Getting Laid Off

I managed to survive the first round, and I had hoped that if I kept my head down and my mouth shut that I wouldn't be singled out. However, it didn't seem to matter. Even before the first round, I kept being told things that were contradictory - my managers (in QA, not engineering) would tell me one thing, and others, executives usually, would tell me something completely the opposite. If I questioned one of them, they would claim that the other person was lying (not mistaken, lying). Eventually I figured out that pretty much all of them were lying to me to some extent.

I didn't ask to hear this stuff. I actually managed to avoid hearing most of it, but sometimes it seemed as if people went out of their way to tell me things - I don't know if it was to piss me off, to get me to complain, or get me to quit. Whatever the reason, it upset me and hurt me a lot.

I also discovered that none of them could be trusted with confidential information - even information that I didn't tell them, that they found out on their own, would get spread all over the office. I sat in a closed room with the director of HR, and we discussed some recent events that really upset me. This person shared with me some of his complaints in some very strong language. Now, I did intend for him to express to upper management that there were concerns about these events, but I felt that if we were in a room discussing something with the door closed that names shouldn't be tattled about. Later I found out that this person had told all of upper management, and possibly more, nearly everything I said in that room, even what had nothing to do with my original complaint.

This just continued a general trend. Apparently anything I said, no matter how innocuous I thought it was, would get spread around to management, even by MY OWN MANAGERS and THEIR managers. Shortly before I got laid off, I was informed that someone had been promoted to a position where they could decide to fire me, and that it was highly likely because that person didn't like me. This person told me that this was due to his having laid off my boyfriend for questionable reasons, and that ever since then this executive had had problems with my still being there. What these problems would be, I don't know. Did he think I would sabotage something? If so, I certainly had plenty of chances and several months to do so, but I didn't (because I'm a professional, get it???). On the other hand, my informant had a reputation for lying, and said he thought he was about to be let go as well, so I have no idea how true his claims were.

I am incredibly disappointed in the actions of these people. It is a small company (now even smaller)**, and in the end, it really didn't do them any good to backstab like that, because they got laid off anyway. I left my company feeling as if I had had no friends whatsoever in my chain of command, the entire time I was there. Isn't it the job of your manager to stick up for you? If you can't trust your manager, what exactly are they for, anyway? Now I can't believe a word they have said to me, and I will never work with them again. I feel as if this atmosphere was created by the executives, and so I will never again work at a company with them either.

I wish people would think about what they do and say, and how it affects others. I don't know what was going on in these people's minds, but it seems to me that their world consists of themselves and their interests, and everyone else is like a cardboard cutout. Do they care that they are jerking people around? Furthermore, why lie? If you are an HR person, and you can't tell an employee something, how hard is it to just say "I can't tell you?"

The worst part is that this was rubbing off on me. I became so frustrated and upset that I stopped being straight with people because they'd just tattle about it again. I felt like these people had lost my trust and so all they deserved from me was diplomacy, not truth. I really do not like being put in such a position.

Getting laid off the last time was upsetting mostly because I don't like being in a financially dicy position; this time, I wouldn't have minded it so much if I had been treated with more respect. What's also sad is that after the behavior I witnessed from the first set of layoffs, I pretty much stopped caring about the company. Eventually my disillusionment started to go away, because things seemed to be getting better - then it got worse than ever - any enthusiasm I had left was completely erased shortly after the arrival of a new CEO and the ultra-secretive, backstabbing and capricious atmosphere he helped create. Mind you, he didn't create it from nothing. The seeds were already there; he just watered regularly.

I understand that companies will have politics. However, I should at least be able to trust my own manager, and to a certain extent, my manager's manager. I had this trust at my previous company. My last set of managers there I believed would stick up for me, and did. They were straight with me when I screwed up and when I did well. When I complained, I was taken seriously, and something was done. I didn't even have to be diplomatic, walking on eggshells - I could be direct. At this recent company, people would nod and say, yes, yes, you're right, we'll get right on it, but nothing whatsoever would change.

All in all, I am glad I'm not working there any more. The well was poisoned, and it was beginning to seriously affect me. I really mourn the loss of a great place to work in so short a period of time. I am sad because it didn't seem to matter how much I tried to be quiet and do my job, and when I actually made a real complaint (as opposed to general griping about small stuff that everyone does), it was either in private or it was as constructively critical as I could make it - I really only made waves toward the end when I felt I didn't have much to lose - I wanted upper management to know that people (like myself) were upset by certain executive actions, so much so that they were seriously thinking about leaving.

I wish people would see that in the long run there isn't much to gain, and a lot to lose. In me, they lost an ally and a potential friend. By doing this to more than one person, they lost the same, and also their credibility. The reprieve from being laid off that some may have gained was obviously temporary. The ones who acted like this and who are left, now find themselves in charge of what? A dying company full of people who are shell-shocked, disillusioned, who have what seems like an impossible set of deadlines, and many who are job hunting anyway. It's like trying to win a civil war in Ethiopia. The land was fragile already and the people were poor; constant war created famine and disease. Once someone 'wins,' what is it they win? Not fabulous riches, not a wealth of happy, healthy citizens, not a motherlode of gross domestic product, but a wasteland, battle-scarred and fallow, full of the sick and downtrodden.

**Actually, they are pretty much completely out of business now, so it REALLY didn't help.

This page last updated on 02/26/2008, 07:17 pm