The e-mail about a mandatory meeting was suspicious. Anytime you have a surprise mandatory meeting, you know it’s not good. Well, the accounting department has been “consolidated” which is company-speak for we’re moving all the jobs to a central location. Which, of course, means that everyone you know is essentially being laid off.
Even though I work in IT, I’m actually part of the accounting department. It’s just one of the weird things about my company. Luckily, the IT focus of my job means that I stay while others had to pack up their belongings and leave.
Spent the day calling a lot of friends in other offices to see who was staying and who was gone. Had a pretty rough conversation with one of my oldest pals in the company. He was given a choice to stay or go. He chose to leave because he was close to retirement anyway. I’ll be drinking a beer for him and the rest of the folks I won’t be interacting with anymore.
Today I’m feeling equal parts relief, shock and sadness. Wake me up when the walls stop spinning.
–sam