One of the saddest days of my life...

Useless Joined: Aug 23, 2002 Posts: 213 Location: Chicago

This morning I woke up and found a voice mail from my boss telling me I do not have a job anymore... The whole help desk department has been terminated and company will hire another company to take care all the help desk issues.
I could not believe my ears and thought my boss is just messing with me as he does sometimes and I was like "I'll see what's up on Monday when I get to work". Half hour later I get a call from one of my co-workers saying the same thing that the boss called him and told him the same thing, all of a sudden, I start getting calls from all of my co-workers (I was the supervisor and 23 were working under me) everyone was shocked, angry and sad at the same time... Right before the holidays, what are we going to do now???
So call my boss on his cell phone, he didn't pickup his phone the first time so I tried again after an hour. This time he did, here is the convo:

Me: Hey man what's up, whats with these calls you made us today? You know this is not funny, right?
Him: Norat (this is my last name, he always calls me with my last name), big fishes made this decision, I am just forwarding their massage to you guys, if I could, I wouldn't ever do that to you guys, especially you.
Me: Especially me??? f*** me, what's gonna happen to guys and girls who have families and kids, what are they going to do dude???
Him: Don't get angry on my, I am just a puppet following their orders.
Me: Why didn't they tell us yesterday when they were visiting office or waited till we come back on Monday?
Him: I think they were scared that you guys might do something that could hurt the company.
Me: And you saying that the firing the whole help desk department won't hurt this company?????? WHAT THE f***!!!!!
Him: Well they have hired a company based in India that will provide support for less than 20% of what we were paying you guys.
Me: Man, this is f***ed up... Really f***ed up, I hope to god someone doesn't try to do something stupid.
Him: Yeah, bosses told me that we will give guys 2 months salary and will provide professional help if anyone needs it.
Me: What the f*** ever man, I'll talk to you later... Or maybe never.
Him: Norat, you know it, you are like younger brother and good friend but sometimes we have to see things like this one, don't make this work get into our friendship.
Me: Well I think I need a job than just a friendship but I will talk to you sometime next week.

When I start working for this company, I was 18 years old, working part-time and going to college. Just me and another guy who quit after few years.
Company was making around 900K a year as revenue, it was just me and another guy (who later found another job and left) who dedicated our lives 24/7 to serve our costumers, we knew out costumers with their names and they knew us, in year 2000, company made it's first billion dollars, all because of good marketing and great help desk.
This year, our revenue was $15 billion as of yesterday, I now had 23 people working under me and were like a small family... Everything is gone, one of my co-worker is expecting a baby and she will be a single mother... I feel so bad about everything.

I will be 27 this 8th, and first time since I start working for this company, I will cut my birthday cake in my house not in office with all of my co-workers around me.

Sorry guys, had to get this thing out.

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

I am so sorry to hear this. It's happening all over. I have lost 2 positions in one year with my employer, although I am still employed. At 54, that sucks too. The downgrades affect my Social Security and pension. I took a 20k/year cut so I feel your pain Mad

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 11:13 am

After the bankruptcy of the company i worked for i'm lost and that's for 2 years now.
We where a well know ski/snowboard shop and repair.
Now when i try to get a job people can't pay me (only 24k a year in euro's)

It's a pain so i've learned myself good PHP and MySQL (i already had C, C++ and pascal in the pocket)
And i still don't have a job in europe.

d*** world sometimes.

I hope my dream will come true someday: living on an island with lots of windsurf gear.

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 1:00 pm

It sucks bad but its definetly part of the trend with IT jobs. Almost amazing they held out this long aol and other large companies have been doing this for years already.

Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 1:59 pm

Here's to all who have had stress and duress over ungrateful, non-caring employers!!! Cheers

May 2005 help us reclaim lost territory!