Eeeeek - Several people in my department just got axed

Ugh.....

The mood is depressing, everyone is quiet like someone died. Didn't get much info, but there will be no back fills for their positions.

Our Co. lost some revenues in 2016 and I think this might be the reason for this.

Have you gone through this, what were you thoughts? The moral is really low, at least that's how it "feels".

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JoJoCal19

paul78 wrote: »

While I've never worked there - I've heard some anecdotal stories about the RIF practices at BofA. And it seems incredible callous and lacks any dignity and empathy. Hope your experience wasn't as bad as the stories that I've heard.

What you've heard is sadly true. While I thankfully was never a victim of their continuous rolling or quarterly RIFs, I know quite a few people who were. Just Q4 last year 3 people I used to work with were victims of it. All so they can meet the Street's numbers.

paul78

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

What you've heard is sadly true.

Such a shame for one of US's long-standing institutions - while I don't necessarily find fault with having a RIF for business reasons. It's the way that BofA management does it and the frequency. And the way that it's callously joked about behind closed doors - I have always found the euphemism of "promoted to customer" to be extremely rude and lacking in human empathy.

p@r0tuXus

I worked for an ISP that rolled out this "philosophy" while making numerous other changes including a huge back-hand to the tech-support side of things. We always saw it for what it was, a thinly-veiled insult to those the company "screwed," just like they did to their customers on a regular basis.

LaSeeno

I watched an entire accounting department write their SOP's and get axed afterwards. I would look for a new job. Sounds like you've been there long enough anyway that it's time to move up.

IronmanX

The document everything and send it directly to me thing has me thinking maybe your manager kept that kinda information back from him. Now your boss's boss is in the dark not knowing if he can cut deeper. Sounds like there are quite a few junior people hopefully your not near the top as far as salary goes. This layoff sounds totally based on salary cost cutting.

blargoe

You are at a Fortune 500... so even if your bosses believe the "good things will come in 2-3 years" line, it is still probably bull crap that they are being fed that is being passed down to you.

DatabaseHead

Update.

Whoever called more work was 100% correct. Wow!

The flood has begun....

volfkhat

You should tell them you're gonna need more $$$ :]

If they don't fire you... then they must REALLY need you :]

scaredoftests

Been through this before. Start sending out resumes.

ande0255

My first networking job was at Qwest before Centurylink bought them out, then invited almost my entire group to an early morning meeting immediately after, and had our last paychecks waiting for us and an termination agreement to sign before we got said checks. The 2-3 that didn't get fired get hired on basically permanently, and had overflow outsourced to a help desk across the pond.

CenturyLink even fired the supervisor they put up to firing us that same day, that is one evil corporation, I will go without internet before I work with them.

I suggest getting recruiters on your linkedin and canvas / update your resume on all job sites, get some recruiters knocking at your door just in case the axe goes back up for more heads!

IronmanX

volfkhat wrote: »

You should tell them you're gonna need more $$$ :]

That is just it. It sounds like they fired higher level people to save money by having the lower level people do the work.
The sad thing is this will probably work in the companies favor until enough people leave or people get burnt out. If your in a location with not a lot of opportunities this may play out really bad as people who are still there are unable to leave and will struggle with the work load and fear of being let go.

The good news is he can probably get a promotion but a raise is not gonna happen.

thomas_

ande0255 wrote: »

and had our last paychecks waiting for us and an termination agreement to sign before we got said checks.

I think I would have told them that I wasn't signing and my lawyer would be in touch. I highly doubt with holding a final paycheck until you sign a termination agreement is legal. In a lot of states employers aren't even allowed to deduct unreturned company property from final paychecks because it's an improper dedeuctikn.

IronmanX

thomas_ wrote: »

I think I would have told them that I wasn't signing and my lawyer would be in touch. I highly doubt with holding a final paycheck until you sign a termination agreement is legal. In a lot of states employers aren't even allowed to deduct unreturned company property from final paychecks because it's an improper dedeuctikn.

I'm no lawyer but i'm pretty sure that would fall under "signing under duress" and made what ever was signed void in most places.

Hammer80

When Disney replaced their 500 American IT workers with an outsourced IT Indian workers they held the Americans hostage by threatening them with not getting severance if they refused to train their replacements, I would say that is being under duress.

I am normally against Unions but I swear American employees under our existing labor laws are downright getting abused and exploited in comparison to other Western nations, the only country that is as bad as we are is Japan and they have the highest suicide rate in the world.

PCTechLinc

Hammer80 wrote: »

When Disney replaced their 500 American IT workers with an outsourced IT Indian workers they held the Americans hostage by threatening them with not getting severance if they refused to train their replacements, I would say that is being under duress.

This is exactly what happened to me with my last job. I also had to sign an agreement saying that I would not publicly say anything bad about any of the companies involved, in order to get my severance. Believe me, I would have LOVED to rip the stupid thing to shreds instead, but when you don't have another job lined up, you don't really have a choice. Additionally, I had to train my replacement. That part was ok though, because he was hired as a temp anyway, so he knew his job would eventually be on the chopping block as well.

thomas_

Hammer80 wrote: »

When Disney replaced their 500 American IT workers with an outsourced IT Indian workers they held the Americans hostage by threatening them with not getting severance if they refused to train their replacements

Severance and final pay check are two totally different things.

DatabaseHead

Boss snapped at me today about something, I defended my position and they proceeded to back track after that. The stress level is continuing. I received some passive aggressive treatment as well from a subordinate due to my process time on a request. Not blaming her or anyone, but since our IT/Analytics department took a hit things aren't getting done as fast and there are people who are getting edgy. Maybe this is part of the life cycle of this type of happening.

I have a vaca coming up soon which has been approved for a week and bonuses should be released shortly after so that is something I am banking on. Once those two events transpire I will most certainly be looking for a job. With almost 5 years of advance SQL knowledge I should be in good shape. I am also doing training videos as well (at lunch when times presents itself).

scaredoftests

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Boss snapped at me today about something, I defended my position and they proceeded to back track after that. The stress level is continuing. I received some passive aggressive treatment as well from a subordinate due to my process time on a request. Not blaming her or anyone, but since our IT/Analytics department took a hit things aren't getting done as fast and there are people who are getting edgy. Maybe this is part of the life cycle of this type of happening.

I have a vaca coming up soon which has been approved for a week and bonuses should be released shortly after so that is something I am banking on. Once those two events transpire I will most certainly be looking for a job. With almost 5 years of advance SQL knowledge I should be in good shape. I am also doing training videos as well (at lunch when times presents itself).

I am not sure if I asked this before, but where are you located? Anyway, I know your skills are in high demand. So, it doesn't hurt to send the resume out...

DatabaseHead

Ideally I'd like to hang around till after my vaca and bonus, if I max bonus and leave it, I could be leaving 15,000. I really want that before I head off. I work HARD for that as well.

LaSeeno

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Ideally I'd like to hang around till after my vaca and bonus, if I max bonus and leave it, I could be leaving 15,000. I really want that before I head off. I work HARD for that as well.

Start looking and choose a start date after your bonus.

DatabaseHead

@ LaSeeno - Makes all the sense in the world. I'll do that very thing.

Resume and LinkedIn need a few more tweaks and then go time. Tonight I am actually going to finishes up both. I want to get more quantitative bullets in my resume for at least my 2 most current positions.

DatabaseHead

Follow up

My group wasn't the only affected. A friend of mine said his group had 8 PM's gone.

Management assures us we will be better off for this. We are right sizing for the future. From my understanding, my company will be leaning up weekly until August (soft date). Maybe they are using this opportunity to remove average performers?

Margins weren't as high as projected so they are trying reroute the financial trajectory. Seems like a lot of people pre occupied with the cuts. Very strange vibe to be honest.

PCTechLinc

I'm sorry, but maybe I'm just being cynical from my past experiences. When I hear "Management assures us we will be better off for this" I hear "Management assures us COMPANY will be better off for this." It's almost like they had a meeting that went along the lines of "Say whatever you can to keep the rest of them here until we get what we want." The biggest question to me is this: when do the layoffs end? How do you know when they're actually DONE, or you're just waiting for the shoe to drop? Seems too unstable to me.

DatabaseHead

@PC I don't know to be honest, I probably wasn't supposed to know that information to be honest, at least I think that is true. Hard to say.

I'm just doing my job and beyond and keeping my head down. Hoping I survive this rough stretch....

IronmanX

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Maybe they are using this opportunity to remove average performers?

Sounds to me like they are getting rid of people who cost a lot of money.
You said your friends department had 9 project managers let go.
Your manager was let go.

I'm thinking this is a we are out of money what can we do to still keep going for a little while?
Fire all the expensive people have the lower end people do more work. Sure the quality is going to take a huge nose dive but if we can hold on long enough more money will come and we can hire the expensive people again.

This doesn't sound like righting the ship and more like get to the dingy's situation. Oh we don't need any ship engineers right now while we are floating around with paddles lets throw those guys over board while we tell the crew doing the paddling they where dead weight.

MagnumOpus

Geez, Never been through this before, but thanks for the post. Its easy getting comfortable

. People think I'm crazy, but I try to bounce to a new company every 1-2 years. As people on the board previous stated, these companies do not reciprocate the loyalty. Wishing you the best man.

olaHalo

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Just had the talk from the bosses boss.

Stick around good things are going to happen to you in 2 - 3 years

"maybe things will improve in several years"
Start applying for other jobs

DatabaseHead

Just received an offer gang!

iBrokeIT

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Just received an offer gang!

Congrats! What was the reaction when you turned in your notice?

xxxkaliboyxxx

iBrokeIT wrote: »

Congrats! What was the reaction when you turned in your notice?

Plot twist, it's from the same company....