Based on my last blog some of you might be thinking that I killed someone either recently or in the past. Please rest assured that, that is not the case. I was just flexing my creative muscles.

But let us return to the real world (the matrix).

Credit crunch, housing market collapse, bad economy, recession, homelessness, skyrocketing unemployment, the end of the world, armageddon, 666, blah, blah yeah, yeah etc, etc.

Ladies and gentlemen, it might just be the end of the world as we know it.

But screw that topic, lets go back to talking about me :).

So yeah, had a general meeting on Tuesday. Got some bad news. The good ol’ be careful what you wish for.

Lets go back, back in time. It was a stormy night, or was it a sunny day?

We were rounded up like cattle for the slaughter and summoned to the meeting room.

The business isn’t doing well. We are losing revenue. So here is the plan. Three phases. The final phase will result in jobs being lost based on how important you are to the business.

After the meeting we were told phase 1 has already commenced.

The next month (January 2009) got an email saying we are in phase 2.

Phase 2 was apparently room cuts and a few other things but nobody getting fired.
However nobody was actually informed as to the specifics that the declaration of phase 2 would entail.

After sweating for 2 months we were all once again summoned on Tuesday. Basically one person who works off site is getting the chop at the end of this month. In two months time 2 more people will be getting the chop once the CEO is back from a business trip. People who are least important to the company and don’t work hard enough will be prime candidates (and here I am writing blogs instead of doing work LOL).

It was pretty intense because the first hour of the meeting was boring slides. Everybody was falling asleep. Then BANG. He just started talking about firing people and betting the house on a new business model…

Two people were even called out by names stating that their roles have become redundant of late due to the market. So either find new roles and functions or get a pay reduction or even worse the chop.

Harsh times are upon us. It is survival of the fittest. Who will survive? Only time will tell.

I am working at a small financial data provider firm at the moment. The room I am in has like 6-8 people depending on the day of the week.

On my right is a small Chinese woman with spectacles. She works as a financial analyst. We are actually doing a project together which involves calculating some financial data from spreadsheets. She is pretty cool.

The past few weeks have been pretty busy at work. I have found myself coming in on weekends, national holidays and getting home as late as 8-9pm. But things have calmed down slightly this week.

While sitting at my desk contemplating whether or not I should do any work today I heard a sound. I looked to my right and I saw the analyst take her spectacles off and start to breathe heavily. Something seemed weird. She then started crying pretty loudly.

I started thinking the worse. She has a small son who goes to nursery, did she get an email saying something happened to him? Did someone she know die or get hurt badly? From what I could tell her phone had not rang…

The four of us in the room went over to find out what had happened. I could not really make out what she was saying since English is not her first language, and she was crying pretty hard. However, I made out her saying the name of a worker in the company and point to an email on her screen.

The analyst had passed on some quality control work to a member of the data entry team next door. But the person next door had made some mistakes and there were some errors in the database. Because of this, a senior member of staff came down pretty hard on her in an email for passing off work saying the analyst should be doing this task herself and criticizing her general performance.

However, the analyst had done nothing wrong in passing it on. I guess since the world is coming to an end and the company is not doing well everybody is on edge.

The analyst’s tears made me sad for a couple of reasons.

As gay as this sounds, I think everyone should be nice to each other and treat each other the way they would like to be treated. And maybe it is just me, but there is always something annoying about seeing the most peaceful and cheerful person in the room getting shitted on.

While crying, the analysts said something along the lines of “I am doing my work properly and trying my best, but she (senior member of staff) is saying the work I do is not good!”

Her tears taught me something about her. She must really care and take pride in her work to get that worked up about it.

Makes me wonder what the fuck I am doing here. I spend half the day daydreaming and browsing the web and I couldn’t give two shits what anybody thinks about the work I produce…