The dreaded meeting

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

I got called into the meeting room Friday morning.
And got made redundant.

I wasn't expecting it, apparently our sales forecasts were so far down due mainly to the strength of the Aussie dollar. So they had to get rid of all staff not directly involved with Sales and Manufacturing.
I was RnD. A couple of other guys went too.

Anyway once the shock was over and I saw that they could give me a decent payout and remembering that my wife has a job.  I wasn't worried at all just looking forward to Christmas and summer.
I explained to them no worries, I have other options and we left on very good terms.
Actually came home, got a beer out of the fridge and watched the cricket that day.

Now that I have gone only a couple of things irk me,
I had access to some good equipment there and that is gone, we even just got a pick and place machine and a wave solderer and infrared (I think) solderer, all second hand but none of it even turned on.
Also had an old 6 axis spot welding robot, which I had partly reverse engineered the programming of.

The other thing was that I had completed stage I of a difficult software project, it is now being used and works well.
I can't see stage II being finished by our IT consultants. After all they had completely failed to get stage I working a year after they said they would.

It just seems a shame to spend time making/creating stuff and only partially complete it.

[IanB]

Oh boy, that sucks.

Unfortunately, getting rid of R&D is the worst decision management could make. In the short term they will improve their cash flow, but they will be coasting. Before long customers will be complaining about lack of enhancements and new features, and will start departing for competitors with better offerings. It's a vicious circle that can kill a company.

When the market is lean companies need to invest in better products to take advantage of the markets when they pick up again. That is harder to do for small companies than bigger companies.

I hope you find something new and interesting next year.

[EEVblog]

I got called into the meeting room Friday morning.
And got made redundant.

Bummer 

I wasn't expecting it, apparently our sales forecasts were so far down due mainly to the strength of the Aussie dollar. So they had to get rid of all staff not directly involved with Sales and Manufacturing.
I was RnD. A couple of other guys went too.

Typical! 

Anyway once the shock was over and I saw that they could give me a decent payout and remembering that my wife has a job.  I wasn't worried at all just looking forward to Christmas and summer.
I explained to them no worries, I have other options and we left on very good terms.
Actually came home, got a beer out of the fridge and watched the cricket that day.

That's the way. Not worth worrying about for more than a minute.
Take a few well earned months off with the money and then go looking for a new job, which BTW, is always better than your previous job!
Funny how life works like that...

Now that I have gone only a couple of things irk me,
I had access to some good equipment there and that is gone, we even just got a pick and place machine and a wave solderer and infrared (I think) solderer, all second hand but none of it even turned on.
Also had an old 6 axis spot welding robot, which I had partly reverse engineered the programming of.

Yeah, losing access to gear and facilities can suck.
Is there a hackerspace in your city?

The other thing was that I had completed stage I of a difficult software project, it is now being used and works well.
I can't see stage II being finished by our IT consultants. After all they had completely failed to get stage I working a year after they said they would.
It just seems a shame to spend time making/creating stuff and only partially complete it.

My entire career was spent creating projects that never got finished! 
Not worth worrying about either!

Dave.

[jeroen74]

I was made redundant (as a outside contractor) in April due to budget cuts. A few months after the promise of tier-whatever management no engineers, only support personal like secretaries and a couple of managers were to be laid off in this year's reorganisation Came as really big surprise to everyone really. Fifteen other outside contractors were laid off too at the same time. Since then a vacancy stop.

Last week I talked to a then-coworker and I heard that they are now going to lay off another 177 people.

The funny thing is, when I got the job two half years ago, I was introduced to a guy that just got laid off in that year's reorganisation. That felt really odd. But he got lucky and the notice was undone. I guess he got tired of those reorganisations and quit a couple of months ago  and got replaced by someone from the Indian branch.

Of course, in a couple of months they'll find (again) they do not have enough personnel, so they'll start hiring like crazy again.

[EEVblog]

Yeah, Bummer. Been to that meeting  too. Lots of people have, even here in Australia where we were supposed to be doing OK.

Both me and Mrs EEVblog were made redundant in the same year.

Dave.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

The bad part is when I came home South Africa were 6 out for not much, now they're killing us. 3 down and 400 runs in front.

Hope you picked up something else  jeroen74,getting laid off is bad but getting laid off with hundreds of others must make it really hard.

[SeanB]

My meeting was after the speech that all was done and dusted...... Oh, we thought you were still off on your trip to PTA, sorry........ Ah well, at least I did get a government ticket trade test out of it, the next rounds got sweet nothing other than good luck wishes and platitudes.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

My entire career was spent creating projects that never got finished! 
Not worth worrying about either!

Yes my favourite EEVblog episode is http://www.eevblog.com/2009/10/28/eevblog-40-dilbert-and-the-world-of-micro-managed-engineering/
Rings true with a lot of projects I have been involved with.
At the start of projects a lot of people forget how easy it is for a project to fail or disappear. I really need to get my success rate up and it annoys me putting the work in and then seeing something disappear.

Actually probably my most successful project was a Commando project, which was done against the explicit wishes of the CEO. Six months later he asks me to look into it and I wheeled out my secret project. Heh Heh Heh, ask no questions.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

My meeting was after the speech that all was done and dusted...... Oh, we thought you were still off on your trip to PTA, sorry........

Sounds like they were the ones that should have been laid off.

[Pat Pending]

We used to get emails from HR saying so and so has 'left' the company ... etc
But that no longer happens, in fact the phone directory on the IP phones is first to know followed by us discovering the email bouncing.

Do you know if the folks remaining were informed of your departures or were you spirited away ?

[bullet308]

Got fired once from a career I loved for "cause" (made-up bullshit). Devastating.

Then, it turned out that six months later, the boss that made it happen got a huge promotion and a raise. Super bummer.

Six months after that, he had no less than four female employees come forward and accuse him of sexual harassment. <boot> Out the door.

Restored my general faith in karma, and also materially improved the condition of mine, as I was less inclined to roll out of bed in the morning wishing a particularly slow and painful form of pancreatic cancer on his sorry ass.

To this day, and for other reasons as well, I think the average MBA is a sorry sack of useless shit.

[Bored@Work]

Did your managers at least had the balls to fire you in person?

One of the worst tricks pulled on me was to be herded into a meeting room with hundreds of colleagues only to be told to be redundant by some hired piece of shit from a consulting company specialized in "helping" companies with workforce reductions. He, and a bunch of hired thugs, who were supposed to make sure we didn't burn down the place, were the only ones there. The management was absent the whole day.

Colleagues who later tried to contest their firing figured out that the consulting company was already secretly busy for some time in the company. All group managers had received special training how to prepare files on every employee and to collect things that could possibly help to fire the employee. Group managers had checklists of behavior to look out for and to document it in the employee's file in such a way that it could be interpreted as a cause for firing. I believe some managers used the checklists to encourage some behavior so they got something for their files.

In hindsight that explained a lot of strange things going on in the month before and the general bad "vibe" in that company.

Now back to the topic, depending on Australian laws and your knowledge about the company this might be a good time to ask a lawyer if there are ways to squeeze a little bit of pocket money out of your ex-employer. E.g. for overtime work they didn't properly pay.

[EEVblog]

One company I was with rounded everyone up in a room (1/3rd the company) while the IT group took all their computers (lest they freak out and format the network drive), then had security watch them pack their things and march then out the door.

You Know Who wasn't so bad, we knew about the China move from a company wide email a month before it happened, and then everyone basically knew who was going and who was staying based on who had been asked if they wanted to move to China, and who wasn't asked. A bit impersonal though, left a lot of people hanging, and ended up a schamozzle, but at least you got the hint so you could start job hunting a month early. Then when you did get the boot, they gave you a few days to finish stuff up.

Dave.

[firewalker]

Some times it helps negotiations if you are the only person who knows where the passwords for encrypted volumes are.  %-B

Alexander.

[Uncle Vernon]

I got called into the meeting room Friday morning.
And got made redundant.

Not nice, and a particularly painful time of year, given most positions vacant won't begin before February. I am sad to hear this and have to say your business dealing have always been polite, courteous and professional.

I hope you next venture offers you every success.

And I hope you get to see the greatest revival of all time on days 4 & 5 at the WACA!

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Did your managers at least had the balls to fire you in person?

Yes it was done in person, it was done just right.
The told me I had been made redundant gave me a letter explaining that we would convene in an hour to discuss the redundancy and listen to whatever I had to say. They told me to go for a walk to gather my thoughts first so I would be ready for the meeting.

Do you know if the folks remaining were informed of your departures or were you spirited away ?

I shook hands with everybody as I left including the bosses, I do believe it is their right to sack me if they don't need me.
My boss was also a very good technical engineer who was willing to spend money on RnD, but really our manufacturing costs, as an exporter are what is hurting us. Plus a couple of untimely fuck-ups that I had nothing to do with.

But I guess the redundancy was easier because I have confidence in my skills and prospects, and no immediate money worries. And looking forward to a holiday/new start. I can imagine this would be much more difficult in many circumstances.

One reason the redundancy was done properly is because we are in Hobart which is a small city, it is a different vibe from Sydney. People really don't shaft people because it comes back to you.

Some times it helps negotiations if you are the only person who knows where the passwords for encrypted volumes are.

Yes the thought is always there,  but we are paid regularly to help our employer not hinder them, I would have trouble turning up to work if I kept that attitude.

Anyway now I have an inkling of what it's like for those guys whose Economies are in the doldrums.

your business dealing have always been polite, courteous and professional.

No worries Uncle V, same to you, except for (even when) you're flooded.

[GeoffS]

It's always a bit of a shock when it happens (happened to me once) and can affect you in unexpected ways.

Still, Hobart is not a bad place to be out of work. I moved down here from Sydney to do just that 

[r90s]

Really hope things work out very soon, and even work out to the better for you.

[TerraHertz]

Sorry to hear it. But sounds like money is not a big problem.

One of the reasons I decided to retire/switch direction a few years ago, was a long run of having _every_ job I worked at go up in smoke in some ridiculously sucky way or other. Lets see...
There was the gaming machine company, developing what would have been the world's first pokie with 3D graphics. Hired on as part of a large development team. My job was porting the 3DfX drivers (we licensed the source code) from the PC platform to the poker machine's MIPS board. 8 months grind, and the code ran the graphics test suite first time. So we had a working prototype, with some simple demos, it was all going great and on schedule. Now the company was an Oz subsidiary of a Japanese company. The local GM was the only Japanese. Didn't speak much English apparently, and we rarely saw him. One day a few weeks before Christmas a lot of Japanese guys in suits turned up in the Admin area. Mysterious.

Two weeks before Christmas there's a meeting called, everyone to attend. Virtually everyone made redundant, most projects simply ditched. It turned out the GM had been embezzling. So the Japanese decided everything he'd had anything to do with was tainted, and to be scrapped. Sent him home to go practice single-player swordplay on Mt Fuji or something like that. So, 8 months of our hard work just thrown to the wind for no fault of ours. Also they passed up having the first 3D-graphics gambling platform, by years. So stupid.

And that was just the start of the run of bad luck. It got worse.
Eventually I swore I'm never going to work for a corporation, ever again.

[RCMR]

This is one of the reasons that I've been self-employed (with only a few breaks) for nearly my entire adult life.

At least I know my employment status and have control over my destiny.

Although sometimes the money really sucks :-)

[MikeK]

Yeah, it sucks, Fridge.  Enjoy the time off, though.

To this day, and for other reasons as well, I think the average MBA is a sorry sack of useless shit.

This is a good rule of thumb.  I blame business schools for many problems.  They take people incapable of actually doing something and teach them the stupid philosophy that all businesses are the same.

Which reminds me of an incident a handful of years ago in India (I think), where the MBA type came to the factory to announce massive layoffs.  They didn't let him leave...They killed him.

[Ed.Kloonk]

[Neilm]

Did your managers at least had the balls to fire you in person?

Yes it was done in person, it was done just right.

I remember when I was made redundant when the company decided to close the site I worked at. It was the only time I ever saw the MD.

The funniest thing I thought was that we were going to deliver a new system to a customer that September, the day that the last person left the factory. The management assured the customer that the delivery timescales would be unaffected.

They weren't and it was finally delivered that December, which pleased one Engineer who was going on a round the world cruise after Christmas so he could work up until then. Even then I believe that it took the new project engineers several months to debug the system as they were having to try to learn it as they went.

Good on the job hunting

Neil

[lewis]

This is one of the reasons that I've been self-employed (with only a few breaks) for nearly my entire adult life.

At least I know my employment status and have control over my destiny.

Absolutely. Start your own business matey, it's awesome.

Although sometimes the money really sucks :-)

And sometimes it's great! What you earn, you keep

[RCMR]

Although sometimes the money really sucks :-)

And sometimes it's great! What you earn, you keep

Have you not been introduced to the taxman?  %-B   I wish I *did* get to keep what I earned but he has different ideas about that 

[bullet308]

Yeah, it sucks, Fridge.  Enjoy the time off, though.

To this day, and for other reasons as well, I think the average MBA is a sorry sack of useless shit.

This is a good rule of thumb.  I blame business schools for many problems.  They take people incapable of actually doing something and teach them the stupid philosophy that all businesses are the same.

Which reminds me of an incident a handful of years ago in India (I think), where the MBA type came to the factory to announce massive layoffs.  They didn't let him leave...They killed him.

I have a bit of an "advantage", of sorts, in that my masters degree is in business education, which realistically qualified me to teach high school kids how to touch-type and MS Office, more than anything else, as those were the bulk of the actual job openings. But, the conceit (rarely fulfilled) was that we would actually be teaching them business management stuff, so we actually took the bulk of the core MBA courses along with the MBA students.

The stuff that was being taught was sensible and ethical enough, and I later took a hard look at doing a PhD in business as a lot of interesting research is done in that field*..but the people that showed up to take those MBA classes...ugh. Pod People wtih dollar signs in their eyes and hardness in their heart. Wouldn’t give you a wooden nickel for the whole lot. Thoroughly unimpressive intellectually, morally or in any other sense besides being minority gifted at analyzing numbers. And this was one of the better MBA programs in the US.

*incidentally, one of the major reasons I didn’t do the PhD program was the prospect of spending my career researching organizational behaviour and having to dig through the gross dysfunction of structures and cultures that were largely designed and constructed by, you guessed it, MBAs. And, mind you, that was *before" I got shitcanned by one.

Oh, and there was the minor matter of those eight years under America's first and I-hope-to-friggin'-God last MBA president, and that last clown the GOP tried to foist off on us....