Pre-unemployment

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015, I received an invite to a conference call/Adobe Connect meeting from my employer. I could tell from the header of the email that the meeting came from the top, the provost of the university. I didn't look closely at the heading to notice that only people, who held the same position as I did, were invited to the meeting. We were given only a couple hours’ notice to attend. Without question, I clicked "Accept" to accept the invitation.





About an hour later, I received a text message from a coworker asking me if I was nervous or concerned about the meeting and if I had speculated as to its purpose.  Honestly, I hadn't given the meeting notice any thought. I had received dozens of meeting requests in the same manner and they were always important announcement-type meetings that rarely affected me directly.  Once I realized that only those in my position would be attending, I still wasn't worried about the meeting. After all, those in my position were very busy each day taking care of tasks no one else dealt with. We were the cleanup crew, so to speak, for our employer.  While texting with my coworker, I told her that we didn't have anything to worry about. We were too busy taking care of the things no one else wanted to do and that we wouldn't lose our jobs. Besides, I had stated, there's nothing we can do about it anyway if we do lose our jobs.






Ten minutes later, another coworker asked me similar questions. He wasn't too worried and figured the meeting meant that our team would move to a new department. Our tasks and supervisors may change, but we'd still be gainfully employed. He's one of those employees, who is friends with people in higher places in the organization and I had confidence in his comments because I figured he was more knowledgeable than I was.






An important thing to know is that we were remote employees. We lived across the country, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. and our employer's home office was in Illinois. Webcasts and conference call-type meetings were common for us. That's how we did busy daily. We never saw each other on a daily basis, but we worked together effectively and built strong bonds over the years.




One of our coworkers, there were 6 on our team, was on vacation in Martha's Vineyard. Another coworker had called her about the important meeting notice. The coworker on vacation made a point to call into the meeting so she could listen in. That particular type of commitment was common for all of us. We rarely walked away from our computers during vacations and we maintained contact with coworkers when important situations like this meeting occurred. 




The meeting started only a couple minutes late. Roll was taken to make sure everyone was there. Our vacationing coworker was singled out by the provost. I was very proud of my coworker. She announced loudly and clearly that she was on vacation but attended anyway.  The level of commitment seemed to have fallen on deaf ears of the provost, as the saying goes.  Within the first few minutes of the meeting, we knew we had lost our jobs. The university had decided to eliminate our position. Approximately 20 individuals held the position. The university is a large employer with more than 5,000 employees. It surprised me that our position was even noticed in such a large pool of employees.






We were told we couldn't say anything to anyone that day about losing our jobs because the university wanted to do it on their own. We could begin speaking freely of our job loss on Wednesday.  The university was vague in their communications as to whom or what position was eliminated, but the rumor mill took hold of the information and word soon spread. 






On Wednesday, I received my private email from HR containing my documentation regarding my displacement.  The most interesting piece of information I read in all of those documents was the statement that our last day of pay and last day of work may not necessarily be the same day. I knew that meant they would get rid of us before the last pay date arrived. 






It's been six days since I was told my job was eliminated and I still have not been told when my last day of work will be. It's rude for the employer to be so callous in how they are handling this matter.  My coworkers, 5 out of 6 of us lost our jobs (one remains on and will be promoted--that's another discussion entirely!) speculate that we will be kept around to do our typical cleanup tasks through Thursday, July 2nd. The home office is closed on Friday for the 4th of July holiday and they certainly don't want to give us holiday pay! I suspect, too, that Fed Ex or UPS will be delivering a bundle of paperwork to us on Thursday to sign and it will also contain a mailing label to ship our computers back to home office.  That paperwork will contain a severance package. If we sign and accept severance, as we were duly advised at our meeting, we will permanently cut our ties to the employer and can never be rehired by them.






Their comments felt like a slap in the face. After all, we're not losing our jobs because of poor performance or because the colleges we worked for were eliminated. Our position was simply a cost center, a line item to scratch off to reduce costs.  Out of 5,000 plus employers, it's difficult to imagine our role as an expense that simply cannot be incurred any longer by the university.  I'm sure there are other politics at play in the decision-making process, but I'll never be privy to the information.  The job elimination hurts nonetheless.






I've been working from home for 16 years and have spent, on average, 8-9 hours a day in front of the computer. As my workload winds down while I wait for the severance paperwork, I am struggling to stay busy. I sit at my computer and try to surf the web, but I really don't want to surf. I feel like I should be sitting at the computer, but I have no reason to be here, at least not for 8-9 hours a day.  So I have to figure out how to fill my day, earn my salt as the saying goes, while I look for work. At my age, I have no idea what to expect in the job market and especially in the higher education field.  The one thing I learned while doing my job was that there are thousands, if not millions, of people wanting to work in higher education.  I can only hope I built a strong enough skillset to find more work and be more than just one of thousands in the crowd.





I'll keep you posted.