{"id":1188,"date":"2011-05-02T19:03:33","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T01:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/famille.org\/?p=1188"},"modified":"2011-05-02T19:15:20","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T01:15:20","slug":"the-big-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/famille.org\/?p=1188","title":{"rendered":"The Big Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another in the continuing blog series about my extended unemployment.\u00c2\u00a0 First off, let me say: this will be the only post I make that doesn’t have a summary or a lesson.\u00c2\u00a0 Most will be along the lines of “Here’s a story about an experience I had with Cover Letters, and why you need to write a good one.” This one has no lesson, except this: It Can Happen To You<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So you’ve all thought about it… what if it’s you?\u00c2\u00a0 I must admit, although I didn’t fret much, I did think about it.\u00c2\u00a0 When it came, it was surreal.\u00c2\u00a0 I had arrived at work as normal, and started my usual Monday morning routine – check email, answer the high priority, set aside the lower priority stuff for later, take care of any pressing matters.<\/p>\n

The first pressing matter that came up was, a colleague of mine pinged me on chat.\u00c2\u00a0 We worked together managing what was essentially a ticket management system for a data center I managed.\u00c2\u00a0 For those of you who care, the system was based on Plone.\u00c2\u00a0 I won’t go into the gory technical details, but when someone who helped us manage the lab (i.e. staging systems, or adding network addresses, etc.) left the company, their name had to be removed from a database in Plone or the whole system would simply stop working.\u00c2\u00a0 So this colleague pings me, and says “Hey, just thought you should know that Fred got laid off today, he was a ticket manager, so you should remove his entry in the databse.”<\/p>\n

Aw crap.\u00c2\u00a0 I liked Fred (name changed to protect the innocent), and then it occurred to me… today was the day that they were going to make the next round of cuts.\u00c2\u00a0 Ugh, I wonder who else will get the axe.<\/p>\n

As I said, I didn’t think much about it, as far as whether it would effect me.\u00c2\u00a0 I had survived many rounds of layoffs, and although I knew it could happen to anyone, I didn’t expect the axe to come down on me that day.\u00c2\u00a0 About an hour later, the phone rang.\u00c2\u00a0 I was just about to go grab an OJ, but I figured since I had efficiently caught myself up on email, I should stay caught up and answer this call.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, if I didn’t answer the phone, they’d just email me, and then I’d have to read it, do something about it, yadda yadda yadda.<\/p>\n

So I pick it up.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s Gordy (again, names changed).\u00c2\u00a0 He’s the head of our IT group in Chicago.\u00c2\u00a0 We go back, used to work together a lot on related projects, he’s a pretty nice guy.\u00c2\u00a0 So I wondered why he’s calling me.\u00c2\u00a0 He tells me, “Hey Mike, I’m up by the door to HR, can you come up here?”\u00c2\u00a0 My first thought was terribly wrong – some folks used to call me when they got stuck behind a security door, because I’m usually in the office early.\u00c2\u00a0 And, well, if you get stuck behind a security door at 7:30 AM, you pretty much need to call someone<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But it’s not 7:30 AM.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s nearly 9.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s no security door to get stuck “behind” up on the HR floor.\u00c2\u00a0 Crap.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m in the cross-hairs.\u00c2\u00a0 A million things went through my mind all at once, and I’m sure I went completely pale.\u00c2\u00a0 But I steadied myself, hiked up my pants, locked my computer keyboard, and headed up to find out what the future holds for me.<\/p>\n

Gordy introduces me to an HR person they brought in temporarily from Stamford, probably because the regular HR folks didn’t want to.\u00c2\u00a0 Then Gordy and temp-HR-person starting going through the details – The Bank is suffering financially.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve laid off\u00c2\u00a0 many, and there’s still more to come.\u00c2\u00a0 And my position has been eliminated.\u00c2\u00a0 Temp-HR-person starts going through the severance details.\u00c2\u00a0 Health insurance.\u00c2\u00a0 Some company will be hired by The Bank to help me clean up my resume, and maybe help me find a job.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, the rep is here, and (if I feel like it), I can meet him today.\u00c2\u00a0 More details, sign this stuff at your leisure, mail it in by suck-and-such date, yadda yadda yadda.\u00c2\u00a0 It was about 10:00 AM, and I was already feeling tired from information overload.<\/p>\n

Finally they asked if I wanted to meet my new job search coach.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just after 10, I had come into the office expecting to not leave until 4:00 PM.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, what the hell, what else do I have to do today?\u00c2\u00a0 The coach introduces himself, outlines what he’ll be doing for me, for how long, and what resources will be available to me.\u00c2\u00a0 He asks me a few questions about my career.\u00c2\u00a0 Also he tells me, it’s time to think about what you’re going to tell people.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t tell them you were laid off or RIFed, he says.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell them that your “position was eliminated”.\u00c2\u00a0 Heh, that’s the same term that Gordy used.\u00c2\u00a0 I never quite understood that statement… whenever I used it, even in interviews, people inevitably responded “Oh, you were laid off.”\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever.<\/p>\n

Finished with my new coach, they handed me the personal items I could carry home (the rest would be packed up and mailed to me later that week) and a security guard escorted me to the elevator, down to the first floor, and through the security gate.\u00c2\u00a0 Once out, I couldn’t come back in, so he bid farewell and went back upstairs, probably to escort another poor sap down to the ground.\u00c2\u00a0 To this day, I don’t envy him.<\/p>\n

Out on the street at 10:30 AM on Monday, I had no idea what to do next.\u00c2\u00a0 In the immortal words of Tommy Shaw, “I’ve got nothing to do
\nAnd all day to do it.”\u00c2\u00a0 Money wasn’t an immediate problem; after 11 years, The Bank was taking care of me pretty well in our divorce.\u00c2\u00a0 I must admit that a small, tiny part of me wanted to go to a bar.\u00c2\u00a0 But I figured I had big news to tell my family, and a fully schnockered Dad coming home and saying “Daddy lost his job” wasn’t going to be a good start for the family.\u00c2\u00a0 I headed to the train station.<\/p>\n

It was 10:30 AM, and my next train was at 11:30.\u00c2\u00a0 By then, I would probably be hungry, so I decided to stop at a fast food place at the train station.\u00c2\u00a0 I got a burger and fries, and waited for my train.\u00c2\u00a0 A lot was going through my head, but now I can’t remember it all.\u00c2\u00a0 My coach was going to call me in a few days, after things sunk in.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t have to start my resume yet, I had plenty of time and the coach would help me with that. Soon I would have to tell people – starting with immediate family, explaining what happened, reminding them that I work in IT in Financial Services, and this sort of thing is to be expected, especially during this terrible economy.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll be fine, we have a parachute – not golden, but at least something.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, I’d have to broaden out the message.\u00c2\u00a0 Parents.\u00c2\u00a0 Brothers.\u00c2\u00a0 Cousins.\u00c2\u00a0 Etc.<\/p>\n

But right now, it’s not time for that yet.\u00c2\u00a0 Right now, it’s just me and my newfound status – unemployed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another in the continuing blog series about my extended unemployment.\u00c2\u00a0 First off, let me say: this will be the only post I make that doesn’t have a summary or a lesson.\u00c2\u00a0 Most will be along the lines of “Here’s a story about an experience I had with Cover Letters, and why you need to write […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gettajob"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1192,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions\/1192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}