It did make me smile, which is difficult today. Yesterday, I found out that I and 5 of the 9 members of my team are potentially unemployed as of 4/2/09. I fell horribly for all of us. I have been wondering what I did wrong as a supervisor. Did I not get my team enough visibility? Did I not show the value of what we do? They (the ubiquitous "they" of corporate America) do not see the point in keeping the team, or perhaps even the functions we perform. Yesterday was full of tearful conference calls, and many offers of sympathy. However, the company isn't concerned too deeply, and I have to wonder how the hell some of these folks sleep at night knowing that 2 weeks before Christmas, in this economy, they have likely placed people in harm's way.
I am sick to my stomach thinking of the people who will be out of work, and I am trying to be as positive as possible. I know negative thinking will only provide negative results, but honestly this is difficult.
Today I am updating my resume, and looking for jobs for myself and my employees. I will quote what I noted during the meetings yesterday because I honestly think the people running this circus have NO CLUE what they are doing, and how it affects not only the people working around them, but how it affects their customer base.
Directly from my notes:
blah blah blah
Restructure
blah blah blah
Strategic Sourcing
blah blah blah
Financial Commitment
blah blah blah
175 people will be affected
45% will be offered other positions
From the next meeting where I asked a question I already knew the answer to, in order to determine if anyone in leadership had the balls to tell the truth (which they did not):
blah blah blah
Cycle of Change
blah blah blah
We understand
blah blah blah
There was one nugget of information that did prove to be useful, yet painful. The decision on who were chosen to stay was based on how the supervisors rated and ranked them. Later in the day, during a tearful call, I apologized to my team and told them this fact. Everyone knew where they ranked when that was done, ad that made sense to them all, yet none were happy, including me.
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