Well as anticipated, yesterday November 13th was "D Day" for me. D for Disposal. I have been trying to work out some play on words as November 11 is Armistice Day or more often called Remembrance Day by most people. Technically D day commemorates in the Western cultures the day of the Normandy landings which was the beginning of the Allied counter strike to push the German Army back out of France and ultimately end the war against Germany. It's a weak link at best. (I expect that Germany does not celebrate this day!) I had been given the heads up the night before and about 9:30 I was in front of two of the Senior Partners being told how they valued my contributions, but economic forces were changing, profitability down blah blah blah. Hey wake up!
I sat there saying to myself "Show me the money!" and thinking that if these guys had put as much effort into building their business as they did into fighting amongst themselves and finding out how to slash costs, we would not have had this conversation. But I am not bitter, I never expected to stay there forever, the timing was pretty poor however. My main mission had been accomplished I had left Canberra, I had been paid to relocate, I had 20 months of a fairly easy job and been given a soft landing. Time to move on for me.
There was a bit of devastation around the firm with a total of 16 people made redundant, not quite 10% but getting up there. It was a big shake up, pretty much all of the younger staff cried as did a few more mature people. People cleared their desks out and left throughout the day. I had a few loose ends to tidy up and couldn't get out until mid afternoon. Gave me time to say goodbye to a few people however. Eventually I rode off into the (figurative) sunset.
I sat there saying to myself "Show me the money!" and thinking that if these guys had put as much effort into building their business as they did into fighting amongst themselves and finding out how to slash costs, we would not have had this conversation. But I am not bitter, I never expected to stay there forever, the timing was pretty poor however. My main mission had been accomplished I had left Canberra, I had been paid to relocate, I had 20 months of a fairly easy job and been given a soft landing. Time to move on for me.
There was a bit of devastation around the firm with a total of 16 people made redundant, not quite 10% but getting up there. It was a big shake up, pretty much all of the younger staff cried as did a few more mature people. People cleared their desks out and left throughout the day. I had a few loose ends to tidy up and couldn't get out until mid afternoon. Gave me time to say goodbye to a few people however. Eventually I rode off into the (figurative) sunset.
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