After a long, hot shower to relax, I think I’m ready to write about this….
Everyone knows the economy sucks. My friends have lost jobs, taken pay cuts, and even sold cars to try to help and make ends meet. It’s a bad, bad time we live in, folks.
I was OK with it, just getting by, until today. There are 4 of us that have lunch together every day, since we’re 4/5 of the “Under 25 Crowd.” We sat down, and the girl from HR mentioned something about layoffs. The two of us in marketing (she’s Marketing Communications, I’m Market Research) were floored. The kid in IT knew, since he’s dating HR Girl. MarCom and I were obviously curious, but we had a marketing group meeting scheduled for 2pm, so we’d find out then.
That 2pm meeting was the most sobering meeting ever.
In that meeting, the VP of Marketing, and my direct supervisor, told the staff that we were embarking upon cost-reducing measure, and that includes reorganizing the associates of the company.
The 9 people that were laid off today, with the exception of two temps, were generally long-standing members with 5+ years at the company. People with 4 and 5 direct reports, who had reports under them. I actually interviewed with one of them, and really liked him a lot. A very upstanding and hard worker with a lot of experience and an extensive academic background. He’s the last person I would have thought I’d see go.
It just kind of hit home: I’m not a homeowner, and I’m not in thousands of dollars of credit card debt, and I don’t work in finance, and I didn’t have tons of money invested in the now crashed stock market. And so even though I get paid barely enough to live on, I still didn’t really feel the effects of the collapsed economy till now. I’ve watched the business falter from the time I joined it in April, and I am just lost and worried about what to do, and what to expect.
I am mostly afraid I’ll be next.
And all the roads we have to walk are winding... 