So you had a bad day
04-12-2013, 08:37 AM
#131
Registered User
Dave,
This is probably the best possible outcome, given my dissatisfaction. For the last three or four years, I've just been waiting for one of us to end the relationship. I agonized over the decision when they severed anyone who requested it during the 2010 downsizing. However, I just wasn't financially secure enough at that time. Now I am.
I am actually glad they severed me; it spares me the hassle of learning a new role, in a radically new organizational structure where nobody else knows their role. With severance pay and accrued vacation, I'm paid through the end of the year. I can't imagine that I'd have continued to work in their new structure for longer than that, if I lasted that long.
And I haven't felt like it was a career for the last 4 or 5 years, so the manner in which it ends doesn't matter much to me. I hope I didn't give the wrong impression in my original post: I preferred to be severed rather than continue. But upper management was adament that there would be no volunteers, decisions would be based solely on what was best for the company. I guess I just got lucky. (Nod, nod; wink, wink). The company is treating those of us who lost our jobs quite well, all things considered. I have a meeting this afternoon with an outside company they hired to help us with our job searches or transition to retirement. Yesterday, I passed up a meeting with counselors to help us deal with the emotional trauma of job loss. Given where I am at in my life, I'm pretty sure I can handle that part on my own. They're carrying us on the health/vision/dental insurance plans at the employee rate for 18 months. So there's not much more the company could do.
I suppose that some of the severed employees were upset that they removed all access to the systems (we still have email) but they have strict requirements around immediately removing access to critical Transmission and Generation systems when someone is severed. The regulatory body wants to ensure that a disgruntled former employee doesn't black out the Eastern half of the US. I suspect it was just safer to remove all access for everyone than to chance missing one critical application and getting fined.
So all is well with me. I probably sounded a bit more negative than I should have in the original post.
This is probably the best possible outcome, given my dissatisfaction. For the last three or four years, I've just been waiting for one of us to end the relationship. I agonized over the decision when they severed anyone who requested it during the 2010 downsizing. However, I just wasn't financially secure enough at that time. Now I am.
I am actually glad they severed me; it spares me the hassle of learning a new role, in a radically new organizational structure where nobody else knows their role. With severance pay and accrued vacation, I'm paid through the end of the year. I can't imagine that I'd have continued to work in their new structure for longer than that, if I lasted that long.
And I haven't felt like it was a career for the last 4 or 5 years, so the manner in which it ends doesn't matter much to me. I hope I didn't give the wrong impression in my original post: I preferred to be severed rather than continue. But upper management was adament that there would be no volunteers, decisions would be based solely on what was best for the company. I guess I just got lucky. (Nod, nod; wink, wink). The company is treating those of us who lost our jobs quite well, all things considered. I have a meeting this afternoon with an outside company they hired to help us with our job searches or transition to retirement. Yesterday, I passed up a meeting with counselors to help us deal with the emotional trauma of job loss. Given where I am at in my life, I'm pretty sure I can handle that part on my own. They're carrying us on the health/vision/dental insurance plans at the employee rate for 18 months. So there's not much more the company could do.
I suppose that some of the severed employees were upset that they removed all access to the systems (we still have email) but they have strict requirements around immediately removing access to critical Transmission and Generation systems when someone is severed. The regulatory body wants to ensure that a disgruntled former employee doesn't black out the Eastern half of the US. I suspect it was just safer to remove all access for everyone than to chance missing one critical application and getting fined.
So all is well with me. I probably sounded a bit more negative than I should have in the original post.
04-12-2013, 04:20 PM
#133
Registered User
04-13-2013, 05:06 AM
#134
Ed, it sounds like it wasn't such a bad day after all. After almost an entire career of working in downsizing and reorg's, I can appreciate how it really gets old. I know I never missed it at all after I left. 
04-14-2013, 08:55 PM
#135
Yesterday was a good day - I installed a modern electronic distributor and competition plug wires in the MG. Fired it up. It worked!
Today I wanted to finish the job and set the timing. To do that you need to have the engine fully warmed up. Good, the weather was warm enough for a short top down drive - first of the year. I noticed the exhaust note was really different but hey that's why I need to set the timing - right.
Pull into the garage. Engine nice and warm. Set the timing. Time for a test drive. Backing down the driveway I notice a trail. Ops, that is not good. I quickly pull back up the drive and shut it off. Looking into the garage. Oh $hit, there's four quarts of oil on the floor.
Spent the next couple hours trying to clean up the driveway since everyone walks across it (wife, dogs, grandkids, etc.) and then I tackle the garage floor. I get to test out how well a wet vac sucks up oil!
I have not located the cause as yet. It could be just the oil filter wasn't installed properly (I'm hoping); or something a lot worse like a cracked block. I did not hear anything go bang. And don't see any holes. But, if it's the filter, how come there's no tracks coming home after the 3 or 4 mile warm up drive. It all appears to have started during idling while I was setting the timing as I only see one track out and one track back. Bottom line, it was a bad day - that may get worse.
Today I wanted to finish the job and set the timing. To do that you need to have the engine fully warmed up. Good, the weather was warm enough for a short top down drive - first of the year. I noticed the exhaust note was really different but hey that's why I need to set the timing - right.
Pull into the garage. Engine nice and warm. Set the timing. Time for a test drive. Backing down the driveway I notice a trail. Ops, that is not good. I quickly pull back up the drive and shut it off. Looking into the garage. Oh $hit, there's four quarts of oil on the floor.
Spent the next couple hours trying to clean up the driveway since everyone walks across it (wife, dogs, grandkids, etc.) and then I tackle the garage floor. I get to test out how well a wet vac sucks up oil!I have not located the cause as yet. It could be just the oil filter wasn't installed properly (I'm hoping); or something a lot worse like a cracked block. I did not hear anything go bang. And don't see any holes. But, if it's the filter, how come there's no tracks coming home after the 3 or 4 mile warm up drive. It all appears to have started during idling while I was setting the timing as I only see one track out and one track back. Bottom line, it was a bad day - that may get worse.
04-15-2013, 05:10 AM
#137
Good news, Dave. Still sounds like a project!
04-15-2013, 05:56 AM
#138
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Bowie
Posts: 9,027
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Quite a few of our attorneys are leaving the firm to start their own. The founders and top brass all retired last month and this place looks like a ghost town. Should I be worried? Should I start sending out resumes? Should I wait for the big shoe to drop? I need a few more years of paychecks under my belt. This is not a happy place to be right now. Morale is very low and people are scared, making for many bad days here lately.
04-15-2013, 06:27 AM
#140
Quite a few of our attorneys are leaving the firm to start their own. The founders and top brass all retired last month and this place looks like a ghost town. Should I be worried? Should I start sending out resumes? Should I wait for the big shoe to drop? I need a few more years of paychecks under my belt. This is not a happy place to be right now. Morale is very low and people are scared, making for many bad days here lately.
My boss is at an age where he may decide to hang a "for sale" sign on the door before I can even think of quitting. However, as much as I may whine about my job, there are too many pluses here to go out and start over anywhere else, unless I have to. God, I might have to work until 5:00 PM at a different job. That would interfere with my "Y" time. Right now I'm staying on this train and waiting to see what comes next in life.