Scary Times

I knew this was coming. I could feel it.

My boss got laid-off yesterday and I think there's more to come. I work for an American company (I am Canadian), so we've all been a little tense here lately with the way the US economy has been. Two weeks ago today our CMO was in our office and held a meeting telling everyone that we were doing fine and better than our competitors, and not to worry. Nothing was changing. Three days later they told us that they were making some cut backs on budgets (ie. no x-mas party, no snacks in the offices, changes to bonus structure etc.) but no lay-offs. These were changes we could easily live with. We were, for the time being, keeping our jobs, our health benefits and our RSP program (Canadian equiv. of the 401k). Everyone seemed to buy this, but I wasn't so sure. Then, yesterday, just over a week later, my boss gets the axe and the lay-offs begin.

Side note: I've been in fear for my job for a while now, and not in relation to the state of the economy. You see, myself and my boss are the only ones in finance at this location (my job entails some HR as well, but is mostly finance). For a long time they have been talking about centralizing finance in our US offices. This would mean the elimination of my job. Now with the economic "melt-down" it's even more tense.

What pisses me off the most is that my boss (T) got the news over the phone from the assistant controller who sat in this office last week for 3 days and had every opportunity to have the discussion face to face. Additionally, not 2 months ago, that same person had a telephone conversation with both myself and T to "disuade rumours" that our jobs/positions were in trouble. She literally said, "We have no intentions to eliminate your positions. I don't know where that rumour is coming from, but please disregard it. We need you and couldn't handle the Canadian finances down here. Your jobs are safe and your not going anywhere". WTF!?!?!

I've been preparing myself to receive that same call for a while now, but it's more of a reality today than ever before. I truly don't believe that I'm going to have ajob much longer. Whether I get the call this week or in a couple of months, I 'm pretty sure it's coming. We had a brief staff meeting this morning to announce that T was leaving, and our GM told us that there were no further planned lay-offs. Everyone seemed relieved, but I kept thinking, "are you all blind? Where and when have we heard that before"?

Now it's a waiting game. I guess I just have to take things one day at a time. I desperately want to go home and crawl onto the couch and veg. I have no motivation to work today and this waiting thing sucks... especially when you don't know how long you'll be waiting for. Hopefully I can weather this storm!