Here We Go Again…Part 2

It was on the printer near my office cubicle. It was an agenda for a big meeting the big kahunas at work attended recently.

Naturally, my nosey nature took over and I glanced at it (hey, who left it there for all to see?). Not for long, but long enough to see some interesting agenda items, such as reviewing staffing levels to see if any positions needed to be cut (and to be fair, if positions needed to be added and where).

No, I haven’t mentioned to this anyone else in the office. For one, the deadline for these decisions, if any, aren’t until October.

Reality Check: I can’t say I’m surprised. We have a new CEO and of course it’s his mandate to review the entire company structure to ferret out inefficiencies and find areas where money can be better spent to boost revenues. Frankly, if he didn’t do that, he wouldn’t be doing his job.

Or it could be mere busy work for upper management types. What better kind than screwing around with the lives of underlings. Gives them a sense or power, I guess. They get to play God.

Nevertheless, at this point, it’s in the discussion stage. Who knows what will happen between now and the fall? He may make radical changes, or none at all. And no one knows where those changes, if any, will occur. And it’s pretty obvious that management is no rush to make these decisions, that these discussions are not being done out of desperation and panic as it was at my former employer.

So getting worried at this time is probably premature. Yet it’s just another disheartening reminder that our professional fates are being discussed in some meeting room somewhere by a group of mostly white, middle-aged males. Not very comforting.

The best we can hope for is that any dismissals are done in a respectful, thoughtful manner for the individuals whose jobs are on the line. That those of us who may lose our jobs aren’t being laid off because some douchebag supervisor wants to get rid of us for personal reasons so he or she can keep his or her incompetent lapdogs or drinking buddies on staff.


Reality Check Again: Let's not get too negative. Negative thoughts can become negative reality. There may be massive layoffs, there may none. No one, including the new CEO, knows at this point.

So what can I do? Well, this may just be the push I need to update my resume.