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Retrenched
May. 18th, 2011 05:23 pmI'm typing this entry in an internet cafe in the city. Actually it's more of a bar. And in fact I'm sitting at the bar at a tiny netbook-style machine! Not unlike my machine at home, but it's talking some getting used to this tiny keyboard - so apologies in advance for the higher than usual number of typos! Also looks like this thing lacks a spell checker... Eep!
Monday of this week, I was invited to a mysterious meeting with my boss on Tuesday afternoon. It was described as a one-on-one with him at his desk. In the year or so he's been my boss, we have never had such a meeting. Then his bosses boss called an all hands meeting for the same afternoon, with no details. The last time such a meeting was called on short notice, a number of people where shown the door!
So I went along on Tuesday to this meeting. My boss took me upstairs and said "actually my boss wants to see you". He ushered me into the nicest meeting room in the place, where his boss was sitting with someone from HR.
Uh oh, I thought, something is up!
They got straight to it. The company is restructuring, and my position had been made redundant. Not me, but my position! They handed me a document about how much my payout would be - it wasn't a huge figure, but it was still more money than I'd seen in one place ever! So I readily agreed - having said that there wasn't much of a choice in the matter.
The HR lady (Lara, who I've actually worked with in the past on various committees), said "You can take the rest of the day off if you like. We can give you a cab charge too to get home". I wasn't the first person who they'd talked to that day, and clearly some of them had been upset! I was slightly surprised, but I wasn't upset. I'd been thinking of moving on anyway, but thought I'd wait around to see what happened with the demerger. And this is what happened!
Oh, some background. I work for a company called TABCorp. About five or six years ago, what was a Victorian company mergered with their NSW counterparts. Mrged? They might have bought them out. So TABCorp had an exclusive license for Wagering (betting on horse racing and greyhound racing) in Victoria and NSW, a Keno license in both states, some gaming machines - although that business is about to cease to be - and four casinos in NSW and Queensland.
Anyway, earlier this year they decided to hive off the casinos business into a different company. Which makes fairly good business sense, and would as they say "release shareholder value". There'd already been some movements in management following this, and on Tuesday they went through most of the bussiness and let a lot of folks go - whole areas are a bit quiet today!
So technically my last day is Friday, although I'll probably not end up going in if I manage to get all the crap off my desk into my car tomorrow.
Like I said, I'm not too upset. I have an exam for my MBA in mid June, and I'm going to spend most of the week after that at the animation festival. So I'm going to do nothing but study for the next five weeks. Well, that and talk to recruiters, work on my resume etc. TABCorp have been nice enough to sign us all up to an organisation which specialises in "transitions" so I'm going to take full advatange of that. Seeing someone at 8.30AM on Friday! And indeed I've already had a recruiter on the phone. Landing on my feet is looking likely - last time I was looking for a job, I found one in ten days!
Now to decide what I want to do.... Hmmm....
P.S. I know why I was chosen out of my (small) team. I've been there for just over three years, unlike some of the rusted-on folks who'd been there for seven or ten years! So I was relatively cheap to move on. Also my job has been relatively quiet lately - one of the projects I was working on was in fact cancelled. So I don't feel victimised or the like.
Things on my list to do: possibly buy a suit. Also time I invested in a shirt I can actually do up around my huge neck ;-)
So on with my (work) life!
Monday of this week, I was invited to a mysterious meeting with my boss on Tuesday afternoon. It was described as a one-on-one with him at his desk. In the year or so he's been my boss, we have never had such a meeting. Then his bosses boss called an all hands meeting for the same afternoon, with no details. The last time such a meeting was called on short notice, a number of people where shown the door!
So I went along on Tuesday to this meeting. My boss took me upstairs and said "actually my boss wants to see you". He ushered me into the nicest meeting room in the place, where his boss was sitting with someone from HR.
Uh oh, I thought, something is up!
They got straight to it. The company is restructuring, and my position had been made redundant. Not me, but my position! They handed me a document about how much my payout would be - it wasn't a huge figure, but it was still more money than I'd seen in one place ever! So I readily agreed - having said that there wasn't much of a choice in the matter.
The HR lady (Lara, who I've actually worked with in the past on various committees), said "You can take the rest of the day off if you like. We can give you a cab charge too to get home". I wasn't the first person who they'd talked to that day, and clearly some of them had been upset! I was slightly surprised, but I wasn't upset. I'd been thinking of moving on anyway, but thought I'd wait around to see what happened with the demerger. And this is what happened!
Oh, some background. I work for a company called TABCorp. About five or six years ago, what was a Victorian company mergered with their NSW counterparts. Mrged? They might have bought them out. So TABCorp had an exclusive license for Wagering (betting on horse racing and greyhound racing) in Victoria and NSW, a Keno license in both states, some gaming machines - although that business is about to cease to be - and four casinos in NSW and Queensland.
Anyway, earlier this year they decided to hive off the casinos business into a different company. Which makes fairly good business sense, and would as they say "release shareholder value". There'd already been some movements in management following this, and on Tuesday they went through most of the bussiness and let a lot of folks go - whole areas are a bit quiet today!
So technically my last day is Friday, although I'll probably not end up going in if I manage to get all the crap off my desk into my car tomorrow.
Like I said, I'm not too upset. I have an exam for my MBA in mid June, and I'm going to spend most of the week after that at the animation festival. So I'm going to do nothing but study for the next five weeks. Well, that and talk to recruiters, work on my resume etc. TABCorp have been nice enough to sign us all up to an organisation which specialises in "transitions" so I'm going to take full advatange of that. Seeing someone at 8.30AM on Friday! And indeed I've already had a recruiter on the phone. Landing on my feet is looking likely - last time I was looking for a job, I found one in ten days!
Now to decide what I want to do.... Hmmm....
P.S. I know why I was chosen out of my (small) team. I've been there for just over three years, unlike some of the rusted-on folks who'd been there for seven or ten years! So I was relatively cheap to move on. Also my job has been relatively quiet lately - one of the projects I was working on was in fact cancelled. So I don't feel victimised or the like.
Things on my list to do: possibly buy a suit. Also time I invested in a shirt I can actually do up around my huge neck ;-)
So on with my (work) life!
