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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Great moments in Human Resources #26 |
| 2007-12-12 |
| A soon-to-be former AOL employee confirms the rumors of mid-December layoff. The holidays are always an embarrassing time to let employees go, but what's worse is the way management delivered the bad news. Our source tells us that "when the brain trusts sent out the holiday party email they only sent it to people who would still be here -- even though some of us hadn't been notified we were on the block yet." Dear employee, you're not invited to continue working at the company. Yours cordially |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #5 Popper's doing well, Mom - just came off preventive maintenance. Waves back. Congrats on the book-signing. Unfortunately you'll probably never get Hollyweird interested in your stories - they make too much sense. (And Holly isn't called weird for nothing.) |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-12-12 22:45 |
| #4 Lucky for you, Barb! (Waves across the room - how's the industrial-capacity popcorn-popper holding up!) I had one company close, out from under me, but I was a trusted employee and knew right away. Closed the books, cleaned out the office, worked from home at 3/4th pay to meet the client obligations. The CEO did define "until August" to mean the first of the month, whereas I am sure he had originally said until the end of the month, but no biggie. The next place I worked for full-time, the usual warning of a case of unemployment was an abrupt and mysterious change in the combination to the employee enterance. I have had friends who had places of employment fold between one day and the next and owing several weeks of pay to legitimatly surprised employees, so in the grand scheme of things, AOL is a couple of steps up. Thank god for a military pension... |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2007-12-12 20:28 |
| #3 Geez, laying off people at Christmas.... A couple of jobs ago, I (along with several others) had a job that was going to be eliminated at the end of the budget year. Upper management decided this around May or June - just a cost-savings measure, nothing personal. Of course, the end of the budget year was also the end of the year - and they intended to wait until December to tell us. Two problems with that: One was the middle managers told them that since they'd already made the decision, it was rotten of them not to tell us right away so we could look for other jobs within the company, and if upper management didn't tell us soon, middle management would. The other problem, which they didn't know about, was we already knew about it (one of our group had a friend in the right place). So I started planning long before I was officially told (they looked truly puzzled that I wasn't upset when they did tell me - in August). I can't tell you how grateful I was not to be able to find a job within the company. :-D We got a severance package, of course,which helped, and there were some lean years ahead, but the free-lance work I did in the ensuing years eventually helped me land my present job - which I LOVE. So it can be a blessing - or a curse - depending on your attitude and your skills. I wish the AOL layoff-ees the best. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-12-12 16:42 |
| #2 You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Just email and a good browser. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-12-12 16:04 |
| #1 "The bad news is you no longer have a job. But the good news is you get a separation package - a package of complimentary AOL CDs!" |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-12-12 14:31 |