details, details
Yesterday I finally got The List of the Fallen from the layoff at work- HR was extremely reluctant to give it to me, but when I pointed out I had a boatload of administrative stuff to accomplish in a short month and didn't have the time to figure it all out via gossip, they gave in.
Most of this analysis is for my own benefit- it occurred to me that I really don't have good records from the first layoff at Transoma, the 2003 Valentine's Day Massacre (13 people laid off of a total around 130). Management has apparently learned to do this in a kinder fashion since then. I'll note here that they're doing it in two waves- some will be gone Jan 2nd, some the first week of April- but they let everyone know about it up front "for greater transparency".
In the various PowerPoint presentations going on the number of affected was listed around 26. The actual number is 33- that includes forced transfers, the take-this-nonequivalent-position-or-you're-gone kind. Interestingly they include contractors and interns in the "layoff" number, where they could have made the number look superficially better by not including them, as they're technically not employees.
The most heavily hit group proportionally was Test Engineering. They are losing four workers and the manager- the workers in January, the manager Jim in April. This leaves the TE group at two, and both have told me that they are going to start jobhunting because this is *not* what they hired on for here. The TE group was odd in that most of them had worked for the same guy for years at Guidant/Boston Sci, and when cuts there roisted them out the manager transplanted them into Transoma. They never really adapted as a group to the Transoma culture, so it's not surprising that they were axed in this magnitude. I'm making cynical plans to roll back all the test engineering operating procedures to where they were pre-Jim as soon as they leave, too rude to do it right away. :)
Electrical Engineering was also hard-hit, losing an intern and four engineers.
Software Quality is more-or-less screwed. It was a group of three; the two junior people are being laid off in April, and the Senior resigned effective 12/31. So, come April we have *no* SW quality group. I think that Senior Management thought Elvira (the senior SW quality engineer) would never leave... did that ever come back to bite them in the ass.
Software Engineering's losing two; Marketing is losing two, including the technical writer. The Supplier Development manager's gone in April, with his team being folded into Quality. IT lost an analyst and a desktop support person. And (on the good side) one of the do-nothing market development jerks got axed.
Most of the other layoffs were scattered around the groups. My current project team is pretty hard-hit; we're losing a quarter of the core team, including the (contractor) project leader. Not sure how this is going to affect our current schedule- our productivity's been shot to hell this week.
Two people on the DSI side got rousted to make room for Transoma transfers. The heaviest hit group in this area is the Transoma Research and Technology group- they lost three to DSI and laid off three, leaving the group at 2. Our company is (was?) odd in that we had a pretty active group doing pure research, and it's not surprising they got heavily cut. These were all January transfers. I'm predicting that the group manager will be leaving us as soon as he can scrape up a job elsewhere- a manager with only two reports is not in a good position when we're making changes like these, he's a prime target to be "business adjusted" out.
Two of my friends got shafted in transfers; Sara (Biomed Engineer) got sent to DSI's tech support group in an effort to preserve her until there's a design engineer spot open. She fared better than Crissi (Level 4 Technician), who got demoted to a Level 3 and moved to the DSI side, where she will likely become the manufacturing engineer group's bitch. She's extremely unhappy about it, and I know for a fact she's jobhunting.
Interestingly, the two HR flunkies I would have predicted to be on the cut list are being moved into other positions. One's going to be the DSI General Manager's admin, the other's being moved into a Transoma marketing admin role. Guess HR looks after their own...
Most of this analysis is for my own benefit- it occurred to me that I really don't have good records from the first layoff at Transoma, the 2003 Valentine's Day Massacre (13 people laid off of a total around 130). Management has apparently learned to do this in a kinder fashion since then. I'll note here that they're doing it in two waves- some will be gone Jan 2nd, some the first week of April- but they let everyone know about it up front "for greater transparency".
In the various PowerPoint presentations going on the number of affected was listed around 26. The actual number is 33- that includes forced transfers, the take-this-nonequivalent-position-or-you're-gone kind. Interestingly they include contractors and interns in the "layoff" number, where they could have made the number look superficially better by not including them, as they're technically not employees.
The most heavily hit group proportionally was Test Engineering. They are losing four workers and the manager- the workers in January, the manager Jim in April. This leaves the TE group at two, and both have told me that they are going to start jobhunting because this is *not* what they hired on for here. The TE group was odd in that most of them had worked for the same guy for years at Guidant/Boston Sci, and when cuts there roisted them out the manager transplanted them into Transoma. They never really adapted as a group to the Transoma culture, so it's not surprising that they were axed in this magnitude. I'm making cynical plans to roll back all the test engineering operating procedures to where they were pre-Jim as soon as they leave, too rude to do it right away. :)
Electrical Engineering was also hard-hit, losing an intern and four engineers.
Software Quality is more-or-less screwed. It was a group of three; the two junior people are being laid off in April, and the Senior resigned effective 12/31. So, come April we have *no* SW quality group. I think that Senior Management thought Elvira (the senior SW quality engineer) would never leave... did that ever come back to bite them in the ass.
Software Engineering's losing two; Marketing is losing two, including the technical writer. The Supplier Development manager's gone in April, with his team being folded into Quality. IT lost an analyst and a desktop support person. And (on the good side) one of the do-nothing market development jerks got axed.
Most of the other layoffs were scattered around the groups. My current project team is pretty hard-hit; we're losing a quarter of the core team, including the (contractor) project leader. Not sure how this is going to affect our current schedule- our productivity's been shot to hell this week.
Two people on the DSI side got rousted to make room for Transoma transfers. The heaviest hit group in this area is the Transoma Research and Technology group- they lost three to DSI and laid off three, leaving the group at 2. Our company is (was?) odd in that we had a pretty active group doing pure research, and it's not surprising they got heavily cut. These were all January transfers. I'm predicting that the group manager will be leaving us as soon as he can scrape up a job elsewhere- a manager with only two reports is not in a good position when we're making changes like these, he's a prime target to be "business adjusted" out.
Two of my friends got shafted in transfers; Sara (Biomed Engineer) got sent to DSI's tech support group in an effort to preserve her until there's a design engineer spot open. She fared better than Crissi (Level 4 Technician), who got demoted to a Level 3 and moved to the DSI side, where she will likely become the manufacturing engineer group's bitch. She's extremely unhappy about it, and I know for a fact she's jobhunting.
Interestingly, the two HR flunkies I would have predicted to be on the cut list are being moved into other positions. One's going to be the DSI General Manager's admin, the other's being moved into a Transoma marketing admin role. Guess HR looks after their own...