Out of the corner of my lazy eye I caught sight of Jerry, my genial team member of nearly nine months, shuffling forward after crossing the threshold of our shared department. He was soon to be followed into the room by the very professionally dressed human resources generalist. The generalist, an ambitious young woman from Michigan that I have gotten to know over three years, was carrying something in her hands.
I was genuinely caught up in a moment, for it was the first time that the friendly generalist had visited the client services department in the nearly five years I’ve been working there. While considering her arrival as a welcome surprise, I made a reflexive turn in the direction of the doorway to extend a greeting, but was stopped short when I saw that the generalist and my workmate were brandishing long faces, and I immediately knew that I was in the midst of witnessing something uniquely terrible. The generalist was carrying a brown empty box. And I thought, Oh my god. I think that he’s just been fired. But for what?
Jerry hadn’t been the type A superstar employee of your dreams. I knew this because I’d occupied the role of his designated trainer and unofficial overseer since he started at the company the previous fall. Jerry was a source of frustration for me in the beginning because he was easily distracted, which slowed down his rate of absorbing new information. He also dressed kind of slovenly; the tail of his short-sleeved button up shirts hung over his waste, his shoes were matted and dusty. But he came to work every day on time, and had learned the job enough over nine months to become a functioning asset to the company. I hadn’t been notified of any complaint concerning him, nor had my immediate manager, who was off vacationing somewhere in Belize--she didn’t know anything about what was happening. So what was going on here? What exactly had he done?
Upon arriving at my teammate’s cubicle, the generalist transferred the cardboard box into the waiting hands of the shocked Jerry, and then stood sentry as the poor soul hastily stuffed all of his belongings into that tiny box. When the box was full, he turned to face the generalist and quietly said, “It would have been nice if we’d been given some kind of notice before you guys decided to do this. Keep this in mind when you think of doing this the next time.”
The young generalist stood stiff the whole time, but with a tortured look on her face, until he finally lifted the box from his desk. The suddenly unemployed Jerry tucked the box beneath the crook of his arm, and then offered a faint good-bye as he was escorted from the room for the final time. “Good-bye,” I whispered before wheeling my chair around to face my computer screen.
I only listened as the mauling was repeated with Sarah—this one was a type A, a top notch employee from the time she entered the room on her first day—who shed tears as she fled from the room reeling after being smacked hard with the realization that she was being thrown to the curb right before the Independence Day holiday. Sarah was the mother of three children, two in grade school, and her husband was currently unemployed. What was she going to do? How would she survive?
When all of the annihilating was done, forty percent of our client services staff was gone in a snap. The whole sordid episode took about a half an hour to complete. I emerged from the disaster still employed, but now deathly afraid of what might happen to me in the future. The fear was coupled with survivor’s remorse because I had been too afraid to defend my teammates as the restructuring was taking place. Other departments didn’t escape the snap. The lives of fifteen employees, many of whom had relied on the company as a building block for stable existences, were irrevocably changed on that day.
In an effort to assuage the emotions of understandably frightened employees, the recently hired executive director sent an email to the entire staff. “There is no need for the rest of you to worry,” she wrote. “This will absolutely be the last round of layoffs. No one else should be worried about their status as an employee at this facility going forward.” I scoffed after I finished reading the email. My fears were certainly not assuaged.
The urgent chittering of the three remaining client services representatives was interrupted as the assistant director of the laboratory entered into our domain. We turned to greet Linda with wide eyes. She pulled up a chair and sat in it. Her normally bright eyed and cheerful face was morose, as the bubbly had been extracted from her personality. She had not been shedding tears, but her eyes were moist and shiny. She’d just come from informing eight of the fifteen former employees of their ignominious destiny.
“How are you guys doing?” she asked. Her voice was shaking.
I looked to my right and behind me. There were two empty chairs where two live bodies had been. We’d been hollowed out. I turned back to face her. “This definitely has not been a good day,” I said tremulously. “What is happening to us right now?”
“It has to do with the budget,” she said. “We were losing a lot of money. And we couldn’t support the amount of staff with the losses that we were accruing. So we had to make some tough decisions about personnel.”
The youngest of us, a single mother with another child on the way, was sitting to the right of me. “Are there going to be any more cuts?” she asked.
“These were the last of the cuts,” Linda said. For sure. You guys don’t have to worry about anything else coming down the pipeline.”
The three of us turned to look at each other, and then let out a collective exhale. We’d known Linda for four years and we trusted her word.
Linda would provide us some more details about who was laid off on that day. A manager of eight years, a supervisor of three years, a director with thirty years tenure, a project manager of two years, and another supervisor with twenty years of experience. I knew many of the people that she’d mentioned. I’d developed a great working relationship with the shortest tenured supervisor, and learned a great deal from her about molecular diagnostics. I would have liked to have been able to say goodbye before she’d left. But the company had gone at these people as if they were a malignant form of cancer that needed to be immediately cut out.
“Has this happened before?” I asked.
“It has,” said Linda.
“But not on this level,” said the youngest of us.
“No,” said Linda shaking her head. “This was unique. But again, these are the last of the layoffs. We are stable. Please believe me when say that you don’t have to worry about anything.”
Linda stood up from the chair. “I do have to go now.” She sighed. “But before I do go, I just want to remind you that we still have a mission and responsibility to our clients and our patients.”
“We will work to maintain the best client service for our patients,” I said. “We know that we can’t let things slip up.”
Linda smiled. “I’m so glad to hear you say that, Eze.”
After Linda left the room, we knew that we were not going to be given too more much time to mourn. There were client phone calls to return and more money to be made for individuals that I’ll never have the pleasure of meeting.
My phone trilled almost immediately after I took it of auxiliary mode. I grabbed the receiver and put it against my ear. “Good afternoon. This is client services. How may I help you?”
Yep. I can wear the mask.
Support my writing on medium.com and give me as many claps as you can(look for the hands on the left side of the story and click, click, click. The more applause and followers I get, the more money I make. Here is the link.medium.com/...