You will be informed on Friday if you still have a job here.
For a while I thought Wall Street ran our company. We made stupid fucking decisions for short term gains. OK whatever, I can roll with stupid decisions.
So we announce a loss for the first time since '92. BUT if you take out the cost of restructuring the company we actually made a profit. Sales are only down like 22%. Really not that bad. Wall Street agreed, our stock went up the last two days.
Today we had a meeting letting us know R&D was thinning the ranks by 5-10%.
We'd been safe thus far.
Through the fear during the speech came the loathing.
Don't ever tell me your process for getting rid of people is "benevolent". Gods are benevolent, you're just people acting in your own self interest so you don't have to cut dividends.
Don't tell me not to worry because 90% of us are safe. I'll keep that philosophy in mind when I'm handed a 10 chamber gun with only one bullet in it and told to put it up to my head and pull the trigger.
Especially when you give us till Friday between 8 am and 2 pm to try and justify in our own minds why we won't be chopped. (My justification is that I'm working on the highest selling bulldozer in North America. That makes me valuable right? It should help me sleep tonight at least, and maybe tomorrow night.)
In a truly Orwellian moment during the speech an individual said that 9 X 4 was 38. No one really said anything. A few of us looked at each other. These people get to decide if we eat steak or the discounted ground beef that is 65% fat next month. Maybe that equation works out if it's in millions or billions, I've only got an engineering degree though so I may be wrong.
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
or in this case 9*4=38
I'm scared.
So we announce a loss for the first time since '92. BUT if you take out the cost of restructuring the company we actually made a profit. Sales are only down like 22%. Really not that bad. Wall Street agreed, our stock went up the last two days.
Today we had a meeting letting us know R&D was thinning the ranks by 5-10%.
We'd been safe thus far.
Through the fear during the speech came the loathing.
Don't ever tell me your process for getting rid of people is "benevolent". Gods are benevolent, you're just people acting in your own self interest so you don't have to cut dividends.
Don't tell me not to worry because 90% of us are safe. I'll keep that philosophy in mind when I'm handed a 10 chamber gun with only one bullet in it and told to put it up to my head and pull the trigger.
Especially when you give us till Friday between 8 am and 2 pm to try and justify in our own minds why we won't be chopped. (My justification is that I'm working on the highest selling bulldozer in North America. That makes me valuable right? It should help me sleep tonight at least, and maybe tomorrow night.)
In a truly Orwellian moment during the speech an individual said that 9 X 4 was 38. No one really said anything. A few of us looked at each other. These people get to decide if we eat steak or the discounted ground beef that is 65% fat next month. Maybe that equation works out if it's in millions or billions, I've only got an engineering degree though so I may be wrong.
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
or in this case 9*4=38
I'm scared.
Labels: Disenfranchisement and Delusion within Corporate America
posted by lawryde at
12:07 AM
4 Comments:
Glad you made it through...
I am scared to death at my company but only 4 other people do my job and I am the only one on the west coast, dealing with 3 of our larger customers and have a great relationship with them.
No one is safe... It's all hocus pocus too. Yosemite was PACKED with people this year.
By
Steve, at 11:11 PM, April 26, 2009
Welcome to the brutal reality of business. You will soon realize that it's just you against the world and no amount of politics (mine or yours) or social solidarity is ever going to save you from it. You have to save yourself, just like the bosses are and hope you are never forced to endure a reality you are not prepared for. In the end, you breath a sigh of relief and thank god is was someone else and not you. People always look out for themselves first before they look out for you.
It sounds like Opposite of Dog was in the same boat as the auto companies. They got all fat, dumb and happy during the halycon years forgetting that to sustain a business, you must always innovate. The fact that they made lots of money and then had it all wiped out by restructuring charges just shows how naive they were in thinking that the good times would last forever. They should have been pouring tons of money (and reporting lower profits and paying smaller executive bonuses) by investing a helluva lot more in R&D and incenting (and paying) their engineers more.
By the way, do you feel any responsibility for the fate that has befallen Opposite of Dog? Or a victim. Don't forget (and you mentioned it) that YOU are one of OOD's most valuable employees. If you plan on continuing to improve people's lives (directly or indirectly) through your genious, you're eventually going to have to call out management's shortcomings in your most diplomatic way as you progress up the ranks. You might just find yourself running the place someday? Wouldn't that just be the grandest way to achieve victory and change what you feel is a broken system?
CT
P.S. Congrats on still being employed. I might find myself on the street but fortunately I am probably better positioned than most to endure such hardship.
By
Chris, at 11:40 AM, April 28, 2009
OOD isn't at all like the American auto industry. We're still #1 in all the segments we serve. Our sales first quarter were only down 22%. We'll gain market share in the downturn as our competitors suffer worse than us.
We expanded to such a big size in order to meet demand and to ramp up R&D for Tier 4 diesel engine emissions levels that are coming in 2010 and 2011.
The brutal reality now is that we need to be the size company that is in line with our sales. You just have to make sure people know your value.
By
lawryde, at 3:11 AM, April 29, 2009
You are showing more management potential by the day.
By
Chris, at 2:35 PM, April 29, 2009
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