I have a recent, unpleasant experience to relate to all of you. While some of you already know of situations like the one I am about to describe, hopefully a number of you will be able to avoid where I am now. Even if you are older, I would recommend that you try to plan on having enough savings so you can live ok if you had no income after 10 years of work, maybe retire after 20 years of work, and definitely retire after 30 years of working.
My current situation is that while I am doing well financially, I am not able to retire and need to work for at least another decade. While that is not bad, the problem is that since I am doing work for the typical company, I was involved in something that I would have never voluntarily agreed to and do not feel too good about my part in the incident.
The situation is that I have been doing work for a customer for a number of years, and things for the most part were going well at that site. The person that I report to was due to retire in a few years, and at that time, it was expected that I might take over that position when he retired or assist in the transition to a new person. I consider the person I reported to a mentor and even though he was my superior, also a friend, which makes what, happened even worse.
Usually, a few times per week, in the morning, I would stop in his office to briefly review was I had been doing and what was going on for the next day or two. A few months ago, when I was going over the work near the start of the day, he remarked to me that, “I think I just got myself fired”. Apparently, a number of people in their HQ are always pestering him to hurry up for information for their reports, even when the results are not ready yet, and he wrote a number of them an email throwing a fit about pestering him. I didn’t see the email he sent and didn’t think it could be that bad. A few days went by, and then a week. Nothing happened so I forgot about it and assumed that everyone had forgotten the whole incident.
Unfortunately, everyone did not forget about it. After several weeks, a person arrived from HQ and wanted to meet with me. They asked all kinds of questions about the work done, who did what and ‘who handles things’, including making a full list of the monthly cycle for preparing reports. (Some of you will recognize the signs of ‘someone is about to be outsourced or fired’.) This was unusual, since they never did anything like that before. At the time, I thought they were looking to consolidate functions across divisions and expected that I could be ‘reduced’ or my contract dropped, but didn’t care that much and planned to take the summer off if it happened, maybe even into the holiday season at the end of the year and go work somewhere else next spring.
Instead, what happened is that they called the top guy at the facility one afternoon the next week, and told him to fire the guy I reported to. The top guy for the facility tried to stop it and had no idea it was even planned. After about an hour of trying to stop the firing, he had to fire the guy. I was so out of it that I didn’t even know it had happened until the top guy asked to speak to me for a few minutes. Just as I was being told of the firing, it was clear that someone had been or was being fired or laid off and I though I was that person. (Shows how aware I am of what is going on. The fired guy had left the building and I still did not know what was going on or what had happened.) Instead I found out it was the person I reported to had been fired. As you can imagine, I was shocked that the answers I gave the week before allowed the company to think that they could go ahead and fire the guy, since they assumed that I could do everything he did without any problems. If I had been told what was planned, I would have never agreed to voluntarily be part of something like this. I feel like ‘there is blood on my hands’, since they used me to do this. I even considered resigning my contract when initially told, but did not since then everyone else in the facility would suffer since there are large parts of important work that could not get done, plus I had some hope that maybe if everyone ‘calmed down’ that maybe I could get the guy back there, or at least with some kind of severance package of several months worth, which plus unemployment would have put him near full retirement age. While not perfect, it was at least something I think everyone would have been able to live with.
Since my superior has been gone, I have been trying to stay on schedule with everything. So far I have been able to do so, but only because I am working nights and weekends, some nights until midnight. The funny things, is that I am being told that ‘maybe’ they will give me the title, have given me no additional money, and all act like we do not need the guy that got fired at all and everything is just fine. In addition, there is all kinds of confusion as to what my role is or what authority I have. On top of that, the only official announcement is that the guy took a leave for medical reasons, even though everyone knows that he must have been fired and talks about it like he was fired; the company just does not say it publicly. This is in spite of my telling them that things are falling apart, I am falling apart plus in the fall there is additional work that I have no way to be able to do since I have no extra time to work on it. This is in addition to the problem that there is a lot of information and programs that I was not allowed to look at due to their being sensitive information in them so I also have to spend time trying to figure out how those things work. I have repeatedly emphasized to the company that the company and the guy fired needs to come to some sort of agreement that ‘everyone can live with’ so there is a transition period. I estimate I would need him 2 or 3 days per week for several months. I am being told that he was offered only a few days total of contracting for any transition and has refused to accept it. Of course the problem is that since no one is agreeing to anything, I am stuck trying to hold everything together all by myself with no help. While the company asked about hiring more temps or contractors, I told them it would not do anything good right now since I would have to spend more, of time that I do not have, to train them on what to do, in order for them to be of any use. If we were doing certain work, like say counting cash or adding up invoices, something easy to show someone and easy to do, them temps would help; unfortunately, the work and systems we have in place are not like that at all.
I also explained to a number of people, that the guy does not need the company, but the company does need to guy. While I can hold things together for a few months, I am starting to ‘fall apart’ plus in the fall there is additional work that I will not be able to do without assistance from the fired person or else have to recreate that whole system from scratch. The company seems to think they can offer the guy little to nothing, even after I explained to them that I believe the guy can just take early retirement and not ever work again, since he has company stock and 401K savings plus social security. If he does take social security early, he will not get as much each month as if he had waited until full retirement age, he can just adjust his lifestyle and not take as many trips. His house is paid off, his car is paid off, and for health insurance he can go on his wife’s plan at her job. They can even do with one car in the family since he could drop her off at work and pike her up each day if they wanted to. Instead, the company acts like, ‘ooohhhh, we’re going to teach him a lesson and show everyone what happens why you step out of line!’ Until of course, I can’t complete one of the monthly reporting cycles and they can’t prepare any consolidated reports.
One of the more humorous aspects of the situation, is that I am sure there are parts of the process that are completely messed up and the reporting wrong. The only person that would be able to tell is the guy they fired, who of course has no reason to look at anything, so everyone pretends that everything is ok even though they know it can’t possibly be.
My current situation is that while I am doing well financially, I am not able to retire and need to work for at least another decade. While that is not bad, the problem is that since I am doing work for the typical company, I was involved in something that I would have never voluntarily agreed to and do not feel too good about my part in the incident.
The situation is that I have been doing work for a customer for a number of years, and things for the most part were going well at that site. The person that I report to was due to retire in a few years, and at that time, it was expected that I might take over that position when he retired or assist in the transition to a new person. I consider the person I reported to a mentor and even though he was my superior, also a friend, which makes what, happened even worse.
Usually, a few times per week, in the morning, I would stop in his office to briefly review was I had been doing and what was going on for the next day or two. A few months ago, when I was going over the work near the start of the day, he remarked to me that, “I think I just got myself fired”. Apparently, a number of people in their HQ are always pestering him to hurry up for information for their reports, even when the results are not ready yet, and he wrote a number of them an email throwing a fit about pestering him. I didn’t see the email he sent and didn’t think it could be that bad. A few days went by, and then a week. Nothing happened so I forgot about it and assumed that everyone had forgotten the whole incident.
Unfortunately, everyone did not forget about it. After several weeks, a person arrived from HQ and wanted to meet with me. They asked all kinds of questions about the work done, who did what and ‘who handles things’, including making a full list of the monthly cycle for preparing reports. (Some of you will recognize the signs of ‘someone is about to be outsourced or fired’.) This was unusual, since they never did anything like that before. At the time, I thought they were looking to consolidate functions across divisions and expected that I could be ‘reduced’ or my contract dropped, but didn’t care that much and planned to take the summer off if it happened, maybe even into the holiday season at the end of the year and go work somewhere else next spring.
Instead, what happened is that they called the top guy at the facility one afternoon the next week, and told him to fire the guy I reported to. The top guy for the facility tried to stop it and had no idea it was even planned. After about an hour of trying to stop the firing, he had to fire the guy. I was so out of it that I didn’t even know it had happened until the top guy asked to speak to me for a few minutes. Just as I was being told of the firing, it was clear that someone had been or was being fired or laid off and I though I was that person. (Shows how aware I am of what is going on. The fired guy had left the building and I still did not know what was going on or what had happened.) Instead I found out it was the person I reported to had been fired. As you can imagine, I was shocked that the answers I gave the week before allowed the company to think that they could go ahead and fire the guy, since they assumed that I could do everything he did without any problems. If I had been told what was planned, I would have never agreed to voluntarily be part of something like this. I feel like ‘there is blood on my hands’, since they used me to do this. I even considered resigning my contract when initially told, but did not since then everyone else in the facility would suffer since there are large parts of important work that could not get done, plus I had some hope that maybe if everyone ‘calmed down’ that maybe I could get the guy back there, or at least with some kind of severance package of several months worth, which plus unemployment would have put him near full retirement age. While not perfect, it was at least something I think everyone would have been able to live with.
Since my superior has been gone, I have been trying to stay on schedule with everything. So far I have been able to do so, but only because I am working nights and weekends, some nights until midnight. The funny things, is that I am being told that ‘maybe’ they will give me the title, have given me no additional money, and all act like we do not need the guy that got fired at all and everything is just fine. In addition, there is all kinds of confusion as to what my role is or what authority I have. On top of that, the only official announcement is that the guy took a leave for medical reasons, even though everyone knows that he must have been fired and talks about it like he was fired; the company just does not say it publicly. This is in spite of my telling them that things are falling apart, I am falling apart plus in the fall there is additional work that I have no way to be able to do since I have no extra time to work on it. This is in addition to the problem that there is a lot of information and programs that I was not allowed to look at due to their being sensitive information in them so I also have to spend time trying to figure out how those things work. I have repeatedly emphasized to the company that the company and the guy fired needs to come to some sort of agreement that ‘everyone can live with’ so there is a transition period. I estimate I would need him 2 or 3 days per week for several months. I am being told that he was offered only a few days total of contracting for any transition and has refused to accept it. Of course the problem is that since no one is agreeing to anything, I am stuck trying to hold everything together all by myself with no help. While the company asked about hiring more temps or contractors, I told them it would not do anything good right now since I would have to spend more, of time that I do not have, to train them on what to do, in order for them to be of any use. If we were doing certain work, like say counting cash or adding up invoices, something easy to show someone and easy to do, them temps would help; unfortunately, the work and systems we have in place are not like that at all.
I also explained to a number of people, that the guy does not need the company, but the company does need to guy. While I can hold things together for a few months, I am starting to ‘fall apart’ plus in the fall there is additional work that I will not be able to do without assistance from the fired person or else have to recreate that whole system from scratch. The company seems to think they can offer the guy little to nothing, even after I explained to them that I believe the guy can just take early retirement and not ever work again, since he has company stock and 401K savings plus social security. If he does take social security early, he will not get as much each month as if he had waited until full retirement age, he can just adjust his lifestyle and not take as many trips. His house is paid off, his car is paid off, and for health insurance he can go on his wife’s plan at her job. They can even do with one car in the family since he could drop her off at work and pike her up each day if they wanted to. Instead, the company acts like, ‘ooohhhh, we’re going to teach him a lesson and show everyone what happens why you step out of line!’ Until of course, I can’t complete one of the monthly reporting cycles and they can’t prepare any consolidated reports.
One of the more humorous aspects of the situation, is that I am sure there are parts of the process that are completely messed up and the reporting wrong. The only person that would be able to tell is the guy they fired, who of course has no reason to look at anything, so everyone pretends that everything is ok even though they know it can’t possibly be.