So, another round of layoffs today at my place of employment. One person gone, one person cut to half-time, a branch office closed. I had really hoped that the last round of layoffs (a year ago now) would have been it...that as a result of that day, we'd be bare-bones and we wouldn't have to go through this again.
But evidently I was wrong.
So, the person who is gone is a woman I've known for 30 years. I truly don't know how she will find another job, in an area where 10 percent of the people are unemployed, and she's over 60. I feel lousy, mostly because I told her about the job to begin with, and because she's been let go and brought back before; so it's like being dumped twice by the same guy. I have a sneaking suspicion that she won't take us up on an offer to return a third time, should it ever be made again.
And I feel even lousier that I don't feel overly lousy. In the back of my mind, I knew that something drastic was going to have to happen, because the money is not coming in - but yet, we all still expect our paychecks. I wasn't far enough up the totem pole to know exactly WHAT that something drastic would be until just 90 minutes or so before it happened. Anyway, when I heard, I certainly wanted to puke - but I knew that there were few other options. Cut a few now and close an under-performing branch or face closing ALL the doors in a few months...I'm not privy to the financial records (that totem pole thing again), but unless the boss has a bucket of cash somewhere, that seems like it would be the logical conclusion.
I heard somewhere that this is called "survivor's guilt" - the phenomenon when you feel badly for someone, but relieved that it wasn't you - and I guess that's a good name for it. I feel guilty. And I'm also triaging how this will affect my department (which it will, substantially). So then I feel doubly guilty for focusing on myself and my workload instead of my 2 co-workers.
Bad Tina. Bad Bad Tina. Bad friend.
So, this all takes effect on August 1st. Boy, July's going to be lots and lots of fun. A regular dance party. I'll keep you posted.
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Feel for ya--- and I wouldn't want to be in your position at all. HOWEVER, Confucious say "look out for number one lest you step in number two" Crappy (pun intended!) way to look at things, but you have to take care of you and yours before you can help others.
ReplyDeleteThat's about how I feel when the US gives foreign aid (be it money, soldiers, etc). Take care of US THEN work on the rest of them.
~peace