Is this finally the end?

I started keeping this blog about seven weeks ago as a sort of death watch over what appears to be the imminent demise of my job. My work for a financial services firm seemed more and more tenuous with each plummet of the Dow, so I felt some type of written therapy might help me work through this uncertainty. It looked for a while last Friday that the uncertainty would finally be gone, replaced with a severance package and outplacement counseling.

I imagine it’s rare for anyone being laid off these days to anticipate how and when the end times might happen, though I’d imagine Revelations’ Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will probably be replaced by a quartet of security guards to escort us from the building. When I first arrive each morning, the fact that I see none of their rent-a-cop vehicles in the parking lot is my first reassurance of the day, but it usually doesn’t last long. As soon as I walk through the door, I can see the tables where our work is supposed to be. They’re almost always covered instead by the Earth’s atmosphere and maybe a stray stapler.

If I can sign onto my computer without getting some kind of “see IT administrator and don’t forget to bring your ID badge” message, I’ll check the distant corners of the room to see if empty boxes have been collected. These would indicate that we’ll soon be collecting our personal articles – family pictures, a few office toys, maybe an old Lean Cuisine – and making the Lehman Brothers walk of shame out onto the street.

If I make it this far, I’ll check a “production status” email I get each day that contains transcripts of instant-message communications between our scheduling department and our production sites overseas. Usually these are full of mundane discussions like “does it look like you’ll meet all your deadlines today?” or “we are to most humbly call on your forgivitude for yesterday’s malcommunication regarding our temblor in Asia”. Occasionally there might also be a clue about who is now seeking opportunities elsewhere (specifically in the unemployment line) or what sites are scheduled to be “down”, as in down for the count.

Reading the tea leaves like this might be strangely appropriate, considering about 90% of our jobs are now in places like India and Sri Lanka. But it makes for a very edgy, very nervous workforce. So on Friday, when all three managers on day shift were seen leaving together, the rumors and tension began to build. They’re on a conference call with the VP of the division, one coworker claimed. Sarah took her purse and a notebook with her, someone else noted ominously. Lenny turned and went in another door when he saw me in the parking lot this morning, reported a third.

None of these seemed like good signs. Plus, it was Friday, which I think I read is the most common day of the week for layoffs to happen (I guess so you can have a whole weekend to psychologically recover before starting your job hunt on Monday morning). Plus, it was raining.

For some reason, what concerned me the most was that the shift supervisor closed and locked her door as she joined the others but left the light on in her office. In the past, she’s either partly closed the door with the light on, or closed it completely and turned the light off. What could this mean? Maybe I was parsing the details a little too closely, but seeing such aberrant behavior at a managerial level concerned me. I felt like the detective who had entered a room and found himself obsessed with a fork that was turned upside-down even though the adjacent spoon was right-side-up.

The threesome were seen leaving the office at about 8:30 am, headed all the way across the warehouse to a suite of offices on the other side of the building, which we call the Other Side of the Building. Nobody knows much about what goes on here, except that it’s dark and bad and very frightening. It’s home to John “Go to the HR Website” Gehrig, our HR coordinator who, despite the fact he’s at least 140 years old, has so totally embraced the Internet that he’s incapable of answering any questions we might ask. It’s also the home to our largest training room, which is about all any of us ordinary workers have ever seen of the Other Side. Here is where we receive the occasional safety, quality improvement or corporate development training, sessions so deadly dull that I once faked a seizure to get out. Nothing good ever happens over there.

By 10 am, the office had grown increasingly quiet and tense. I figured I’d walk through the warehouse to use the other restroom, in the hope I could catch a glimpse of whatever was going on across the way. There was no sign of anybody except the warehouse work crews, obliviously picking and packing their way to financial security. I used my lunch break to take a walk outside and call my wife to prepare her for the news that something was up. Was a longer meeting better than a shorter one? An increased length could indicate we’d need to plan to take over the work of other closed locations, and details needed to be worked out as to how we’d handle all that overtime and the big paychecks that would result. Or, it could be discussions of how managers should properly deliver the bad news, where to find the extra boxes of tissues, and how to defend themselves against blows to the head and face.

Nearly noon, I returned from my break. I had taken longer than I was supposed to but a reprimand seemed unlikely. I couldn’t imagine even the coldest corporate hatchet-person asking me to collect my belongings and don’t be surprised to see your final paycheck docked by ten minutes. As I walked across the parking lot, there was one of the three managers at her perch on a bench smoking a cigarette. The tea leaves indicated this was a good sign, as sometimes we’ve seen her hiding around the side of the building when she doesn’t want to talk with others. In fact, two of my coworkers had just finished chatting with her as I approached. They turned to leave before I could see the expression on their faces, but there seemed to be little wailing and/or moaning.

I walked up to Sarah and immediately saw the good news. She was wearing a “Hello My Name Is…” sticker on her chest. Whatever the nature of the morning-long meeting had been, it involved participants who didn’t know her name. This indicated that the session had been some kind of lame managerial training session with outside consultants who might tell you how to maximize your potential and that of your direct reports, but couldn’t be troubled to memorize a few names.

And to think I had been afraid the sticker would read, “Hello Your Job is Eliminated Beginning …”