When Yes and No Mean the Same Thing...Heads We Win, Tails You Lose

I have been back from vacation for four weeks now and I don't feel as though I had been anywhere at all. Maybe November just does that to you...
Anyway, I am 5 months away from my "best before" date and despite some anxieties and a more than a few sleepless nights, I am starting to accept the inevitable and given the latest developments, am left shaking my head, which I feel I must share with this group.

A week and a half ago, more layoffs were announced here, and these latest have really shocked the company (even though some of us predicted it would happen). For those of you on this blog who may be unfamiliar the history of our impending layoffs, this company gave everybody a letter last January stating that you either a) would have a job of some kind by March 2003 or b) No, you would not and to expect a severance and blah, blah, blah. I fall into the b) group or the group known as the No group. This March 2003 date is the anticipated date that the new systems go in making 100 of us redundant. For once, everything is on schedule and on time.

So, a week and a half ago, everybody got an email announcing some more organizational changes, namely 19 people are being let go at the end of November (one month's notice) and that the terms of their severance are the same as those who got their notice in January. These were people by the way who were informed in January that they would have jobs following the implementation of the new systems in March 2003.

However, here's the thing of it...1) These 19 people are all seasoned, very knowledgeable people who have been here for a long time 2) the terms of the severance are not the same as these people have received only one month's notice. The rest of us got 15 months working notice. Then, to add insult to injury, our company is running mandatory workshops called "Respect in the Workplace". So no matter whether or not you are staying or going, these workshops are being run right now and if you fail to show up (because you are unmotivated perhaps? or just plain abused?), your cost centre will be levied a $500 charge.

I pointed all this out to my boss and she hadn't thought about it at all, but I told her that this company would be lucky if anybody is doing any work at all these days (except her of course.)