Not to point out the obvious, but I'm super aggravated about my friend's situation.
We met at my previous workplace, shitty call center job. We became friends, along with some others there. When he got a new job at a different smaller company's call center for higher pay (and also more freedom, less stress, and a lower call volume) he decided he wanted me to join him. He pushed me to apply, walking me through the process and putting in a word for me.
I got the job, and managed to perform well enough to get raises and a promotion. Meanwhile he got a job in our analytics department, and eventually coached and prepped me to join the department as well, because he felt I would be amazing at the job. And it worked out, we both ended up in a great department with no customer interactions, and a great manager that genuinely treats us like people (even if the rest of management looks down on him).
And my friend? He's the star of the show. He has more technical knowledge than our boss, and he's invested in what he does. When he has spare time he helps other members of the team find ways to automate and simplify our work, and acts as de-facto boss when our actual boss is busy. Our boss has worked hard to try and create a senior position on the team explicitly for him, because he's such an asset and is really the backbone of the team.
But. Our small team is divided, where each of us works for different partnerships (we provide maintenance to retail stores). And my friend was officially in charge of the details of our smallest and most recent partnership (despite the fact that he probably does just as much work for every single partnership). And that smallest and most recent partnership isn't working out, and is shutting down.
When we heard that the call center agents were all being kept aboard and transferred to other partnerships, we thought there was no way my friend would be leaving. But apparently, the ending of the partnership is the ending of the funding for his position. He's being laid off, they already spoke to him about his severance options, told him his role was so specified there's no real transfer. I asked if there was still a push to get him a senior position, apparently there is but the people that make the decisions aren't sympathetic.
I was never operating under the assumption my company was angelic or could do no wrong, it's still a company with shit bosses and some stupid policies. But it's also a company that offers better pay and benefits, offers flexibility, offers a month of PTO a year. It's a company where my chronic pain and health issues have never put me in poor standing, because I'm treated as a human.
So seeing this sort of thing happen is just so disheartening. On a team of 5 people, two of us are here because of his recommendation and coaching, and yet he's the one that's losing his job. It's absurd to me how much this “isn't in the budget” when the executive over our boss got rich off of the dotcom bubble and only works at the company for the fun of it, he's still rich and doesn't need to work if he doesn't want to, he's been open about it. But we gotta pay that guy the big money! And lay off someone who helps the company on a daily basis, to the point that the VP will reach out to him directly for requests.
It's just. So baffling. I don't get it. It makes me so upset, and above all it makes me feel guilty for still having my job.