I think the worst way you can receive bad news has to be by the Internet, and having been a generally unwilling recipient of bad news via this medium already once this year, to have it sneak up on me a second time is most unfortunate.
I've been in my current employment around just over 11 years, but in 2002 we were informed that the company were looking at outsourcing solutions, basically it means the company makes "Big Savings" by flogging a section of their work force to another company and then in effect leasing back the expertise, cheaper (allegedly).
Every 6-9 months since 2002 we have been politely reminded that outsourcing is still an option, and it usually comes when morale is high, and ironically enough this time round came just after I'd filled in my Employee Satisfaction Survey, issued by a third party wanting to gauge how happy the workforce is, and for the first time in many many years, I actually told them I loved them (in not so many words of course).
What a mistake - CRUNCH back down from the fairytale heights of job satisfaction, landing on my arse, which is still bruised from the last time I was dropped on it! A colleague pointed me to a website of a company that had signed a deal with our directors officially sanctioning the "sale" of mine and thirty-nine other colleagues’ jobs within our directorate, the date of the agreement? 30th of August 2006, we are informed NINE whole days later, basically after the rest of the sector we ply our business in and pretty much the rest of the world, giving us a pretty clear view on the feeling our management has towards us.
This is the second phase of the transfer of workers out of the company, the first being back in 2002, where 25 people went across to the 'other company' in this time I have seen many of my colleagues that were involved in this move, dump their employers and depart, seeking job satisfaction elsewhere, mainly citing the bitterness of the loss of their final salary pensions, the fact that any training requirements needed a signature (in blood) that if you were to leave the company you would pay them back the money for the course, and unsurprisingly, the feeling that the "new company" was skint, played out in part due to the lack of pay rises and the threat of unpaid/capped overtime - ok so I admit, that this isn't fact because I didn't hear it from the horses mouth so to speak, but I can't really think of any reason why these departing people would have lied?
I'll be joining this new company with all the non-benefits mentioned above and my long term bonus incentive going out of the window, which I can tell you was significant portion of my annual salary paid out if we reach certain targets, I've got every reason to be pissed off again, but it wouldn't be the relationship I've come to know so well if everytime I "got happy" I ended up with a demoralizing kick to the top of the thighs!
So I look forward now to 12-18 months of speculation, not knowing if I'll still be sat at my desk or at a desk within the new employers office but I have this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that this could be the beginning of the end for my 11 year career in this employment and as I sit here uploading one of Del Amitri's finest hits to a music streaming company, to play to you whilst you read this, there is a certain irony in the fact that once more, big changes are a foot and I was the last to know.