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It's the holidays and many people are feeling cheerful, but if you're feeling Grinch-like instead this one's for you:
If you've been around for a while, the time will eventually come when a company you work for is in unfortunate shape and will need to "downsize." Having witnessed this at a client of mine this week, I've noticed a pattern and a few warning signs you may find useful...
Here are several warning signs you're about to be laid-off. If you've noticed more than perhaps one of these, your Spidey-Sense should be tingling—it's time to start polishing that resume/CV!
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I. Backups
"Have you backed-up all your work to XYZ?"
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II. Training
"Please train your co-worker on X, we need everyone up to speed on these components."
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III. Important Project or Person MIA
Just like the old Christmas movie, It's a Wonderful Life, where the very existence of the main character is erased from history, a similar fate will happen to $BIG_PROJECT or important people.
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IV. Mandatory Meeting
Subject: Moving Forward in $YEAR+1Content-free meeting invitations or email focused on date periods, especially late-in the year (a nod to tax purposes). "Let's discuss our plan for 2016." **gulp**
That's my list for now, please chime in with any others you can think of.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23 2015, @11:43AM
Seen in real life. When I was starting out, I had the glorious responsibility for keeping the printers fed. Go to the cupboard, get paper/toner, feed printer. Then it became go to boss, get authorization for paper/toner. Even that young, I got suspicious when the boss started needing to get authorization for toner.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday December 23 2015, @01:34PM
This is the key to early observation. Random flailing and no one wants to take or delegate responsibility, such that it suddenly requires VP level intervention to fix a printer, because thats throwing good money after bad and the office will be closed before 10% of the toner is used up. Likewise physical plant maintenance, that leaky radiator won't be fixed, those bad ethernet ports won't be fixed, leaky roof/window won't be fixed, why bother?
Also random flailing around from above, if operating the business sanely means we're closing in a year, randomly trying resume stuffers means we'll close in six months but we'll have better resumes. Sales literally never says no, no matter how weird the request.
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Wednesday December 23 2015, @04:08PM
The purchasing department starts poking their noses into computer specs, supposedly trying to "standardize", but limits the hardware requirements for desktop systems. Purchasing starts questioning server specs. Purchasing negotiates a sole-source deal with a reseller you've never used and / or is pricier than the established one, and the new one has longer lead times. You have to fight to update and renew software for enterprise backups. Coworkers start referring to purchasing department as "The PO Nazis".
One of the best IT bosses I ever had fell on his sword rather than have any of his people RIFfed. Manufacturing then absorbed IT, and kept squeezing our budget (and denying support to other departments), so I finally left (for a LOT more money).
Mas cerveza por favor.