I work(ed) for a for-profit online university- part of an industry that has been under intense scrutiny the past year for various reasons.

About two years ago, a new CEO came in. The organization had been known at a regional level for being an amazing place to work. The culture quickly deteriorated upon his arrival. He was known for being quite the prick, had no experience in higher ed, and was the worst fit possible for the culture. Once the regulatory environment started to get extremely hostile, our enrollment plummeted due to bad press. This was when the CEO decided it was time to “get lean.”

One morning, we came in to find an email from the CEO titled “Organizational Announcement.” We were informed that roughly 10% of the workforce would be cut over the next two weeks (yes.. you read that correctly). Instead of just doing it, they thought it would be best to drag it out.

We all sat, not caring if we looked productive or not, for the next week. Our directors and managers had been telling us for months that the company was “Very healthy. We have no debt. Blah blah blah.” Any ounce of trust we had for leadership was tossed into the trash the morning we got that email. I honestly felt I owed them nothing, given how horrible they were handling the situation. I realized my department was going to get hit hard. The writing had been on the wall the whole time, but most of us had just ignored it.

After sitting on pins and needles a little over a week, the layoffs started. Your department would get an email indicating that layoffs had begun in your area. Your manager (if they hadn’t gotten the boot themselves) would come to your desk and ‘summon’ you to follow them to a room where butcher paper (yes… you also read that correctly) had been placed on the walls for privacy. An HR rep would be waiting for you with the response, “You have been impacted by the workforce reduction.” You got your severance information, and then you were escorted back to your desk by a carefully selected member of the HR team to get your things.

After several colleagues of mine had gotten axed, my turn came. I’m happy to say I acted with dignity and didn’t tell anyone to “Go to hell.” I gathered my stuff quickly, said a few goodbyes, and hit a bar a few blocks away. I drank a lot that night and commiserated with friends, mocking the company. It made me feel better while I wondered what I was going to do.

Now, (6 months later) I don’t look at my layoff as a bad thing…. It was just the kick in the ass I needed to get out of a (frankly) bizarre workplace that was wasting my skills and was horribly untruthful with the staff. I know many people who survived, and they say that the morale stinks as bad as an outhouse in the middle of the amazon. Notices come in weekly, and directors and managers are dropping like flies. Overall, it’s best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, and I love my new job. I’m doing what I always wanted to, and life is great! There IS life after a layoff!

This post was submitted by starzyMN.

Oh boy! Here we go again! I got laid off from another small company trying to act like a BIG company:

Creative Microsystems, they build on-board truck scales. Loadman is the name of the product.

BOY! Is it ever a LOAD man, a load of s**t!

My job was to build the arm and fork boxes that record the weight of the dumpster that the truck picks up, also I have to build the cables to go with this system, the person next to me builds the meters that the arm and fork, record the weight information too.

When I started there, my trainer, a few months later he quit to go be an electrician, well with the 4 months training I got I took it and tried my best to fill his shoes.

Mind you I was hired as an assembler, not a technician to make this stuff work.

Anyway, I thought that Chris was my supervisor, I could not find him in the company for five mins. to ask him a question on when I got stuck, so I went to the next person up, Larry, his attitude was “why are you bothering me with this?”, I guessed that your supposed to figure this stuff out yourself… ok, with no training manual or accurate diagram of the boards on question, I plowed on the best I could, with no guidance, but a drawn up book I made myself from some old notes of which that book vanished.

2 people came and went of who I trained of what I was given the material to work with…. are you dear reader confused yet?

so then we got a 3rd person in, Peg, I trained her up to what material I had, in fact I made a copy of my book to give to her (mistake on my part never should have copied that book! I did that at Newton, once that got their “training manual” they terminated me) She went ahead and built the arm boxes and the fork boxes, she said she would build the arms if I would build the forks that they were too hard.

Sounds ok, she was having as many if not more problems with the forks, that I was having problems with, also I was building the cables, and putting together manuals on how this stuff works. Also I had to test the boxes, before we potted them.

With the potting material, some times you get a bad bach, well most of them were bad of which I made the stuff work, but wrote a note that the material was bad.

No help there.

Pegs and my work was shipped, my forks were fine, pegs arms were having problems, and came back, who got the blame? ME! Not Peg oh no, she would get upset don’t do that, blame someone who did not build that arm.

Now before you accuse me, I watched her like a hawk to see what she was doing right and wrong before we potted the arm box. They worked like a charm! And so did my work!

SHIP IT!

The installers must have messed some thing up bad out there, the stuff failed in the field, who got the blame? ME!

Because I got laid off was because of the problems with the fork boards (I got no help with them) Chris all he could do was give me a smarmy smirk and say some thing negative to “help me”

IE: I asked him “Could you please print me a few labels”, “I gave you those yesterday”, “let me look… no none here”, “If I have time I will otherwise I do not, ask Larry”

Nice huh?

There is lots more, but I won’t get into it

So I am laid off, and the production person they have left, cannot lift 50 lbs+ to build the cables, she is fragile, and she claims that she was hired as a assembler not a technician. I am in the same boat. they wanted an assembler. well the unemployment just shot up to 10.2% Thanks to Chris at CMS, HAPPY?

This post was submitted by MFX.

I worked for the owner of a small company, a very difficult man, for over 12 years. He was very happy with my work but was having dire financial problems. We all kind of expected the doors to close at any time.

While I was on vacation at my nephew’s wedding, waiting for the ceremony to begin, my cell phone rang. It was my fiancé, at home. He said, “You got an overnight letter from your company. Do you want me to open it and read it to you?” Expecting it to say the company was closing its doors, I said, “Yes, go ahead.”

So he read me a terse letter saying my position had been eliminated, the HR guy would help me collect my things, and thanking me for my years of service!

Needless to say I was majorly bummed out during my nephew’s wedding. My mother looked at me quizzically when I got my second gin & tonic at the reception (unusual for me). I didn’t want to spoil her beautiful day, so I kept the news to myself until later.

Just today I learned that the jerk won’t give me a letter of recommendation because it’s “against his policy.”

This post was submitted by MktgGirl.

I was out Christmas shopping with my husband and got a phone call not to go into work the next day.I have been going to school for being a counselor and have three kids and a husband and took off too bring my kids to a doctor’s appointment and to take a final . They told me I took to many days off to keep my job.My son broke his leg and my husband made more money then me . so I ask what would you have done. I guess i was punished for being a mom which is my first job before any other.

This post was submitted by Jill.

It was 2008. In May, I left my job at my hometown television station as my wife and I left for “greener pastures” in the next state. A more tolerable schedule and pay scale.

While there were disappointments regarding the work environment, and it was a bad year for local TV overall, I felt secure, even when the salary freezes were announced. I was a hard worker, dependable, turned out my assignments quickly and satisfied clients; plus, the company had just invested in a four-day trip to a major city for training.

Six months to the day after being hired, my company had its annual “Thanksgiving lunch.” After I’d just finished my dessert, I got a call from the general manager, asking to stop by his office. Oblivious, I tried to figure out what he wanted. I still didn’t get it when the HR director was there when I showed up. I thought it might be a disciplinary thing, but couldn’t understand what I could have done wrong.

And that’s when it started. “Hardest part of my job … I hold myself responsible …”

What was I going to tell my wife, who I’d moved down to start a new life? How would we pay our bills? Would I ever realize my dreams of film school and filmmaking?

This story might have a happy ending, though. I’m in film school now, making my thesis feature, and it was inspired by my layoff and nine months of unemployment. You can learn more about it at the webpage I listed. I hope you will stop by.

This post was submitted by Cineaste Auteur.