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>> And five minutes ago, I got a phone call telling my that... my boss...
>> no longer works for this company. O_O
>
> I'm not sure why that would be a WTF. I guess the first half-dozen
> times you get fired or quit or whatever, it's a bit distressing.
Let me paint a picture:
When I first joined the company, everybody who worked there had been
there for at least 5 years, and some of them very much longer.
If somebody decided to leave, it was always a fairly big surprise. You'd
typically find out they were leaving 6 to 8 months before they actually
left. It was company tradition that everybody would sign a leaving card.
If the person was especially popular, there would be a small collection
which would fund the purchase of some small gift. And the person would
be presented with their card and their gift at a large gathering of
everybody in the tea room.
(The same procedure applies to girls leaving on maternity, which has
also happened once or twice.)
There would likely also be a social gathering one evening at one of the
local restaurants to say goodbye to the person (although attendance at
this is far more optional - what with people having kids and other
social commitments, or just living too far away).
One time we had some guy work for us who had been in some kind of
traffic accident. It did something to his brain; he apparently had no
short-term memory. We'd train him to do something, and two days later he
had no recollection of ever having done this task. In the end we let him
go again, and it was quite a big shock to the collective social system
of the workplace to see somebody leave with only a week's notice - even
though he hadn't been here long yet.
Getting new people was also a rare and unusual event. Typically
management would know about this at least two months in advance [not
that they always remembered to warn ME!]
Basically, the workplace was an extremely stable and predictable
environment.
All this bares no resemblence to how the company seems to operate now.
After our head sales guy and our site manager both left abruptly (like,
with 3 days' notice) just before we moved to the new building, things
have never been stable again since.
The lab was always running flat-out, with barely enough hands to plough
through all the work on our order books. Now we have entire weeks where
everybody sits in the lab office playing Flash games with the volume
turned up.
Under the direction of Fathead, people seemingly came and left on a day
to day basis. We'd arrive for work on Tuesday morning and some random
stranger would be standing amoungst us and Fathead would be "oh, yeah, I
hired this new lab guy". One afternoon we'd have a meeting and it'd be
like "oh hey, you remember these three people you were talking to this
morning? Well they don't work here now."
And each time this happened, we'd all just stand there dumbfounded and
be like "OMG, WTF? What's going on around this place?"
We've now reached the point where the workplace is so unstable that
everybody almost takes in in their stride. Once upon a time, getting rid
of the Director of IT would have been a really huge big deal. Now
everybody just shrugs. The staff seem to change every five minutes
around here - from the guy who washes the floor right up to the CEO.
(BTW, apparently we're getting a new CEO. A few years back we hired one
of these guys who makes a career out of going into failing companies,
turning them around and then moving on to the next one. Well, he was
only supposed to be temporary. We haven't been turned around. And he's
leaving. We have no idea who will replace him.)
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