Once it became apparent to the high ups that my staying for the transition was not a sure thing, the panic set it. For some reason, they never considered that I might not stay, which is very dumb on their part. I mean, hello, I’d worked there for 10 years, how could they not know that I would have a problem with this? I’m probably the most upfront person there is when it comes to what I think.
So, first the Boss started grilling me. “You’re going to stay, right? We’re counting on you to help with the transition.” I played it coy and never committed one way or the other. Well, that bugged him and since he couldn’t get an answer out of me, he sent Queen Bee down to do some investigating. Same thing from her, “You’re going to stay, right?” Again, I didn’t give an answer. She then started apologizing and saying how sorry she was that she had to lay me off. Queen Bee and I go way back. She was part of the interview team that hired me back in 1999 and we had shared many good times over the years. I considered her a friend outside of work, but at work, I didn’t trust her. At all.
Once Queen Bee realized that I wasn’t going to commit to anything, she left my office. Not even 5 minutes later, the VP arrived at my office. Wow, they’re really bringing out the big guns, I thought to myself. She asked me the dreaded “How are you doing with all of this?” question. Well, if you ask me a question, be prepared for the answer, as I’m not shy about sharing my opinion. I looked her in the eye and said “You know, losing my job doesn’t bother me that much. It’s pretty unlikely that you can go your entire career without losing your job at least once. What bothers me is that you’re sending my job to India. I can’t believe that in this economy, during these times, you would make a decision to send jobs out of America. I have a real problem with that.” Stunned silence.
“Well, it wasn’t an easy decision,” she muttered.
“Yes, but you still made the decision,” I replied.
“Are you going to stay and help with the transition?” she asked, with a panic stricken look on her face.
“I’m honestly not sure yet. I have a lot to think about over the weekend and I need to run some numbers with my husband and decide what works best for me. I’m going to make the decision based on what works for me and my family.”
Point taken because she followed up with “What does your husband do for a living?’
Are you serious?! “Why does that matter?” She didn’t answer. Clearly why that mattered is because she couldn’t fathom anyone walking away from a paycheck, so she wanted to know what kind of money the Husband made. If I had been thinking quickly, I would have responded with “He’s an employment attorney.”
And then she left.
What should I do? Well, after a little investigating, I now knew the following things to be fact:
1. I was getting severance and the amount was set in stone.
2. It didn’t matter if I walked out today or 6 weeks from today, I was still getting severance.
3. I didn’t have to give any notice, my last day was up to me.
4. If I stayed until the end of the transition, I would receive a one-time stay bonus. The amount was insulting, so it was really a non-factor.
5. Thanksgiving was a week away at this point and if I stayed for the “India Project” my holidays would be ruined. That was a given. I would be working like a slave for the next 3 months if I committed to it.
If there was a right thing to do, it wasn’t immediately obvious. Based on my principles and integrity, the right thing for my peace of mind was as obvious as a Sunset Strip hooker. But, the bigger picture, like how would it affect my family if I walked away and what it would mean for my career, was harder to predict. I agonized for two full weeks. I kept thinking that they needed me way more than I needed them, as evidenced by the parade of fools marching down to my office and the constant pestering about what I was going to do. The really, really dumb thing on their part was the fact that no one else in the building knew how to do my job. I was the last one standing, the lone Production warrior. So, without me, their transition would be months of pure hell without a tour guide. You would think that this fact might have come up at some point, but apparently it hadn't. There was no Plan B.
Prison Media never failed to amaze me with their large egos and outright stupidity and I soon realized that if it came down to right and wrong, they were never wrong. Or, more accurately, they could never admit they were wrong. So, when I decided to ask for a larger stay bonus, the poker game was on and the fun officially began…
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Send Him to India!
The word India quickly became the most used word in our household. I didn't realize until weeks later how much I was talking about India. It took my 5-year-old to put it in perspective for me. One day, I said to the Girl, "Your brother is so bad, what should we do with him?" And she responded with "We should send him to India, like your job!" At that moment, I knew I needed to do something positive with my experiences and that's when this blog was officially born.
November 18, 2009, 9:16 a.m.
After 10 years at "Prison Media" my career came to an abrupt halt with a phone call.
November 18, 2009 was a Wednesday: A regular, plain old, normal Wednesday. I was working at home like I typically did on Wednesdays. But then the phone rang at 9:16 a.m. and that phone call changed everything. I could see on the caller ID that it was a work number, but it wasn’t a number I recognized, which is very telling now.
Me: “Hello?”
Other end: “Hi Kate, this is Boss.” (My boss. Interesting that in the past year he had called me so few times that I didn’t even recognize the number!)
Me: “Hi, Boss.” (Somehow I knew that this wasn’t a good news type of call. “This is bad” I remember thinking to myself.)
Boss: “I’m here with Queen Bee (pause) “This is really bad” I think to myself. “And HR Robot.” Now the picture came into focus. "Ah-ha, this is really bad for ME.”
Queen Bee did all of the talking. She started out with the really big news: I was being laid off. She followed that with some sort of explanation, but I didn't hear it. I think I tuned out the rest of what was being said to me. All I heard was the Charlie Brown Teacher voice “Blah, blah, blah.” When your boss, his boss and the HR director call you, it’s obvious why they’re calling. It was almost surreal. I was thinking to myself “Wow, this is actually happening to me. This is what this call feels like.” Then I looked at the clock and tried to decide if it was too early to crack open a beer.
The Queen Bee told me afterwards that she thought I had maybe been tipped off, since I was so calm about it. What did they expect me to do, cry? Beg? Plead? Personal Motto: No matter what, never let them see you struggle.
I hung up the phone and I felt crushed and humiliated, but then I felt relieved and free. When the Husband showed up that night with flowers and a giant congratulations card, I knew I would be fine. There were tears, which is rare for me. But, they weren’t tears of fear or sadness. Nope, they were pissed off tears. I was so angry that I didn’t get the chance to tell them to stick their job, which was in the cards, but still a few months away. I was so mad that I had given so much and ended up here. And I was stunned that I never saw it coming. The Warden did a great job keeping this news under lock and key for almost a year.
The next day, I worked in the office and met with the HR Robot. She presented me a letter that started off with:
Dear Kate,
The decision has been made to eliminate your position.
The letter then proceeded to spell out what was planned for the next 3 months. And I didn’t like it.
Basically, my job was being outsourced to India (freaking India, are you kidding me?) and I was being asked to stay and help with the transition. Um, wouldn’t that be like my husband telling me he wants a divorce, but asking me to please stick around and help him find a new wife? Of course my answer should be no. Good grief, I do have SOME self-respect. No paycheck is worth the humiliation of training a bunch of foreigners to do your job. I mean really, did I want to spend three months of my life on the perpetual phase out, interacting with a bunch of job stealing suck ups who use English as a second language? Besides, I’m a person of principle. And based on that alone, there’s no way I could stay. No amount of money could have bought my integrity. You can call me a lot of things, but a sellout isn’t one of them.
My decision turned out to be the largest moral dilemma of my life. Was I insane to walk away from three more months of employment in the worst economy in 80 years? Would staying and meeting their demands make me the ultimate loser in the game of corporate politics? I had put up with so much already, would three more months really kill me? Should I swallow my pride and do it? Is this really how I wanted to end my career with Prison Media? It took me two weeks to decide.
November 18, 2009 was a Wednesday: A regular, plain old, normal Wednesday. I was working at home like I typically did on Wednesdays. But then the phone rang at 9:16 a.m. and that phone call changed everything. I could see on the caller ID that it was a work number, but it wasn’t a number I recognized, which is very telling now.
Me: “Hello?”
Other end: “Hi Kate, this is Boss.” (My boss. Interesting that in the past year he had called me so few times that I didn’t even recognize the number!)
Me: “Hi, Boss.” (Somehow I knew that this wasn’t a good news type of call. “This is bad” I remember thinking to myself.)
Boss: “I’m here with Queen Bee (pause) “This is really bad” I think to myself. “And HR Robot.” Now the picture came into focus. "Ah-ha, this is really bad for ME.”
Queen Bee did all of the talking. She started out with the really big news: I was being laid off. She followed that with some sort of explanation, but I didn't hear it. I think I tuned out the rest of what was being said to me. All I heard was the Charlie Brown Teacher voice “Blah, blah, blah.” When your boss, his boss and the HR director call you, it’s obvious why they’re calling. It was almost surreal. I was thinking to myself “Wow, this is actually happening to me. This is what this call feels like.” Then I looked at the clock and tried to decide if it was too early to crack open a beer.
The Queen Bee told me afterwards that she thought I had maybe been tipped off, since I was so calm about it. What did they expect me to do, cry? Beg? Plead? Personal Motto: No matter what, never let them see you struggle.
I hung up the phone and I felt crushed and humiliated, but then I felt relieved and free. When the Husband showed up that night with flowers and a giant congratulations card, I knew I would be fine. There were tears, which is rare for me. But, they weren’t tears of fear or sadness. Nope, they were pissed off tears. I was so angry that I didn’t get the chance to tell them to stick their job, which was in the cards, but still a few months away. I was so mad that I had given so much and ended up here. And I was stunned that I never saw it coming. The Warden did a great job keeping this news under lock and key for almost a year.
The next day, I worked in the office and met with the HR Robot. She presented me a letter that started off with:
Dear Kate,
The decision has been made to eliminate your position.
The letter then proceeded to spell out what was planned for the next 3 months. And I didn’t like it.
Basically, my job was being outsourced to India (freaking India, are you kidding me?) and I was being asked to stay and help with the transition. Um, wouldn’t that be like my husband telling me he wants a divorce, but asking me to please stick around and help him find a new wife? Of course my answer should be no. Good grief, I do have SOME self-respect. No paycheck is worth the humiliation of training a bunch of foreigners to do your job. I mean really, did I want to spend three months of my life on the perpetual phase out, interacting with a bunch of job stealing suck ups who use English as a second language? Besides, I’m a person of principle. And based on that alone, there’s no way I could stay. No amount of money could have bought my integrity. You can call me a lot of things, but a sellout isn’t one of them.
My decision turned out to be the largest moral dilemma of my life. Was I insane to walk away from three more months of employment in the worst economy in 80 years? Would staying and meeting their demands make me the ultimate loser in the game of corporate politics? I had put up with so much already, would three more months really kill me? Should I swallow my pride and do it? Is this really how I wanted to end my career with Prison Media? It took me two weeks to decide.