On Survival

When you've worked for the same company for almost 15 years, you start to feel like you've seen everything. Every business goes in cycles, and I've seen ups and downs during my tenure. You start to feel a little bulletproof in terms of the shock factor of business decisions. Why should you be surprised when you've survived it before? But the past week at work was like nothing I've ever seen in my tenure. It took me this long to process my feelings and write about it.

In the space of 3 days, my company laid off 280 people across the company. Many were my friends. Of the group hit in California, I personally trained 80% of them when they were starting out as entry level employees. Didn't see this one coming.

While I am experienced enough in life, and with my employer, to understand the business reasoning behind it, it still feels crappy. These people are being sent out into the wilderness, in any economy with little to offer them. Many are working parents with families to support. They all have bills to pay, which their severance will cover, but only for so long.

When I was younger, my first reaction would have been to organize a protest, cry foul to anyone who would listen, and rail against the injustice of it all. Experience tells me now that course of action would be fruitless. I work for a huge corporation, and people are taken care of provided it suits the needs of the business. Did my company do everything possible to save these people? I can honestly say I don't know. Is the company ultimately responsible to take care of them? Absolutely not. But the company I started with 15 years ago would have done more to find a way. Of that I am certain.

So the anger I would have felt years ago is replaced with only a profound feeling of loss. Beyond the loss of my co-workers, I've lost some of my corporate loyalty. It's the only way I can express my survivors remorse, my sense of guilt for continuing on a normal course while their lives are turned upside down. Am I here because I deserve it more than they do? No. I'm here because I wasn't in the blast area when the bomb went off. I was just lucky.

The question now? How long will my luck hold out?