In the movie Glengarry Glenross, Alec Baldwin is sent down from corporate headquarters to a local real estate office to motivate the salesman with a contest. First prize is a Cadillac, second prize is a set of steak knives, and "third prize is you're fired."
I just got third prize at work. (Actually, I'm still working until January 7th, and then they're giving me six additional weeks worth of pay.) It's been a crazy 5 year ride at the large unnamed software company where I work. We I started there were 35 people in the department. There are 6 left. I suspect that somewhere there's a corporate mandate to turn over the bottom 10% every year. (They teach you that at some whacked business school, right?) The first two years we were hammered by layoffs that turned over the bottom 75%. Then one guy was let go in 2002. We thought it was an anomaly. Then another guy got let go late 2003, but he was clearly becoming belligerent with customers. But it's the third one that makes a pattern clear.
When you cut and the department is fat, the weak members of the herd are easy to clear away. When you are so lean and keep cutting, you start to lose meat and bone.
But I don't have any hard feelings. If I had to pick one of the staff to cut, it would have been me too. The guys left on staff are passionate about their work. They're willing to crank out the overtime hours and study on their own. Me? I'm punching the clock. When 5PM rolls around, I'm finished. I have a life outside of work, thank you very much.
So it's time to start looking for new work. I think I'd like to get out of the software industry. It's hard to advance when everyone has the same skills. There are only so many middle management openings that they can create to promote people to. I'd like to work in a business as their web/database admin. I'd like to be on the dialing end of a tech support call for a change.
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