So far so good

[plonq]

In my inbox this morning: Difficult decisions were reached today as IT continues to meet our corporate commitments. Staff in various departments were released from their employment with [company] immediately.

While our CEO was talking to the shareholders about how he is going to cut our staff levels down 25% by 2016, they were bustling about firing people in IT. I guess I should feel relieved that I survived the "too incompetent to keep around" cuts.

Now we start getting into the "redeploy" and "attrition" rounds, so things could still be interesting for me - though I don't have the age or service to fall into the latter group.

Comments

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

Good news, for now! But I must have missed something - the last time you gave enough of a hint to guess who you worked for, it was not the same company as the company you must have worked at before. And now you've confirmed it, so I'm curious. When did you switch from [one company] to [other company in the same line of business], and why, and assuming that was your choice are you still satisfied with that move?

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Still with the same railway as I have been with for the past 25 years, but I have swapped out roles a few times over that span.

I have been in IT, then in operations, commercial, accounting, then back in IT again. I (well, my whole group actually) may end up in operations again at some point if rumours I have been hearing bear out. They were not very happy to lose us to IT when we got shifted over there in the first place.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

In 2007, you had to fill in for a strike, and in the news it was reported that management was trying to do the work themselves, so I assumed you worked for the company who's workers were on strike at the time.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Same company - even the same job, though I am answering to a different boss now. I nearly got sent out to do locomotive maintenance in 2009, and again in 2011.

The track maintainers are negotiating a contract right now, and they have already sent out all of the preliminary warnings and self-assessments in case they need to deploy us for track work again in January.

Mind you, the new CEO has announced that he is doing a 25% cut of employees across the board, but especially singling out middle management. If he gets rid of all the managers, there won't be enough left to do strike duty.

Don't think the unions won't figure that pretty quick come negotiating time - they are smart people.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

Apparently, your company had a strike begin in 2007 at the same time that the ongoing strike at the other company moved into a new phase, where management was called upon to fill in certain roles there. That's what got me confoozled.

But at least you now have a CEO that can fit two pool balls in his mouth, so that's alright.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I am hoping that he is not trading our long-term viability for short term gains (his plan runs to 2016, then we are on our own after that).

On the other hand, his dictatorial style is allowing him to railroad through changes that none of his predecessors had the guts to do. After just a couple of months of study, he is closing down entire switching yards and eliminating whole departments.

In a way it makes sense - there is no point in running two yards under capacity when we can run a single one at slightly over capacity. It hurts our service levels, but it definitely reduces our costs.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Isn't it interesting how the writer of that announcement used the passive voice? No one fired anyone; the terminations just came out of the ether, without cause.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about this guy other than that they brought him in after our previous head of IT left on very short notice. My hunch is that he was brought in to be a hatchet man, but he can't be much worse than the lady he replaced.

Her legacy was to gut our department and replace 3/4 of what remained with offshore contractors. My hunch is that the contractors are going to bear the brunt of the upcoming cuts as our current CEO is on record for disliking contract workers.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

The trend of outsourcing (in IT and elsewhere) appears to have reversed. "Insourcing" is the new buzzword.

[orleans.livejournal.com]

I'm relieved that everything turned out okay for you. Hope you wind up in a good department with decent work to do when it's all done.