I Made It Through The Layoff!

All I can say is Praise the Lord! My company layed off thousands of people this week, and my division had their layoffs today. My entire building was shut down for the day, and each employee was given an appointment time to meet with someone (HR and/or their manager). My appointment was at 9:20, and I found out yesterday that I had one of the earlier appointment times after I compared with a few of my friends.

After meeting with my bosses’ boss, he informed me that I can relax because I’ll still be working for my company tomorrow. He then told me that my group was hit as bad as some others, and that this layoff had more to do with specific jobs that are going away more than it did individual people’s performance. This is a little scary to me, because the decisions about who to lay off were made three levels above me. Therefore it was my bosses’ bosses’ boss that participated in these decisions, and it looks like high performing employees that were simply in the wrong job at the wrong time were layed off. Someone I would have felt better if I had been told that -were let go and good performers were used to back fill them (if they’re jobs weren’t being eliminated entirely).

I do feel very bad and unsettled that so many people had to lose their jobs. Clearly there are economic reasons that drove some of these decisions, but there are a lot of people out there living paycheck to paycheck that just lost their jobs and may have trouble finding a suitable replaced. Fortunately my firm most likely offered a considerable severance and allowed some older employees an opportunity to retire early (if they were 50-55 or older and would otherwise have been layed off). I don’t think as ‘good’ as this is anyone in this position would really care. After all, most people are unprepared to retire (50-55 or at any other age), and finding another job in the 50’s is probably more challenging than it is for someone in their 30’s and 40’s.

I wrote earlier this week about how my company gave us over a months notice that a layoff would occur last time (3 years ago), so thankfully we only had about 3 full days of “official” notice plus 1-2 weeks of rumors.

I’m sure everyone that makes it through a layoff is relieved, but I can say with twins on the way and a wife that wants to stay home with them that this is a huge load off my mind. I appreciate all of the prayers of my friends and family and the continual blessings of the Lord. I know I don’t deserve anything from Him, but I am grateful to have work (at all!) and for not having to start a new job hunt and/or potentially move.

This event has given me reason to think through a bunch of what-if’s, and I plan to post about my recommendations and experiences through this layoff in the next few weeks.

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