Why was I surprised?
by davebarclay1954
I had a meeting at work yesterday to confirm what I already knew (I am being let go – made redundant – surplus to requirements) at the end of March. I was also given a statement of how much my redundancy package would be worth, while I wasn’t expecting a fortune the redundancy part was as I expected (a pittance) but I thought 12 weeks PILON would have made it enough to tide me over for a couple of months, however, the figure for PILON is equivalent to 1 months salary less tax. How does that equate to 12 weeks – which is almost 3 months?
I shouldn’t really be surprised by that, after all I was promised that my salary would increase annually and the initial increase would be 6 months after starting. That never did happen. Morale within the company has gone through the floor and the majority of our customers can’t wait for their contracts to be up so that they can go elsewhere as the service they are paying for is far less than that they were receiving 12-18 months ago.
If the staff are treated badly, then the company can’t expect them to give a continuously brilliant level of service to the customers. Case in point, DWP have been really spectactularly overjoyed at the level of service my team has provided to them. The team is already 33% below the level it was at a year ago. The team now can almost provide the daily, weekly and monthly reports on the usage of our service, after I leave there will not be the level of staff to cover the daily operational period of 07:00-17:00 as well as out of hours support. The way it works currently, if someone is called out and spends two or three hours on that call out they cut back on their working day by an equal amount.
That works because there are still two of us to cover the incident queue and monitor the servers. Once I’ve gone at the end of March there will be two to cover everything, including out of hours support and with major upgrades due to go in between now and the end of July that means no holidays and no time off even if they work 24/7 some weeks.
We all know that no-one can keep going indefinitely without sleep so it will be interesting to see if they ask me to go back just so they don’t have to train another newbie from scratch. (I won’t hold my breath though because knowing Enterprise Services (soon to become DXC Technology) they will continue to lay people off until they have no customers, no shareholders and no staff.
Image below courtesy of Terry Pratchett and Discworld.
I am sorry to hear your bad news. Too many companies these days treating staff badly and providing a bad service. How anyone can say you are surplus to requirements is beyond me – surely you are an ‘essential’ in any capacity! Sending big hugs and hoping that there will be a silver lining for you somehow, somewhere x
Thank you Lucy, I am only surplus to requirements in that profits are down so shareholders can’t get a big dividend and since the CEO gets 99% of her pay check through dividends something has to give 🙂
Hopefully something will turn up sooner rather than later or I’ll be totally in the poop.
I am thinking of you, dear chap.
I’m sorry to hear this happened to you. I was “released” in March of 2016. Some museum administrators also treat their employees like crap.
Wishing you the best, Dave.
Are you really being made redundant…or are they outsourcing to another country and using the “profits are down” as an excuse? I can’t get customer service about anything without being transferred across the world.
And speaking of customer service…I stayed with a previous cable company far too long simply because of the LOCAL customer service. They didn’t have a clue what they were doing but they were so gracious and always tried to be helpful.
The cable company I’m with now? Don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground, don’t give a shit about your service….and all overseas.
Hi Laurel, Yes I am being made redundant, they can’t outsource this job as the DWP is a government department and I required security clearance before starting on the team. One of the conditions is that it is handled within a secure environment using completely locked down government approved computers and laptops. Because of the security concerns and the worries of “outsourcing to another country” being unsecure and hackable I am sure that they are thinking only of the bottom line. The customer has already told the company that there aren’t enough staff in the team but have no input into staffing levels. Yes I know what you mean about customer service when it goes off-shore, English isn’t their first language and some of them can’t understand if you have a slight accent. This makes it difficult even when they have the knowledge to help you if there is a language barrier it makes help difficult.
I know what you mean about accents. I’m not bashful and don’t mind telling these overseas employees that I can’t understand a word they’re saying…then tell my friends it would be a good comedy skit…somebody from New Delhi, trying to understand a Southerner and vise versa!
I’m sorry, Dave. I hope you find something soon.
Thank you Persia, me too.
I’m so sorry Dave. I’m praying that you find something better.
I’m sorry to hear your news Dave and wish you all the best for the future. I hope something turns up.
Hugs
I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you find something much nicer very quickly.
Looks as though it will, I’ve got an interview on Friday for a job I’d much rather do, for a company who treat their staff with respect and have a 5 star rating from the people working for them 🙂
How exciting! I hope it works out.
Interview seemed to go well, here’s hoping I get it. The company recruit all the time, don’t have an ageist policy and encourage their employees to help their customers. If only every company was as committed to diversity as they are.
Fingers crossed.
The company, Sage, offer more perks than I get where I am. They also take care of their staff and appreciate them. Unlike HPE who treat their staff poorly, don’t appreciate them at all and tell them they can be let go at a moments notice. Then they wonder why nobody wants to work for them and staff are looking to leave in droves.
I’m reading in reverse order (read your most recent posts prior to each that came before), so, I won’t comment as much as I read (I’d just be repeating myself)….but, wow….how brutal….I’m so proud of you for finding a way to take this one day at a time 🙂 (that’s meant to be a small, comforting smile).
Thank you, smiles are contagious and make everyone feel better about themselves x
I agree… 🙂