Firstly I’d like to apologise to the one reader who still reads this blog for not writing any new posts the past couple of weeks. I just had nothing meaningful to say, and I’m usually a person who adheres to the rule that when you have nothing meaningful to say then you should keep your mouth shut or in my case, your keyboard quiet.
The past few weeks have been passing in a haze of inconsequential bored stupour and last night was to mark my exit from the haze and entrance into the next couple of months of festivals (Vivid Sydney, Sydney Film Festival, Sydney Winter Festival etc). Except my plans of checking out the light installations and maestro Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings tonight, ended in complete failure as the city was drenched in a downpour. I mean who puts on a festival featuring outdoor installations during the WETTEST month of the year? Who? Vivid Sydney that’s who, even the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday commented on the total lack of enthusiasm summoned for the festival. Methinks I’ll be disappointed by the actual offerings anyway.
Anyhoo, work…has been bitterly pleasurable as always. On the bus home I thought of the perfect metaphor to describe work. Work is like my 12km trek through the German countryside from Neuschweinstein to Schwangau to Fussen. I wanted to walk to Schwangau to check out the big ass lake and once I got there it was nothing but a huge gloried mud flat, lined with thick stringy trees. But once I got there it was too far to walk back to the bus stop, so I trekked back to my hostel in Fussen. During dinner that night with my newest hostel buddy I realised that even though the lake at Schwangau was a total dissappointment , the 12km trek was one of the greatest experiences of my life, it was something to boast about, and an interesting story to tell. I think work is akin to this, agony, frustration and disappointment during the journey but hopefully by the end I’ll have had a great experience, something to boast about and some great stories to tell.
Yesterday I experienced my first corporate restructure. As a background tidbit I’d like to add that one of the major things I learnt through my formative teen years after my parents delved into takeaway retail is employer/employee relations, albeit mostly from the perspective of the employer. Yet no doubt in such a small business any type of industrial relation is greatly magnified and so very soap operaish. I’m not unaware of restructures, and certainly in the last couple of months my mother has been harping on about how the recession is a great time to restructure any business.
However I didn’t expect to experience such a thing so early into my very new, and very first full time job. When entering fulltime employment you expect a reasonable period of total stability after your initial whirlwind induction into the next 40 years of your life servicing the economy. The restructure didn’t happen directly to me but I’m one of many who are directly impacted upon.
The first reaction is purely emotional. Sadness hits, then anger. “Well shit, this is a great way to end a Friday and start the weekend” you think. Then you feel heartache for the person involved. I had a good rapport with this person and obviously that creates an emotional attachment, but even more so because I’ve been in this position such a short time it’s hard to lose someone who you like and look up to so soon in the process because just as you thought you were settled in, that stake of stability dissappears.
It’s that emotional investment which impacts the hardest. You know this person, you like this person, you may be even quite fond of this person. Some people are clearly shocked, most are deadly quiet. Some take it on the chin in a “yup, okay” fashion just so they could get out of that awkward situation of disbelief as fast as possible. I had mixed emotions when I hurriedly put my head down and headed back to my desk. I wanted to comfort the person on the way yet I couldn’t, like if I did I’d break this unspoken code of “this is none of your business”. Sitting at my desk I definitely contemplated some alone time in the bathroom, just to collect my thoughts and process the numbness.
The emotional reaction than gives into the rationalisation:
Well I totally understand why it was done. Cutbacks need to be made, businesses need to move forward in this economic environment.
But how do you remove this human element? On a late friday afternoon, this is not the type of surprise you’d like to get. What shocked me was the abruptness. However perhaps I didn’t see it coming because I didn’t get the entire back story, but I couldn’t help but feel that I wasn’t the only person shocked by the ramifications.
I guess this is why it was done late on a friday, so all of us can come home and rue over it for the weekend and cool over any overly emotional reactions. Yet humans are social animals, and we hate losing a member of the pride, no matter how little time there was to bond there is still that residual loyalty, and this has certain emotional impact on the remaining team members
So what now, how do you go about things during the turnover period? The mantra is that it is just business as usual. But there is no doubt that the situation will effect team morale, even if it is in the short term. But how do you approach work? Do you act as if nothing happened and on the last day give them a hug and say, “It’s been nice knowing you, we’ll miss you and good luck for the future”? It just seems insincere in a way. Or do you look at them with mournful eyes the entire time, empathising with the unfairness of it all but rejoicing in the fact that at least it wasn’t you? Perhaps that’s an even more insincere act.
Things have a habit of working itself out through time, but this is definitely something I didn’t want or expect to experience 3 months in. Although I’ll get over it, does make me wary, even if it’s an irrational wariness. However I don’t think it’s exactly healthy functioning in an overly wary environments, but we’ll see how it goes in the next couple of months.
LJK job, life corporate restructure, emotion, recession, work
