Down-sized?

You mean layed off?

Yes, twice. First time I knew, I was working for the state. We'd been told to expect it due to a reduced budget (economy downturn). Second time I didn't know until I got back from vacation and had my stuff in a box on a desk, I worked for Fortune 500. Currently, I've secured a job with a county govt and we're being told layoffs might be coming due to a tax break deal created by the State.

First time since I expected it, we made plans. 2nd time it was a BIG suprise and kinda made life difficult for about 7 months as I job hunted and took care of our new-born. Currently, I'm not worried, I'm making plans just in case.

In 1989 my job was eliminated at the radio station where I worked for budget reasons - so were a few other jobs that someone else could do (one was news director; management just had whatever announcer was on shift do the news). I had believed - because I wore several "hats" and did diverse things that my job did so many necessary functions that I had job security.

I had no idea it was coming until about two days before and then only because I saw a memo on my boss' desk which I read (yes, I admit to being nosy especially when I see my own name). The station had been through several ownership changes and the staff all was aware that the financial situation was not very strong. But no one - including me - expected that jobs would be cut.

The emotional fallout was difficult, even though I had another job within a few weeks time. Having my job eliminated wrecked my self-esteem for awhile and it affected my freelance writing as well. The experience eroded my confidence for awhile as well and it took time to build it back up. Because I had believed that - because I could do about any job at the station and combined several most of the time - that I was indispenseable. I had given a lot of myself to that station but when the budget crunch came, the stabilitity folded.

If this is what you're looking for, that's my story!

Yeppers, been there, done that. I worked for Kmart in their headquarters when it was in Detroit. They declared bankruptcy and laid off about 800 people within 3 months. I wasn't one of them, but my best friend at work was. The security guards just came up, gave her boxes, told her to pack her stuff and stood there and waiting until they escorted her to her car. Took about 15 minutes before she was gone. It was a shock to everyone in the department.

Then, a few months later, it was announced that another 300 clericals would get laid off. I wasn't one of them either, but it put all of us on notice that it was just a matter of time. Detroit hasn't been a hot-spot for clerical workers before, and already getting 1100 people dumped on the unemployment market made it really tough to even hunt for a job to go to when you still had one.

I survived the bankruptcy, but then the rumors started flying that Kmart was merging with Sears. The up-and-ups denied the merger for months, and then it was announced as final. Then the rumors started that Kmart would move to Chicago, into the Sears Tower and sell the oh-so-prime chunk o'change known as their Troy headquarters. They denied that too. Then my boss (a VP) opted for early retirement and told me, privately, that Kmart was going to let go our entire department and keep the Sears version of it so pretty much no one was going to be moving to Chicago.

It was sweet of him, he didn't have to do it--probably shouldn't've have done it from some standpoint, but it allowed me to review my options. I got laid off, sure enough, about 2 months after he retired (just after training his replacement in the basics) and two weeks later, they started the move to Chicago and laid off the remainder of the 1000 or so clericals in that office.

Emotionally, I was almost prepared for it. I mean, it's always sad to leave people you spend so much time with and geniunely like. It's hard not to have the routine anymore. And even a generous payment to buy your compliance (don't remember what it's really called, but that's what it is) doesn't really help you out when you're facing a very uncertain, unstable job market.

On the other hand, I had time to outline and dive into a new novel that I was suddenly free to write completely, all day, and finished--ready for submission--in 3-4 months. A new record for me. But once that was finished and the unemployment ran out a couple months later, the more-than-full-time job of finding a job just smothered creativity. Two years later, I finally ended up moving out of Michigan and am once again gainfully employed and writing again.

The only GOOD thing about getting laid off is it's the one thing you can put on the job ap that no one ever thinks could possibly be your fault. LOL!

I wasn't fired, but I did lose my job... if that's possible... I was working for a contractor and they lost their contract to someone else. That someone else had their own staff, so they didn't need me. The emotional ride was smooth (I didn't like the job much).

I'm self-employed at the moment and my consulting contract looks like it will end in November. I haven't been notified of the official end date. The client is off-shoring our work to India. The client is also downsizing and will be making major cuts to their permanent staff.

I'm fine with my contract ending as I've prepared for it financially. I just hope I'll be able to find another contract. The fourth quarter isn't a good time to find I.T. contracts. I anticipate I'll be unemployed until January but I'm liking the thought of having six weeks off during the holidays.

The permanent employees are concerned about their jobs. The job cuts haven't been announced yet. Morale is low. People have an "I don't care anymore" attitude about their work because they don't know if they will have a job. There's a fair amount of posturing going on with the management team as some of them will be cut and they are trying to protect their jobs. Management's posturing is disintegrating their leadership which is impacting the staff. The work environment is tense.

In 2003. Company instituted a mandatory 5% salary cut. Oh, and you could volunteer to take a bigger cut for the good of the company.

We were a satellite office up north; home office way down south. We all started to job hunt. The lease on the offices was up the following July, and we figured they'd simply close us up. Meanwhile, another satellite office took us over, and the Antichrist became our manager. (True--the Antichrist is a woman. She wore her hair really high and puffy to hide the horns and any stray 666 tattoos. She obviously could teleport herself in complete silence, too. We'd be working and suddenly get the feeling we weren't alone, turn around, and there she was. No idea how long she'd been watching. Uber-creepy.)

But they blindsided us. Late that May, everyone got called in for a Tuesday morning meeting. A corporate wonk sat at the table, visibly trembling, and told us we were all laid off, effective that Friday. Wow. He answered most questions with corporate double-speak, but two of the newer hires asked how long this had been in the works, and he actually admitted a 9-month timeline. Both those people had been hired 6 months earlier. The rest of us thought they were going to jump over the table and strangle the guy. No wonder he was shaking in his shoes.

The insulting part was they had security guards all ove the office the rest of the week. Gee--maybe the lies and miserliness had us not caring what happened to the company's stuff? True corporate crap in action. The final insult: our unemployment pay was based on the 5% reduced salary!

I was 10 years at that company--some people were 15 years. We all got sloughed off like an old scab.

I knew intellectually that there was no such thing as loyalty anymore. My DH had also been laid off since we were married. But to have it shoved in our faces that the company perceived us as a group--not individuals--who couldn't be trusted not to walk off with a pen or a ream of paper in retaliation. It made us boil.

I have a story. My husband and I both worked at the same large hi-tech company. The work slowly began to dwindle in many departments. I recall people playing cards a lot. Even so, when my husband was laid off it was a shock. We were both pretty upset and I still had to go to work every day, with so many people gone. In many ways, it's worse to be left behind.

A few weeks later, the company closed the whole division and I was laid off too. My husband hadn't yet found a job so we were extremely stressed, both emotionally and financially. Our two children were pretty little at the time. Even though you know it isn't about any individual, it's hard not to take it personally and adopt a "woe is me" attitude.

The main problem with us was that my husband got a bit desperate for work and ended up taking a job at a company in another province and had to travel more than hour to and from work. Eventually the company moved closer to us, but that was years later.

Back before my first child was born, I worked for American Cyanamid - which was the Agricultural division of American Home Products (now Wyeth). The division was sold to BASF in June of 2000 - and BASF swore up and down no one's job would be affected. They trained us on their crappy purchasing system (which made no sense and didn't suit our needs - made twice as much work for us), all the while assuring us that we were safe.

Well, low and behold, by August of 2000, murmurings started that they were shutting down our facility. They offered to transfer some people to their north Jersey office when the actual layoffs took place (I was one of them) - but told most people they would be laid off when the dust settled. After months of training and promises, they closed the entire division by the end of 2001. I think about 10 people were relocated, the rest were just let go.

It didn't bother me, though - because my husband and I had already decided I would stay home with our daughter. BASF offered a severance package, but only if I would return to work until the bitter end. Otherwise, no dice. I couldn't voluntarily leave any earlier, but had to wait until they gave me the boot. At first it would be only 6 weeks, then maybe 12 weeks (this was at the beginning of May when the offer was made). Well, then they couldn't guarantee when they'd actually let me go.

Sooo, my husband and I weighed the cost of day care for the baby vs the amount of the severance. We'd have ended up in the hole at the end. So, I took great delight in telling BASF what they could do with their stupid purchasing system and their severence and their "well, at most it'll be 6 months, but you can't quit, we have to let you go" nonsense and I quit in June of 2001. HR was in shock - kept asking me if I really knew what I was doing (yep - guess they thought I was either stupid or crazy. The HR person actually said, "You do understand what you're doing, right? You know what you're walking away from?" Duh.) Fortunately, we were in the position of being able to walk away from their laughable severence - a lot of the people I worked with didn't have that luxury, and had larger families to support. After a year's worth of nonsense, they were let go en masse. It sucked and I was glad to be out of there before the bloodletting.

Yeppers. One hospital I worked for was sold and the new veterinarian had her own techs - I was offered the opportunity to stay for a 50% pay reduction. I left. Trying out a new profession, I was there one year when they decided to downsize - the choice was leave or move to Topeka Kansas (from Seattle).

Then just over a year ago my sister was working for a multi-national advertising agency in the accounting department, good job, great pay. They decided to save a fortune by sending all of their accounting to India.

Being downsized (let go, terminated) feels like being kicked in the gut without ever seeing it coming. You feel discarded. Thrown away. Your loyalty to the company thrown back in your face by an emotionless entity.

Oh, and your mother thinks you're a failure, too. That's always nice.

Several times!

Sometimes you can see it coming, as business declines, sometimes the management has a plan that minimizes the pain, sometimes the announce the cutbacks and everyone waits for the axe to fall, and sometimes you get blindsided by a sudden management decision.

I never took it personally, although some co-workers did. I just moved on to the next place.

GOOD EXPERIENCES:
Intel was moving some production from AZ to Malaysia ... the employees in that division had first chance at any opening in the company they were qualified for, there was a full-time career counselor for them, and by the time the dust settled there were maybe 50 of the 1200 or so that were not employed somewhere. Soon a new product that employed 50% more people was in production, and staff from other divisions that were downsizing moved in. It's almost amoeboid.

WIERD EXPERIENCE:
Getting fired by a company a week before the rumors of layoffs began, and a month before they officially announced massive layoffs. I had a 1-week head start on finding a job, ahead of the ones who resigned when they heard about the layoffs (often the really good ones), and was already employed by the time the axe really fell.

WORST EVER: In a public meeting, with all the employees present, the company owner announced that there were going to be lay-offs ... then named us all and said our services would not be needed beyond that afternoon! This was about an hour before the company Christmas party.

I was annoyed but figured that I had enough monye to have a nice holiday and then find another job, the novice tech writer (her first job) was terrified she's never find work again with it on her resume, and the ex-newspaper reporter had a hard time not giggling (he'd been fired at least three times by every newspaper he had ever worked for).

Several months later, when their business was picking up and they were desperate for skilled editors who knew how to use a high-priced publicaiton system, they called us all and asked us if we would come back. I think that "Hell no!" was the best answer they got, and I know none of us went back.

LEFT BEHIND:
It's spooky ... one company just kept getting rid of people a few at a time, the building got emptier and emptier ... twilight zone material.

My husband used to work for a struggling dot-com. He believed in it, and when it started to go down-hill, he agreed to a 50% paycut to be able to keep his job. A couple months later, they told him he would need to take another 50% paycut, or would have to be let go. He wisely choose to cut his losses at this point, instead of working for a quarter of his original salary (which really, wasn't all that much in the first place).

The only time I was going to be downsized, I had enough notice that I left before it was going to happen. Unfortunately for that hospital department, almost everyone else also found work and they had to hire temps for the last few months. That's part of why employers wait til the last moment, to prevent that from happening

HoosierCowgirl said:

Hi, everybody,
Have any of you ever been down-sized or riffed? (reduction in force)

Did you know it was coming?

What was the emotional ride like?

TIA

Ann

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Never been riffed, but have been involved in a few cases of RIF. Some companies are pretty sophisticated at hiding their true motives (age is usually the targeted group since they make the most $$).

I know it can take a pretty severe emotional toll (not to mention an economic hit).

My first stint in the workforce was in aerospace - need I say more. Government contracts come and government contracts go. I was layed off, called back, and layed off again (in the course of five years). After that I abandoned aerospace and started working for government - after all, they're the ones with the money. Puma

I've been on the other side of this -- the boss who had to fire people because their jobs had been eliminated -- twice.

The first time, no one, including me, had any idea this was coming. The regional manager simply dropped by one day and told me to fire several people, including my assistant, effective that day. We had been doing things like paying a deposit for a two-week training class, for an employee who was fired days later. (The deposit was refundable.) When I asked why it was so sudden, I was told that it was the company's policy to pretend that everything was fine until the day they let people go, so no one would suspect.

The second time, it was due to a downturn in the economy. I think a number of people suspected that they would be let go, because business was so bad. That time, I wasn't surprised.

Interestingly, I was in the hotel business when it was decimated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The company made a point of not letting people go, although they cut some employee's hours from 40 per week to 24 per week. (They also arranged for those people to keep their benefits, even though they were technically part-time.)

JoniBGoode said:

Interestingly, I was in the hotel business when it was decimated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The company made a point of not letting people go, although they cut some employee's hours from 40 per week to 24 per week. (They also arranged for those people to keep their benefits, even though they were technically part-time.)

Click to expand...

Do you mind sharing what company that was, even if it's a PM? Sounds like someone I'd like to do business with.

Thanks!

Yes, I was workin in accounts receivables for a company and the board of directors overthrew our president and vice president.

New guy came in to run the place...fired almost everyone. I would warn those I could that it was coming (I usually knew before they did).

I received my pink slip and 2 weeks notice and MY boss (also my best friend, but not at the time) told him that if he fired me, she would quit.

we looked through the sunday paper together for jobs. lol

this one has a happy ending

i worked for the state social services for 6 years. from time to time they would sit us all down in the board room and explain to us how "good" we had it. this always came before some promised benefit had to be cancelled, or some new policy that gave us more work. at these meetings they let it be known that "cuts" were headed our way. two of my co-workers were single moms. they were often distraught even before we went into the meeting. the atmosphere during these meetings was toxic. i swear the personnel officer would smirk as she read the dire warnings to us. i realized that, like simon legree, my employer liked to keep us in a constant state of humiliation and inner turmoil.

the budget situation only worsened.

finally a special "axe woman" came out from the SOB --state office building. rumor had it that she had been sent to do the head lopping. of course she started the massacre by having all of these touchy-feely sessions about respect. all the time i could not help noticing the veterans were disappearing like the house guests in a british murder mystery.

my friends and i were relatively safe because we had not worked there long enough to make the laughable salary that was considered big bucks. the shame was that a lot of older men and women who had worked in the field during the forties and fifties, under the county system of welfare, were losing their jobs. just before retirement.

and the axe woman was one of the most insincere, underhanded people i had ever come across. (of course i was only 30 at the time. since then i have met her evil twin a couple of times.) anyway i had a teaching degree. my husband was a teacher. he did not make a lot of money starting out, but as the years went by he actually got a raise every year. still, i was making half the income and we had 3 small kids. my husband told me "what is the point of working a job you hate for the rest of your life? surely not that pitiful pension. you know they are going to can you before you can collect it."

it took some extra work and extra expense to get my certificate up to date, but i started night classes. the axe woman watched me like a hawk to make sure i did not do any homework on the state's time. she took great pleasure telling me that i would never get hired as a teacher. she said there weren't enough teaching jobs-that everyone and his dog had an english degree. but one fine day i got the hell out of there and never looked back.

my friends who stuck it out go through the same damn thing every year or two. the state has become even more empathetic about letting people go. they now have this cute little movie about mice and cheese that they show just before they begin another round of head lopping.

the axe woman? well, she somehow got on the wrong side of the axe. the last time i saw her she had had to give up her cushy office and salary. she was working in a coat closet at 40% of what she used to make. trying to hang on till retirement. i didn't even say hi. my friends who work there are still laughing at the look on her face when she had to watch the mouse and cheese movie--s6