Unfortunately I can’t be too specific, but the previously cool company I’m working for seems to be having a bit of a “restructuring” after a “productivity drive” and one or two people havealready been stealth laid off… Basically two product teams are merging and I’m on one. I happen to be able to do some math so I’m feeling a little vulnerable.
Is there anything I should be keeping an eye out for? Any advice?
My father got retrenched a long time ago (around 1990 - 992)
It sucked.
badly … and still sucks today.
He was pretty screwed as they had a restraint of trade bullshit thing on him so he couldn’t go back into the business he was in (mailing house) and had to try make a buck doing other things. (pamphlet distribution, signage, etc)
I think that the “restraint of trade” thing has been “loosened” a bit since then - somewhere round the “big retrenched” of about 1998. It was somewhere in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s that SA went through a “retrenchment phase” (wasn’t it).
You might want to check your contract out and see what it says.
Also - don’t they have to give you x months notice?
Time to start throwing people under the bus.
Start putting your resume out there, just in case. It’s better to turn down a couple of offers than it is to be caught with your pants down.
Such “non-compete” clauses are commonly in contracts (at least in the programming business in the US), even in states were they’re unenforceable (and even when the hiring company knows full well it’s bullshit). So even if you’ve got one, it’s worth digging around a bit and perhaps talking to a lawyer.
I’ll take questionable advice for 500, Alex.
Employers sometimes do searches for resumes of current employees. And if they find one, they fire that employee on the spot for… I still don’t understand why. Lack of loyalty, or something.
If you put your resume out there, you prolly want to use one of those anonymous job hunting services. I forget how they work exactly, but it’s something like they strip your personal data from the resume, and then potential employers can only contact you through the service.
I can see some companies doing this, but it’s not that big a deal to conceal a job search from a current employer with a little care. An anomyous service seems like overkill, it’s just a matter of submitting the resume directly to targetted companies instead of giving it to a recruiter or web site. Also, list references as available “upon request” so that interested prospective employers (hopefully) ask before calling the current employer to verify the resume.
I kind of assumed that he wasn’t, you know, retarded or anything. Most people are aware that it is a major faux pas to let your employer know that you are doing some job hunting.
Yeah, I know not to let my employers see I’m looking for a new job.
I’m probably over-reacting but this is the first time something like this has happened at a company I’ve been working at.
What took me by surprise is how quickly it all started happening.
Retrenched? Have they run out of words for “fired”?
You mean like “downsizing” and “rightsizing” instead of layoffs? All companies love euphemisms.
Different countries have different words than we Americans do. :P
Retrenched sounds like a demotion from management, not a firing.
It’s a corp speak synonym for layoffs.
That’s a new one to me, too. When I first saw the thread title, I was imagining a scene from World War I. A group of soldiers had spent HOURS digging a massive trench, only to be told that night that they needed to move backward a few hundred yards and then dig a new one. One of the soldiers was pretty upset about all the wasted effort and logged into QT3 to complain, and here we are.
Job hunting (this includes writing and rewriting resumes, preparing for interviews, and completing take-home assignments from prospective employers) is a full-time job in itself.
Cheer up, though. I got laid off June 1. All my friends and old co-workers started a buzz at their companies about my availability, and I had an offer I was happy with by the end of the month.
I got laid off a couple times at the end of the tech bubble.
Depending on how bad the fallout from the housing bubble is, there may be lots more layoffs in store.
When the hell did you get friends?
But as Kong said, cheer up. There’s jobs out there. Best thing I can offer is ready your resume and read up on all the behavioral questions that seem to be in vogue to ask in interviews. I am in the middle of switching to a new company after 9 9 years at my current employer. Since I hadn’t interview anywhere in 6 or 7 years, I was a bit nervous. But the 7 hour interview flew right by.