The Sargasso Sea of My Mind

Current Mood: disappointed

I know, I know. It's been like, forever since I last posted an entry. My wife, alycewilson, pointed out that I hadn't even written an entry about our wedding (which was wonderful and the best day in my life and I'll write about it soon). But, I need to post this in the name of networking.

For the last year or so, business at work as been a bit rocky. We haven't had any new business, and we've lost some clients, one of them quiet large. Today, we had an all-employee meeting, of which we have one every month. This month, however, we had the president of our parent company, the head of human resources, and the chief operations officer. Yes, a bit unusual. To the president's credit, she didn't beat around the bush or dissemble. She was direct, to the point and, importantly, empathic.

The long and short of it was that for the amount of business that we had in our company (our office), we had too many people. Some changes would be made down the road to move some functions up from Florida to make our office more of a regional office, but we still had too many people. They had options for each of us, and they would discuss them with us individually, in alphabetical order by our first names.

My turn came in early afternoon. So, I entered our VP's office, and the head of HR didn't beat around the bush. The majority of the functions that I perform would be moved down to the Florida offices, so my position is being eliminated. Because there's a transition that needs to take place and would benefit from my knowledge and experience, they want me to stay on to the end of April. In exchange, I'd get a severance and be eligible for unemployment. Well, not a whole lot of choice for me. Well, moving to the main Florida office is an option, if there's a position I qualify for. I'm not real interested in moving to Florida, though.

So, I'm going to be looking for a new job. I'll see things through to the end. It's just how I am. If anything, I'm loyal. If anyone knows of any management level IS/IT openings in the Philadelphia area, let me know.

It was an interesting ride. I've been with the company for over seven years, and I've seen it grow. The last couple years with the new ownership has been stressful and filled with uncertainty. I have to say, it's actually something of a relief, to be rid of the uncertainty. I've certainly had worse layoffs

In a bit of irony. I'm getting a manager's performance bonus in my next paycheck for meeting certain criteria last year, and if the board of directors approves a pay raise, I'll be getting that retroactively back to the beginning of February.

Don't worry too much about me. As I said, it's something of a relief, and my heads in a good place.