Can someone please explain to me how the company I work for can get away with forcing all the long-timers to retire early?
A lot of longtime employees are being forced to retire early. They are calling it a voluntary separation plan, but from what I've been told they really don't have a choice. My manager was given their offer this week. It's safe to assume that if my manager rejects the offer, they will be terminated. That doesn't sound very voluntary, does it? The state manager (SM) has “convinced” at least 5 people to retire early this year, and now my manager and a manager in another branch are on the chopping block with their offers. These are all people that have been with the company for 15-20 years at least, some over 30. This SM has only been with us for less than 3 years. Just came out of nowhere and is poaching everyone who has been there forever. As far as I know, they aren't being replaced either. Work is being diverted to national offices, or overseas. I wonder if they are trying to close the offices in my state, but that doesn't make sense to me. Are they prepping to sell or merge? Getting rid of all these people, cutting costs, trying to save money, so the bottom line looks good when they merge/sell? Is that a thing?
I work for a national company but I'm an outlier, the work I do is not a standard position, it was created just for me to be able to work in two different databases, something no one has ever done before for this company. I am the only person who knows how to do what I do for one database, and I share the workload with a coworker on the second database. It's glorified data entry, but there are so very many quirks and little things that one needs to know to be able to accurately and efficiently do what we do. The work we do is the only accurate and thorough source this company can examine to issue their products. I make more than my coworker, my coworker has been there nearly twice as long as me. We both asked for raises in July (we haven't seen one in 4 years), and were told by the SM that they are 'postponed' until further review later in the year. However, my direct manager said that was a lie, all raises had been denied at the corporate level. Whatever.
When I take time off nobody covers for me, so upon my return I have a huge workload depending how many days I was gone. My coworker does not know how to run my database. However, when my coworker takes time off, I'm responsible for keeping both databases current because I'm the only one that can work both. Because of this I rarely take extended vacations, usually only a day or two to make a long weekend for camping. This year I took a week off midyear (my first week off since early 2018). I asked at the beginning of the year if I could take a laptop and work on vacation, because no one covers for me. SM said don't worry about it, we will have someone cover, enjoy your time off. I had already accepted that no one was covering and I'd have to play catch up myself, like always. When I get back from vacation, SM calls me first thing in the morning and apologizes for dropping the ball. They tried to get someone to cover my work, but they weren't setup, and they didn't know my process at all. No one does! So he apologized and said it wouldn't happen again, and by the way can I start training someone else in the office so she can help me catch up on the work? I told him that's not happening, I don't have the time to train someone and catch up at the same time. No one has followed up, I haven't trained anyone, and I'm not going to because I'm not taking anymore time off. SM has absolutely no idea what I do in a day, nobody in that office knows what I do, but they know they need my work to do their work. I can't believe he had the audacity to think he could just throw a random person in while I was away and they could pick up the slack. Honestly I felt disrespected, and I feel incredibly undervalued/underappreciated. I do the work of 3-4 people in a fraction of the time, there's a reason it's a full time job and I just can't get over that he thought someone who had no idea what I do could cover for me for a week.
And apparently in secret they are converting to a different database software instead of the one I use now, the one we've been using for 20 years. They are migrating to a system that is run by a subsidiary of the national company to save money. This migration is supposedly starting the beginning of 2023, and it sounds like they want to get rid of mine and my coworker's positions….to outsource, to save money. My coworker and I haven't been told any of this by SM, I only know from my manager who tells me everything because no one else will. I am an afterthought, SM and main office never tell me anything. Last week we had to take mandatory PTO for Veteran's Day, and I didn't know until the day of from my coworker. For 12 years I've thought my job is pretty secure because I'm the only person who can work both databases. But nothing is forever.
I don't know where I'm going with this, I only felt the need to kind of explain what I do. I'm pretty mad right now so my thoughts are all over the place.