Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Survivors guilt from layoff?

Can one get survivors guilt from surviving a layoff at work?  Yesterday they laid off 1/3 of my department.  I'm one of the few who was left standing in the office helping my few former co-workers clean out their desks.  Granted by this time, there had been so many lay offs that there were only 6 of us left (they let one go last month).   When I started at the company 11 years ago, there were 24 of us in the department.  But these two people were great friends and co-workers.  This is not the first place we had worked together.  In fact one of the ladies, we had work together for over 24 years at different places. 

So today I'm going to walk into the office with only 4 of us left.  We have no idea how we're going to do the jobs of seven people.  We haven't had raises in 4 years and in fact, make less money due to the rising cost of health insurance than I did 4 years ago.  I'm sure the cost of insurance will go up again this year. 

There is no rhyme or reason as to who they picked to lay off.  1 of the ladies had less time with the company and the other had more time with the company than I did.  We all basically did the same job.  I don't want to go to the place anymore.  They say they are a family friendly place to work but that is not true any more.  They've hired on 6 new people in the that 2 weeks than they lay off a bunch of people this week.  It wasn't only my department hit, every department in the company lost at least 1 person.  And it wasn't the new hires that got let go either. 

I've been with this company 11 years.  I think it is time to start looking for another job, in another industry.  I just don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

I don't know how much work I'll get done today as the boss said we're going to have to regroup to figure out how to try to make this work.  She didn't know it was happening until yesterday morning and she was really mad when she found out they were letting two of her people go.  She had no say in the matter or who they let go.  She stood in the hallway and cried with us.

Should be a stress filled day, month, rest of the year.  And I feel so guilty for still having a job and my friends not having theirs. 

1 comment:

  1. That sounds so awful, I can't imagine what a stressful day that was for all of you. Companies should never operate that way. I'm so sorry!

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