30th Apr 2008
Heads Will Roll
Pick your favorites from 17 Signs of Impending Layoffs. I fear #4, the increase in secret meetings. That’s always ominous. Secret meetings aren’t necessarily unusual in some workplaces, but if there is an increase in closed doors and empty cubicles as your coworkers are whisked away somewhere….beware.
#9, 7, 4, 1 - I’ve seen those all before. The one about work being cut back to fetching coffee, I’ve not seen - instead it’s looked more like special meetings in which one’s manager wants you to explain “what your typical workday looks like,” complete with process flow sheets. Oh, and “can you write a manual” in case someone else has to “fill in” for you when you’re “on vacation.”
None of those things happened before any of the three layoffs at my last job, aside from the losing money part and the paycut–which wasn’t really a paycut, we just took every other Friday off without vacation pay.
I would add Big Sign #18: all the finance people are bailing.
I think that’s a good one. We have a friend who is a finance person who quit for precisely that reason.
I also like Hafidha’s, “Can you write a manual for yourself?” Very suspicious.
Oh yeah! We had that one too, but it was more along the lines of “we need to document all our processes.” Which is also totally necessary (and wise) under normal circumstances, so I would have to combine it with at least one or two other signs to make it really mean something.