The Servant's Quarters

The subject line of this post is a saying that one of my co-workers shared with me at work this morning as we stood around in the hallway and waited to hear if we would be able to keep our jobs. I told him that I thought that "laugh" was a little bit cruel for my tastes. "Chuckled" or "giggled" would have been better.

So, it went down today. The mass firings started at about 8:30 AM. I stayed in touch with my IT comrades in other buildings via IM. They told me that they could stand at the windows and watch the employees filing out to their cars with their boxs full of possessions.

The damage first hit my team at about 9:30. My boss came into my cube, clearly shaken. He had just found out that the person in the cubicle next to mine had been let go. He had showed up for work, and his badge had been deactivated. He found out later that he was gone.

The person sitting on the other side of me also had badge problems in the morning. He would try to find out if he still had a job all day until finally learning at 4:00 PM that he had been fired.

In my old department, a Ford veteran of 27 years was walked to the door.

Through it all, we paced, stood around sharing rumors in the hallways, ate, and tried to keep track of who had been fired. It was very dark. I tried to keep a good humor, cracking wise to make my friends laugh. (One of them thanked me at the end of the day for staying upbeat.) I tried coming up with lines that I would use if I was one of the unfortunate ones getting sacked. Among them were, "No, I'm not Tim Butler. He's already been walked out. I'm just cleaning off his computer," and "Are you from Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes Giveaway?"

The day wore on, and the scariest time was about mid-afternoon. There wasn't much time left to be fired, if it was going to happen. Then the unbelievable, crushing word came down - It had taken longer to sack everyone than they thought it would. The firings were going to have to be extended to Monday. Two more days to endure this. How could they do this? It was inhuman.

We waited it out. Around 4:30, my manager came around. "Go home," she said. "I can't say anything, but just go home." She looked really sad. What was going on? Was our whole department being outsourced and let go? That actually did happen in some cases. What did she know that made her so sad, but she couldn't tell us?

I went back to my desk and packed up to leave for the day. Tomorrow was going to be a sad repeat of this stress filled torture. I noticed a missed call on my phone. Rita had tried to reach me. I called home. Just as she picked up, an e-mail hit my Inbox. I saw the first sentence, and I hung up on her. Reading the e-mail, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was from our CIO. He was announcing that the firings were finished. Everyone who was being let go had been notified.

I had made it. I was going to be able to keep my job for now.

There are no happy people who work in my department tonight. Those of us who managed to keep our jobs are going to miss our co-workers who did not fare as well. It was so sad. Our delusions have been shattered as well. We finished up the Way Forward buyouts earlier this year and 30% of the company had left, and we thought we had seen the end of that type of thing. This was worse. And for those of us who weren't eaten by the sharks this time, the pack of them will probably be back in about 6 months to eat their fill again.

There's no security. Except in God.

Wrapping this up, I want to thank any who were praying for me. And I want to thank God for allowing me to keep my job at Ford. It is a blessing, even though times are tough there. And I know that if I don't make the cut next time or the time after that, He's over all things.

Ford is NOT my provider.