Friday, July 8, 2011

Packaged departures

I’m not saying there’s a connection to me causing five layers of management to approve blowing nearly $18 of corporate funds on a computer mouse for me, but there is a raftload of people leaving the company permanently. Today the air in the cubicle/mushroom-farm around me was full of the sounds of packing tape being peeled off rolls and sealing up moving cartons.

Also, there were corks popping after people got back from a three-hour lunch.

Actually, the deal is that, back when the CEO announced that the company was, ah, not performing to expectations, part of the “fix” was to shed jobs like a python does skin. And in addition to unnumbered layoffs (still TBD), they offered retirement packages to (apparently) every employee with a combination of age plus years with the company that equals 65. And a lot of them have accepted the offer.

Not a lot of lead time on the leaving, either: the head of the engineering group on the product I’m working on announced to the team on the 27th that he was “taking the package”. And this past Tuesday he told us that today is his final day.

And as of Tuesday he had no idea who would be stepping into his management shoes. All he knew was that the company had sent him a shipping label (he works remotely) to return his computer gear today.

One of my product management colleagues, barely 30 but a ten-year veteran with the company, seems to think that anyone who wouldn’t take a package and get out is an idiot. Since he otherwise is a person of extraordinarily positive attitude, I need to find out more about this.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll take a little sweep around the cube farm. See if anyone’s left a monitor or keyboard lying unattended.






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