all.

And on the bright side, my boss (mental breakdown girl) had an even worse day yesterday. So she cracked a bit more and dragged me into an empty office and vented her anger to me for around an hour and a half. And in the process, told me that on the list of people they have - they have a list numbered 1 to 23 (Yes, yet again I am a number) with number 23 being the last person they will let go, I am number 23. Which was nice... She let me in on where some of my friends ranked, which I am going to have to keep under my hat. Possibly just wear a helmet where no one can see my face, because you see, I'm not the best for keeping my expression blank. It's all in the eyes you know...

...Damn.