So, I work in a large, large company. It's so large that we have our own internal IT support/management peeps. This company is so large that our own internal guys are their own company, albeit one that always runs at a loss. I mean, if you're a sub-company of a big company that makes big money, but you only do in-house support of parent company, you don't make money. You don't have customers paying you. You support the company itself. So you don't need to make money, right?
In light of of the financial end-of-year coming up and the share price not being where they would like, they've decided to merge us. We are the other sub-company, who are profitable and have happy customers to whom we provide IT support/design/build/everything, and make money. But there's less of us than there are people in our on in house IT support company. And nobody can figure out what these guys do. I mean, we're so locked down because of these people that we have to bring our own laptops in and steal wifi to connect to our own home labs to do actual testing because we don't have a test environment, because, you know, our own internal guys don't have the budget or resource to give us one, despite outnumbering us 1.73 to 1. They have nothing to do. At all. Ever.
But, somehow, our internal IT support company is a bigger company than us, the people who make the money providing IT support for the customers. Therefore, in this merger they get to decide who gets fired or not because they are the bigger company, despite not having any customers or making any money. Management has decided that they have to be profitable rather than a cost, and they've got two months to "Turn that around".
So the "business decision" is to take a profitable arm, give it to an unprofitable one that hasn't done a damn thing in seven years, and give them the say on who they keep and fire.
I've got rent's to pay (that is a deliberate plural). My co-workers have families, bills, mortgages... etc. Our customers love us and are second-guessing whether they should stay with our company at the moment because the chances are the engineers that they like are going to get fired.
I had to apply for my own job yesterday. There's only a 50% chance that I'll get to keep it, then I might be lucky and be by myself or have one of my co-workers with me. When I started there were 8 in my team. Now there are 3. When there were 8 of us there were enough to do all the work. we've only got more business in this time. Yet they still cut and cut.
I work 80 hours a week and am on call to anyone working nights. I don't get paid for more than 40 hours. But our customers are cool, and I don't want them to end up fucked, so I give my number to anyone that might need it.
I had to apply for my own job yesterday, in the certain knowledge that I won't be accepted for a gig I've done for over five years. I'm tired. I'm scared of not having money to pay for things. I think something is broken in the corporate system. I think that companies need to have some sense of social responsibility. They're just making a quick buck for shareholders and making sure to meet financial targets so they can get their bonuses within a couple of months. After that they don't give a shit.
Sorry. I'm venting. it's been a long week of consoling friends and co workers that have been sacked, trying to raise the morale of people still there, and stop myself from setting the building on fire. Also found out my dad has cancer.
Also, every IT job in this town has well over 100 applicants, and I've been too busy working to gain any certifications that work won't pay for. All the roles require a degree or certification.
Sorry, what were you complaining about again? Oh yeah, some job you left that got fucked up. Well, this is what would have happened to you if you'd stayed. Well done you.