Their favorite pastime (but not mine)

Early yesterday morning my Jacksonville manager pulled together myself and two of my teammates for an impromptu meeting. Well. Early morning cross-country impromptu meetings are not for good news. Sure enough. It was time for the favorite pastime of large organizations: a reorg.

My Jacksonville manager that I had been nicely building a relationship with was now my ex-manager. Our small reporting team of three people would now be reporting to Charlotte, to someone none of us knew or had spoken to before. But that was par for the course.

Perhaps I'm a curse: before I arrived my Jacksonville manager had overseen this management reporting function for more than 2 1/2 years, a bastion of stability these days. I'm there three weeks and she's off to a new function. My new manager will be my 3rd manager in the last 30 days!

And no small irony - he's from India. At least he's a bank employee and not part of the outsourcing legions. He's experienced with managing onshore/offshore outsourcers however; he had seven of them in his prior team.

Still, his whole team has been moved under another manager as part of this reorganization. So us three are all that's standing between him and being an ex-manager (or worse). At least there's some disincentives to getting rid of us for now.

No one likes this type of change, least of all me. But as one of my colleagues put it: at least our names are still on the organization chart.

Technorati Tags: large organizations, reorg

Heat besieged

What a summer. We've lived in our Northern California home over 20 years, and this July is the hottest thing I can remember. Typically it's in the '80s or low 90s, with occasional spikes for a day or two up to 100 degrees. But nearly every day has been over 100 for the last few weeks: Saturday it was 115 - it's been boiling.

The last few days of the worst: we've felt under siege by the heat. Saturday and Sunday the power went out for most of the afternoon. It's amazing how quick the temperature climbs with no air-conditioning; in no time it was 85 degrees in the house. No fans. No lights. No computer! With one stroke we were plunged back 100 years to pre-electricity days. The romance of the good ol' days was quickly lost on me.

To add insult to injury, a power surge Monday killed our air-conditioner. Tuesday it was 105 degrees , and we spent the whole day without a/c, the inside temperature rising to 94. That morning my youngest son had his four wisdom teeth extracted, so he was horribly uncomfortable on top of the pain and Vicodin-induced nausea.

Tuesday certainly was the worst day because we were without air the whole day. Still, mentally we were better prepared. We were hot and sweaty, but we were fighting it less and accepting it more. We drove in the car to cool off, stopped by a Dairy Queen in the evening for a lo-o-o-ng, cool dessert, stayed outside waiting for the house to cool. There was more coping and less complaining. We managed to muddle through somehow.

Note: if your air-conditioner is going to fail, it's far better to lose it at the beginning of the heat wave vs. the end. By the time ours went out every air-conditioner business in the area was booked, often for several weeks. Lucky for us, an acquaintance of my wife is in the air-conditioner business, and her husband fit us in this afternoon. A quick 30 minute repair and we were able to rejoin civilization.

We are cool again and loving it - at least until we get the electric bill.

Technorati Tags: heatwave, power outage

My wife resigns

Last week my wife had the chance to fulfill the dream of every frustrated worker. Namely, dear boss: take this job and shove it!

She blew it.

Thursday she gave her notice at the dental office. She was polite and professional, diplomatic, and nary a word about the negatives. Her leaving was for family reasons, which was true: she put up with much worse for several years after last job. The ongoing long hours, however, no longer make it worth it. For the same hours, she could be commuting into the city and making way more money. She chooses not to do that: she would rather trade money for family time.

Her boss, the outgoing dentist, was very understanding. He called a staff meeting, announced her leaving, and told her: "You saved my life". She has really turned around that office in the past year.

The new dentist was shocked she was leaving. It's probably too much to ask that she might ponder her actions and consider whether this step could have been avoided.

Meanwhile, my wife is counting the days until she is free. And she already has a lead for a possible new job.

Technorati Tags: small business, working environment

Small ain't beautiful

While my work situation has been gradually on the mend, the same could not be said for my wife. For the last six years she has worked for small businesses; unfortunately, a less than favorable work environment is not unique to large companies. In fact, her tales could out-blog mine every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

She's worked for a dentist for the past year. It seemed great: nice pay increase, knew the dentist from our kids, professional environment, health-care field - ideal. But the practice, in fact, was literally bankrupt: the workers race each other to cash their check; last to the bank bounces. Some of the workers were downright hostile and very difficult to deal with. Some days she braced for the sheriff's arrival to repossess all the equipment.

Yet lately things had seemed to be improving. After many months, the practice had been sold. The new dentist promised a fresh start, my wife would be working full-time with a nice pay increase again, and a new hire in the front brought someone pleasant to talk to.

But first impressions were misleading. The new dentist needed every miniscule detail done her way; any variance brought a torrent of abuse. The dentist is single and a workaholic: suddenly the workday was extending till 7:30 at night, with Saturdays soon to come. And the new worker was assimilated, joining the Hostile Side.

My wife was no longer herself, drained of energy by the time she straggled home, sleepless nights thinking of work, borderline depressed. She made up her mind today: she'll give her notice Friday.

Even if it takes a while to find something, life is too short for every day to be a struggle. And the best thing: the decision wiped away her depression - she was her old self again.

Tonight was a nice family night, for the first time in a while. And that's worth a lot.

Technorati Tags: small business, working environment

Short-term careers

Ran into an old friend at work today. Our first words: "You're still here!", the Bank IT version of "How 'ya been?". His Web development work had also been sent offshore, and he was back to the mainframe. He's the only one in California, everyone else on his team is back East. And the direction, he's been told, is to hire from Jacksonville or Charlotte.

I'm not sure I can remember the last Bank IT person that felt secure in their job. People are realistic, surprisingly not downbeat, but painfully aware the amount of time they have left here is out of their hands. Most are great workers, and would gladly invest the rest of their careers at the Bank, given the opportunity.
But that's yesterday's reality.

Instead, most are content to only look forward over the short-term: say the coming six months. So "I seem OK for now" means "I don't see anything happening through year-end". Of course, things "seemed OK" for me as well - up till three weeks prior to my dismissal.

My family is "glad that's settled" and they can stop worrying about me for now. And I'm grateful the immediate crisis has been averted. But the only thing settled is: I'm OK for now.

Technorati Tags: layoffs, outsourcing

Outsourcing Growth Slows: Wall Street Journal

The bloom is off the outsourcing rose, according to a July 11th story in the Wall Street Journal: Some Outsourcing Might Ease Amid Errors, Disappointments (alas, subscription required).

A survey by DiamondCluster International, found 64% of the buyers of offshore outsourcing services plan to increase the services in the next 12 months. However, this number is down 13.5% from the year before.

Terminating offshore contracts, something in 2004 no survey respondents planned, was now cited by 8% of the survey respondents, up 60% from 2005.

"This waning enthusiasm partly reflects mistakes companies have made or unrealistic expectations they have had in earlier outsourcing efforts, says Tom Weakland, managing partner of global sourcing practice at DiamondCluster. Others feel they have outsourced as much as they could.

Some companies feel expected savings from outsourcing never materialized. "They're not getting the 40%, 50%, 60% cost reductions they thought they would get," Mr. Weakland says."

Of course, outsourcing's serious human impact does not come up among the reasons for the decline. One can only hope that the bottom-line benefits peter out before our engineering base has eroded beyond repair.

Technorati Tags: layoffs, outsourcing

Your feedback is requested

Received an e-mail at work the other day, inviting me to complete a "Staffing Specialist Survey". Not again, I thought. Is there no place to hide from the ubiquitous Web Survey these days? Apparently not - even the workplace is not safe.

However, feeling a sense of obligation toward the staffing specialist who, in some very slight degree, worked with me in obtaining this job, I began the survey. One problem: the only clue which position was being surveyed was a long 10 digit position number; which is not much help. So just to be sure, I found the original posting for my position: it was different. This survey was for something else.

The staffing specialists didn't really want my opinion for the other positions I applied for. Theirs was not the most stellar performance in my experience. But they asked...

The most amusing part were several questions regarding communications I had received from the staffing specialist. At what point did I receive communications? Of what quality were the communications? How satisfied was I with the communications? Reading between the lines, the bank apparently assumed communications were taking place.

This was a bad assumption, at least in my case. Quite simply there were no communications. I never received any feedback, acknowledgment or even answers to direct questions from our team of crack staffing specialists.

Still, in retrospect, I do owe my current position to the staffing specialists. Thanks to their communication expertise, they never bothered to inform my current manager that the posting had expired. So she assumed the posting was out there, but no one had applied. Fortunately for me, no one had applied because the posting had been unposted. By the time all this got cleared up, I was alerted to the position, applied and got it.

Perhaps my survey ratings should have been a tad higher. After all, I never could have done it without their help.

Technorati Tags: job search, surveys

No grand plan

I had always assumed a layoff notice was the end of your career at the Bank. Strike one, you're out. The Bank is Judge, jury and executioner - what chance do you have? So when I received my notice, I just knew that was it. In fact, at the beginning I was taking more time researching possible at-home businesses. That seemed at least a constructive use of my time.

I was wrong, however. My layoff notice was strike one - but I still had a couple strikes left.

I assumed that my layoff was a verdict of "The Bank". It was nothing of the kind. One department, in a little bit of money trouble, laid off 20 people: and I was caught up in this. But smart decision or stupid decision, it had no larger meaning. It was no Bank-wide grand decision - that would probably be giving the Bank too much credit.

In large corporations, personnel decisions seem analogous to chaos theory: everything is unplanned, random and spontaneous. While I think this is truly bad business, it does mean you have another chance. So with my layoff, I had been made a "free agent" and could negotiate with other "teams" inside or outside of the company. The layoff notice did not close off this negotiation option; in that way, it was far from The Verdict. Find another team that wants you, and with a couple computer keystrokes you are again a regular employee.

If it happens again, I should remember The Godfather's advice: it's not personal, it's business. There's no grand plan: just find a new team.

Technorati Tags: layoffs, outsourcing

Corporate Inspiration

This morning I started my new position with the bank. Waiting for me in my e-mail was the formal "offer letter" confirming my acceptance: "Congratulations on your new position! This letter will confirm our offer and your acceptance to join our Team..."

Sounded great. However, it kept going: "This letter does not constitute an employment contract...but rather your employment is on an at-will basis. That is, you or the Bank may end the employment relationship with or without notice or cause."

Nothing like a warm, secure relationship with your employer to inspire one to greater heights.

I am inspired to keep alive and foster my side web ventures.

Technorati Tags: layoffs, outsourcing

Character builder

I'm writing this from my California backyard. It's a beautiful early evening, 82 degrees and a slight breeze; should be good weather for fireworks later. It looks like my bank laptop is not going to be snatched away, so I might as well put it to good use. I guess I'm also going to have to invest the time to figure out why it won't connect to my wireless network. Previously, I could tell myself the laptop wasn't worth the trouble since I'd be turning it in soon.

I've had several days now of feeling normal. I had almost forgotten how nice it is! I took Monday off (my first day off this year) for a long weekend, which I really needed. It's been like a little mini-vacation, and the stress just melted away.

Of course, there's always a chance the stars were not aligned this weekend, and the bank's computers accidentally terminated me again. I could find out by attempting to do a remote connection; but,nah...I'll worry about that tomorrow.

Although it's been a rough three months, I'm not sure I would change anything if I could. If "everything happens for a reason", then this outsourcing was a "character builder" (as my father always insists) par excellence. I'm proud, ultimately, of the way I handled it. It took me awhile to fight through the anger and disbelief, but I did, and moved on constructively. This blog, and the support of family and friends, was a great help.

I do intend to continue this blog. The focus may change somewhat, but I am on the front lines of the ongoing outsourcing conflict. Believe me, there's never a shortage of interesting material.
And I now have a deeper appreciation for the little-recognized cost layoffs and outsourcing our exacting on so many.

I'm no expert.

But this blog is one small thing I can do to help.


Technorati Tags: layoffs, job search, outsourcing