Do you feel guilty for surviving a layoff?

[Exterous]

Rather than letting the ditz go, they fucking layoff the only Spanish speaker in our group, i highly suspect because she didn't socialize that often.

Ah - the joys of office politics. I always wonder if they just don't see the issues or ignore them because they are friends...

 

[Phokus]

Ah - the joys of office politics. I always wonder if they just don't see the issues or ignore them because they are friends...

Yeah, that manager was god awful. She ALWAYS wanted to go out for EVERYTHING - every birthday party, everytime someone moved out of the department, everytime someone was promoted, even 'just because'. She competed in 3 triathlons and like half our department attended them. It was always 'optional', but you could easily get ostracized if you didn't attend those functions and i forced myself to go.

 

[slag]

I was at a company that started laying people off. I survived the first two rounds, then my turn came and I was out. By the time I was laid off, the market was saturated and I couldn't pick up another job in my field in the area so I had to move.

Being laid off was one of the best things that happened to me. I disliked my job and it showed. Driving to and from work was an hour each way, in the sun. I worked for a cell phone company in Overland Park and the morale there was very low. I survived several earlier layoffs, but when the big one came, it felt like the end of the world.

3 days later, I was out interviewing with temp agencies, looking for work. It was daunting at first, but I landed a job at another telecommunications company as a temp that ran a year. I was treated more like an employee there than the other temps were, but that's because I knew their systems and had helped write some of their documentation while at the other company I was laid off from.

I finally found full time employment about 30 minutes from home and really like the atmosphere there. It all worked out well in the end and I was fortunate enough to be one of the earlier layoffs that allowed me to get my resume out in the job market before all the other groups were laid off.

Weird, I know, but thats how it worked out.

 

[Sukhoi]

Get a new job before you get laid off. It's completely impossible to get one while being out of work. My friends in the same industry that are still working have had no trouble finding new employment.

 

[imagoon]

It's because you're good at what you do. Take it as a compliment and carry on being awesome. They don't can the top performers, they keep them. They can the bottom performers.

Not sure I would 100% agree. If your direct boss was involved, then maybe. Otherwise the big one I see is: "Peon X costs to much." Esp in IT where I find most people beyond 0-1 levels above you (the IT guy) have no clue what you are doing and why they pay you other than a loose "my computer booted today" type feeling.

I would guess that engineering is not that far out there.

 

[Analog]

They just laid off 20% of the engineers in our division, and forced another 20% to go part time. :\ Some of them were pretty damn good engineers. I'm pretty good at my job, but so were some of them. Not sure why I was completely unaffected by the shakeup.

You were kept because you're either underpaid for your position, or you are younger than your contemporaries which means less health care for the company and other ancillary age related issues.

 

[Dirigible]

I was pissed when I didn't get cut by the last round of layoffs. I wanted the severance pay and a nudge towards getting a new job.

Soon switched jobs in the same company so it worked out ok.


My company, at least, has laid off some star performers. Best employee I ever had was laid off because he fell into a certain category. Now he works as an outside contractor for us and we pay him three times as much for the same work he was doing before. When my bosses realized their mistake they let me try to hire him back, but he declined. He's having too much fun and making too much money.

 

[Phokus]

I was pissed when I didn't get cut by the last round of layoffs. I wanted the severance pay and a nudge towards getting a new job.

Soon switched jobs in the same company so it worked out ok.


My company, at least, has laid off some star performers. Best employee I ever had was laid off because he fell into a certain category. Now he works as an outside contractor for us and we pay him three times as much for the same work he was doing before. When my bosses realized their mistake they let me try to hire him back, but he declined. He's having too much fun and making too much money.

I'm even surprised that your bosses would even want to rehire that 'star performer' - it's an admission of a mistake and it's not how you 'play the game'. Typically, in such situations, execs would rather hire 3 consultants to take his place rather than rehire the guy, to 'save face'.

 

[Dirigible]

True.

He was cut because he lacked an official qualification. Everyone without it got cut. He was on his way to getting it. He outperformed most that already had it. But he got the axe anyway.

When I got the go-ahead to try to rehire him he had gotten the qualification. Gave the higher-ups an out: they were still right to cut everyone without x. If someone "proves" themselves by getting x they can be hired.

Still dumb since we basically had rehired him already, in much more expensive contractor form, even without the qualification.

 

[oddyager]

At the last company I worked for, our network engineer was a guy who had been laid off a few times in his career. Well, once we got to know him and work with him, it wasn't a mystery why he was the one that was consistently let go. He was a great guy and really nice, but he was generally really lazy and that didn't go unnoticed. When our department was eliminated, he was the only one that was actually laid off. They found positions for the rest of us.

On the other hand, I've seen a lot of deadweight survive layoffs. There was a guy at my last company who survived several rounds of layoffs and he was notorious for taking naps in the bathroom. He was a suck up and had an MBA (which he didn't use) and that's why they kept him around. The worst that happened to him was when they temporarily "furloughed" him but shockingly, they called him back.

After working for several companies (some were/or still are leaders at their respective markets) in my career I have learned it's not necessarily what you know, but who you know.

 

[jupiter57]

You were kept because you're either underpaid for your position, or you are younger than your contemporaries which means less health care for the company and other ancillary age related issues.

This
From the data I have perused, this seems to be the trend in the corporate world at the moment, given the current economy/ glut of desperate, laid-off workers.
He who works cheapest & cost the company the least has a better chance at keeping/ landing a job these days.