In Australia, being laid off is often called "redundancy" or "re-trenched." I learned this the other day shortly after I showed up for work at Thomson Reuters and heard that one of the website developers in our team was being "re-trenched."
It was a really hard day throughout the office as a lot of people were laid off. Ram (our guy) was pretty upset as the notice came will immediate effect. The poor guy is expecting a baby soon and I'm not sure, but I suspect his Australian visa might be tied to his work as Thomson is the only job he's has since he left India. I also feel bad for him because he hasn't taken any vacation time in 3 years; he's just been working really hard all that time. It was a really heartbreaking day and people are still depressed and mourning the loss of their friends three days later. No one on our team was able to get much work done for the next couple days.
What's worse is that the team I'm working on was already operating on bare bones with just two developers, one administrator and me--the temp. We are trying to re-launch our website this month too and have found ourselves extremely understaffed as the job is really big--no, huge! To get an idea of what we're doing, check out our American version: www.findlaw.com. On top of that, they have to service a number of websites that we host which has unfortunately been on the back burner for a little too long. People are starting to get upset because it's taken too long to have their maintenance requests filled. But of course it has--we only have--I mean, had--two developers!
Anyway, all of this has pretty much crushed my hopes that they will offer me a job there. I know that I've been doing well, that they need me and that Alysia (my supervisor) would hire me without second thought, but if the money isn't there... It just won't happen. From what I've heard, I'm the only person who has made a sale in some time... Maybe five months?? I fear that this department is actually more on it's way out than people realize. A year ago, it was a team of 12. Now it's a team of two.
So, that's my depressing news for the week! It was really hard to see so many people lose their jobs and wonder why I was still there. Why are they still paying for a temp if they can't afford to keep their permanent staff? I maintain that most businesses could avoid a significant amount of their yearly lay-offs if they just re-arranged their priorities.
I told Alysia that I couldn't understand why they would cut so many jobs but still pay for a very large Christmas party and for massage therapists to come in every week and give out free massages to employees (yeah, I'm serious about that last one--they've been doing it for months). Her response was something about keeping a high moral at work. Honestly, I would far prouder and in much higher spirits if I new my company was willing to give up silly little bonuses and cut executive salaries to save jobs. I would admire them so much more and would probably be a lot more dedicated to my job if I knew they were so dedicated to me.
But the truth is, your employer owns you. You take a job that pays so little in hopes that they won't get rid of you and that one day, with a lot of sucking up and skipped vacations, that someone will notice your dedication and give you a raise or a promotion. I hate the way conventional employer-employee relationships work. Our homes, our families, our lives are in their hands. Our employers have a significant amount of control over everything we do and I don't think it's fair and I don't think it's right.
Instead of this capitalistic work structure where companies look after their own interests and only their own interests, I would like to see more co-op run businesses. (Oh dear Lord, she's a socialist!!) In all truth, if you stay with the current system, no one is looking out for you.
Survival of the fittest is just a myth. Ram was fit. Ram worked harder than a lot of other people I know at Thomson Reuters. Ram gave up his vacation time and his sanity (it was a high stress job) to prove his dedication. The fittest are never guaranteed survival. No one is. And once you get to the top, there are fewer people with power to get rid of you, therefore you no longer need to be the "fittest" to survive. When you get to the top, it's no longer about being the best at your job--it's about keeping your job. When you get to the top, to continue being the "fittest," you need to get rid of your contenders by abusing your powers of seniority.
I'm getting off track with this. My point is, that Ram didn't deserve to lose his job and as long as we all continue participating and perpetuating a system that only functions in the "best interest" of the company, employer-employee relationships will never be "equal opportunity."
And that's the bottom line.
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