I’ve Been Eliminated

Well it seems that once again I am being kicked around by the greed mongers who run the rat race. I found out on last Friday that as of June 26th my position is being eliminated, along with many other positions. The company has provided three possible outcomes for myself and the thousands of other individuals affected by this. I can end up with a position that has the same pay but much more responsibility (including all of the responsibilities I already had), I could end up with a position that has only slightly less responsibility than what I have now but with significantly less pay, or I could just have no job at all with very little severance pay. Awesome.

Now, I understand that the people in charge of this company have an obligation to keep it profitable but that isn’t any consolation to the 2000+ people who will be losing their jobs in a couple weeks. This is causing a lot of hardship for the families affected by it and they all feel powerless in the face of this big corporation. As much as I feel bad for everyone else dealing with this situation, my main concern is being able to take care of my own family and I’m not waiting around to see how everything plays out in the next couple weeks. I’m applying anywhere and everywhere. When the dust settles if I still work for this company, it won’t matter. I’ll still be looking to get out because there is no good outcome possible of the two choices that mean I’m still employed by them. For the month of May retailers cut 27,000 jobs and I’m sure June will post similar numbers. Things with the economy won’t improve anytime soon and the full weight of Internet competition is really starting to hit traditional retail stores hard.

As a side note they aren’t as of yet making cutbacks at corporate headquarters, but they did think it was a good idea to turn off the air conditioning at the stores. It’s 85 degrees in my office right now.

This will be the first time in my working career that I might be leaving a job at a time other than my choosing. The best I can hope for out of all of this is that maybe I can finally find a job outside of the stink hole that is retail. It was just over 5 months ago when I got the call offering me the job at this company. I was so excited to be leaving the job I had held for almost 6 years. I didn’t know what this new job would be like and I didn’t care. I was getting out of a place I had hated for much of the time I worked there. And when I started at this new job, I actually liked it somewhat. I had never known that was possible. But then only a few months into working there they started cutting payroll drastically and at the same time they began to add many layers of bureaucratic micro-management to the job. And now of course this, “In two weeks you will no longer have a job, unless we see fit to keep you around under crappier conditions than you were already experiencing.” I knew the company was doing pretty bad but nobody working there expected these kinds of drastic measures. As always I can’t mention the name of the company, at least not while I am still employed there. I’ll keep things updated as they happen.