Friday, February 27, 2009

Sad Hour

My new company has been laying people off for a week or so now.  I think in all 75 people are gone (out of a 14,000 employee company, so only about one-half of one percent of our headcount, which is mighty selective in today's economy).  Today our manager got us all in a room and let us know that for now it's over.  That would pull more weight with me if I hadn't heard it before, but that's okay.  I'm pretty sure he's doing the best he can to be honest with us.
 
What sucks the most is that the folks just get walked out and that's it.  For most of the people I've known who've been laid off, I was able to get in touch with them.  Either I had their e-mail address or I knew someone who didn't mind passing along a message.  But for these folks I'm stuck--I have no way of telling them I'm sorry, and no way of passing along my contacts (they're SAP people, so they'd actually benefit from some of my lists of recruiters or of companies in the New York area who use SAP).  Here's hoping they're on LinkedIn.
 
It feels like our team needs a Sad Hour.  We definitely need a drink.

1 comment:

Shifter said...

Wow that sucks. And so much of it happening to so many people too. I hereby dedicate this next sad hour to those folks.