Results tagged “Lay Offs” from Job Swill

I used to be a receptionist in an office and then moved up to an assistant position. For a while, it seemed like we had a rotation of temps in the position after me, who either didn't want the job, or who just weren't the right fit.

Unfortunately for me, that meant that I was constantly being pulled back up to the front desk to train every new person that showed up, even though it was no longer a part of my job description.

Finally, I passed along the resume of a girl whom I had known in college. We weren't really friends--more acquaintances really and had simply lived in the same dorm at one point in time.

Needless to say, I trained her and determined that I would finally wash my hands of the whole reception situation. I was so happy that she would be the new go-to gal from here on out.

I have the dubious distinction of having held a variety of really shitty jobs. REALLY. SHITTY. JOBS. And while I do not want to make the argument that any of them are worse than what I have seen on this site, it is safe to say a couple of them are unique in this regard: the bullshit didn't end when I left. Be advised there is no happy ending to this story--- yet anyway--- but time is working on my side. Read on and you'll understand...

Job #1: I was an advertising sales assistant at an in-room hotel publication. Unbeknownst to me at the time I was hired, I was walking into a "situation"--- and by using the word 'situation' I am talking about a study in female office dynamics that makes "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" look like water ballet. You see, I was to work under two women and one was the immediate supervisor of the other. The uber-boss, we'll call her "Blanche", was brought in to supervise my under-boss, who I will henceforth call "Jane".

Jane had applied for the uber-boss position and was passed over in favor of an outside candidate (Blanche). This probably came to pass because Jane is a fucking psycho (as I soon learned): enabling her to supervise anyone would be on par with letting Michael Jackson run a day care facility. Bad idea. In any case, I had already become a pawn between two women who despised each other. Great.

In the interest of brevity I will forgo talking about Blanche's psychotic behavior, as Jane behavior was much more venal...

It started with small stuff: Jane would bitch at me for messing up her file system (I never know there was a 'system', looked piles of shit to me) or she would claim I did not send/give her some vital piece of paper work (and I'd re-send the emails addressed to her proving I did). That's roughly when she told me I had to email her each time I put something in her inbox (because it was not an 'in' box it was a compost heap).

Well I was just laid off on Monday. Our company announced back in September that our division had been sold. Due to numerous inaccuracies with the company's financial statements and auditing issues the deal dragged on for 5 months until Friday when the sale was finally complete.

Flash Forward three days to Monday morning. I was on a conference call...in other words doing my job at 9 am...when my boss calls me and the other three women I work with into her office and announces that we have all been laid off. Seven people in our department of 14 got the axe. I have never been more floored in my life!!

The thing that pissed me off the most though was when we all had our exit interviews 1) it was via conference call...they couldn't even send someone down to our office in Texas to do it in person and 2) the first thing out of the HR reps' mouth is "First I want to apologize..." Gimme a FREAKING BREAK!!! Apologize are you kidding me?!

It's like I gave this company 5 years and with no notice whatsoever you tell me to pack my shit and get out!

(Posted by Anonymous)

Back during the last gasp of the dot com era, the company I worked for hired a very pricey "Program Manager", even though the company was bleeding money, she appeared to know nothing about the Web or how software worked or how humans worked. She was in the office for about 2 months before rumors started circulating about layoffs. The official management position was that we were as lean as we could be without compromising customer support.

One Friday morning, I come into work and see that I've been invited to a meeting at 11:00AM. I go into the meeting along with the rest of the office and this Program Manager comes into the room. She's all smiles and energy and I'm thinking "hey, maybe we get to find out what this woman actually does."

She says "Hi, my name is E.C., and if you have not met me yet (which none of us had), I'm the Program Manager for the US office. The reason why I've called this meeting is to tell you that if you are here in this room, you still have a job."

Let me start out by saying I'm not usually a slacker, I have worked hard for every company I ever worked for. I went on several interviews with a major media company, the interviewer was an idiot, who from the sound of it, was a sacred cow within the company but had failed at every job he had. He was now the head of a low-priority department. Eventually, I was offered a job that basically no one wanted in sales for the worst division in the company (the job had had three occupants in three years). The supervisor was on the other side of the country, and he was a complete incompetent. I was afraid of being unemployed and thought that I could change jobs eventually. I found out that this was a complete dead-end division and laughing stock of the company.

I basically made up my mind to see how long I could work, without actually working until they caught on. (I looked for a better job the whole time, eventually finding a good position elsewhere) I found my predecessors files and basically turned in all of his sales call reports as my own for a good 8 months! I watched porn, surfed the net, traveled all over the US visiting friends while staying in nice hotels and collecting serious frequent flier miles. In December I went AWOL for a month and no one noticed! I finally got laid off, but not without a great severance package and outplacement assistance! Best job I ever had!

(Posted by Anonymous)