TL;DR The company I worked for had a mass layoff. 6/8 people from my office were let go. My coworker quit and I was left alone to do everyone's work. Company dragged their feet to hire help, didn't offer assistance, then reprimanded me for what I had to do to keep the buisness afloat.
This a long story… About a year ago the company I was working for had a mass layoff “due to COVID”.
I was a manager at a small office for a large company. This office serviced 800 accounts, had 8 office workers, and 80 remote staff members. The manager above me managed the office staff including me, and I managed all of the remote staff.
I started at this company as a remote worker and moved my way around every position in the office over the years. The staff worked in seasonal rotations and only four months out of the year would everyone be working at the same time.
In my spare time I would help the office staff and fill in on their days off or I would travel to the remote work sites and work with my employees. The people who managed prior to me taking on this roll had a horrible turn over rate. We were hiring 20-30 people a year and morale was so terrible.
When I became manager I did everything the company told me not to do. I let people get close to me as a person. I would have people come talk to me as a human being and vent their problems and frustrations. I allowed more time off than what was allowed by listening to their needs and not scheduling them on days they had personal things to take care of. If someone called out, I made it work and I put my uniform back on and filled in for them.
In the 5 years I was in the manager position, 6 people quit. I had accomplished every goal. I had such a great time working there, our numbers were exceptional, quality of work improved drastically. Everything was great.
When COVID hit, it definitely affected everyone. We were all laid off for 4 months and then the work and the staff started trickling back in. We had made it through one of the busy seasons. It was one of the most challenging.
So, we were in the swing of things again and prepping for the upcoming busy season. We anticipated this season to be extremely busy because of the work we “skipped” the season prior we were going to do during this season. I was training new hires that I would need for the extra work we had ahead of us and that is when we got the email….
The email was letting us know that there were going to be some big changes within our company and all office/internal staff needed to attend a zoom meeting in 30 minutes. I really didn’t think much of it because this company had gone through many acquisitions throughout the years I figured this was going to be another change of leaders and nothing that I should worry about. My boss on the other hand stormed into my training group and dismissed everyone in the room.
When everyone left she stated that she had a bad feeling about this call and that I could go into my office to listen to the message or I could sit with her at her desk. I decided to sit with her because I had a feeling if it were something really bad I could help when the office staff had questions and there would be two people instead of one to help.
We entered the company wide call and were instructed to check our email for an assignment code. Everyone was given a code letter for the group that they were assigned. The CEO of the company said that “due to COVID” the company decided to make some changes and consolidate. Our codes were for the meeting group that we needed to join next to find out if we were being let go, being reassigned, or keeping our positions. My boss and I were given the same code. The rest of the office staff had 3 different codes so we figured at least 2 of them were about to be let go. After that the calls came immediately one after another. The office staff said it would be ok for us to listen in on theirs even though the company said not to allow others to listen in. One call after another everyone was being let go. They were to be given their severance packages and job assistance to find new jobs as long as they work until their departure date. 800 total people were let go that day.
Everyone was crying, and yelling… it was just panic and mania. My boss sent everyone home for the day to recover from what had just happened. By then we believed we would have the answers to all of their questions and could help them through this troubling time. After everyone left we sat down and started discussing what was about to happen next. Everyone in our office was let go and we were next. We were 100% sure of it. Our call came and to our surprise we were not let go. We were being “reassigned”. It was a fancy way of saying they were demoting us. If we chose to not accept our reassignment we would walk away with no severence no unemployment no job assistance. In the next coming weeks were to expect the work the office staff did was to transfer to a new location and we were to become co-workers with equal pay and titles. My staff was to be divided among the two of us and we were to be leaders for smaller teams.
I was so relieved to have still have a job… even more so… I was relieved that my staff would still have a leader who cares about them. None of my staff was affected by this change.
When everyone returned the next day we explained what happened to us. I have never felt so uncomfortable in my whole life. The entire office staff was so mad. They were even more upset that we chose to remain with the company. Two of the workers left without severance and four of them decided to remain until their end date. We were still working to prep for the season ahead of us so in reality there was not “good” point for them to just stop. The company needed 3 weeks to setup a forward of the phone lines, and train staff to take on all of the offices in this county’s work. Two days before their end date they were told that the company wasn’t ready and their end date was going to be extended two more weeks. Those two weeks were brutal. No one talked, everyone left the location for breaks, all you could hear was typing and the occasional sigh here and there.
I had felt so bad for them I loss the feeling of gratefulness to have still had a job….
After everyone left and my boss and I remained now as coworkers, we were told that the company still wasn’t ready to transfer the work so unfortunately, we were going to need to continue their work ourselves. At first it wasn’t so bad because we divided the work equally. We worked a lot of overtime. After office hours ended we would go home take care of our needs and then resume working around 7 pm and continue until midnight every night.we worked all weekend long. Things were running soothly but we were getting burnt out. We didn’t have an estimated change over date yet so we were doing everything we could to keep us afloat.
At this point we started having regular meetings with corporate to update them on our status. These meeting were to make sure we were on track and business was operating smoothly. They then started communicating that the reason for the consolidation was to save money. Because of that they were going to be unable to approve any more overtime for us.
We were in absolute shock. How and when were WE as a team of two people supposed to keep everything operating with the work of 6 other people on our plates?!
My boss was done. She quit the very next week….and then there was one.
I couldn’t help but think…maybe this was their plan all along. To push us to our absolute limit so we would quit…
But I didn’t leave. I kept going… it was absolutely brutal. I was working all day long. The office was an empty shell full of desks, chairs, file cabinets, and partitions. I segmented parts of my day to wear the hats of the people that used to work there. My office wasn’t big enough to fit all of the paperwork that had to be processed every day, so I brought my laptop from home and sat at each persons desks on a schedule throughout the day. I became well aware of the cost/value of every job we did and decided that it was best to…let some things go. My new manager agreed with me at the time that it was best that we stop doing certain jobs if they were not profitable. It was a brilliant idea and was adapted in several other offices.
I can not tell you how lucky I was to have such a faithful staff around me…
They did their jobs. I processed payroll, made schedules, and addressed customer problems only absolutely needed. They did their work to support me so I could do everyone else’s. If I were to stop responding to accounts we would loose accounts, do less work, need less employees… you get it. I did not want to loose any of the staff I cared so much for.
I was completely alone for a month until they hired a replacement for my boss. By that point some work was being transferred out of my hands and into someone else’s. The problem was, those people couldn’t handle the work either so it bounced back and fourth.
The company hired one of the people they let go to be my new co-worker. The moment she came back I was so relieved. Some of the work still remained but we would only have to do a fraction of the work. Things were really starting to take a new shape where we could focus on our employees again and get to what was to be the new norm.
But with this new found time….the company decided to lock their focus on me.
I was to be reprimanded for the overtime I had. Reprimanded for logging into company computers off the clock, using my personal computer for company work, saying no to customers, having lower customer service points, having lower quality of work, poor response time answering the phone…
I laughed until I realized they were serious. At that point I was done too. Problem was they didn’t know how much work I was doing until the day I walked out those doors. My phone rang off the hook for MONTHS after I left. Every one of my new managers, partnering staff, sales team, every one of them quit following me the next few months.
It’s been about a year now. It is hard to explain why I left the company I worked for my entire adult life. The one I excelled at, I was proud of, made me happy, was loyal to, and trusted until the day I said I’m done.
I too have applied to hundreds of other jobs. I was willing to take less pay, work more hours, never call out… and I have not heard from a single place. Who is really ACTUALLY hiring anyway…
So you know what I did… I looked into my non-compete. The one that became irrelevant after the last acquisition. I started my own business. How lucky it was for me that even after a year, they still have not found their feet. Every single time they fail to perform the account finds me.
And I do it better… with more integrity & respect for people.