The morning inevitably arrived, the meeting which we were all waiting for started, a minute late despite being told we all had to be ready for 8:55. Senior managers whined that it wasn’t their fault (which it is) and that they are leading the company forward and in the correct direction (which they say they are but the stats suggest otherwise) and that we are planning to increase the income (more later).

A senior manager, who grins like a wanking serial killer, told us that he was very sorry and this wasn’t to do with past decisions (which it is, particularly the Saudi incident) and that now he had sniffled his introduction he was handing over to his junior; our senior with as much charisma as a safety pin, seems speaking quietly and with a mournful voice is meant to deliver the talk with empathy and understanding. Turns out they’re all just incompetent, and running a sort of  government department for fucks sake. Anyway redundancies was the order of the day, a message from the union the previous afternoon telling the truth and informing the whole company  has enraged the senior team for stealing the thunder and serving to give the people at risk a full day and sleepless night of paranoia and worry. How dare the union tell the workers whats to come, thats our job, we’ve been practicing speaking with a sorrowful sad voice reminiscent of a school pantomime performance.

Turns out the meeting was to let us know that there were to be job losses due to the chronic mismanagement of this tin pot company trying to punch higher that its weight, the meeting ended and then candidates for being kicked out would be summoned for another meeting. As soon as I hung up, I had another meeting request; the redundancy bus had turned up and I was seemingly on the naughty step, along with a shit load of others. Once more; platitudes and sorrow framed the processes and intranet links were sent, emails and recordings of the lacklustre pathetic announcements were sent to our inboxes. I’d love to go, but I can’t afford to sadly, but the  distinct fetid taste of the announcement has remained and judging form the chats I was involved in afterwards this slimming down has caused far more trouble that they suspect. I fucking hope all these so called managers fall over and continually bump into things. Its tough being beaten down worn out and abused by these twats who seem to have no idea of how to lift the company up, the company with a proud legacy and now a  hodgepodge of disconnected products which they have little option of selling to anyone other that Eskimos wanting to buy Ice. 

Looking deeper into the redundancy details I see they will be getting rid of the customer facing folk, the marketeers and some of the sales team, in order to not increase the revenue stream; so thats good… And a joke which hasn’t yet written its own punchline, but I have, The IT department  will be shrinking down to 2 people, thats what causes most of the issues readers of this nonsense may remember from a few years back. Yes I’ve been writing this long and no, I haven’t been nominated for the Booker Prize yet.

Will there be another offer of redundancy a few years down the line? Maybe.. but helpfully they’ve informed us there will be no more for the year ahead. “Managed Decline” a friend said to me tonight, who I’ll call Dr S, so I’ll probably have to turn off the lights when I leave, which will probably be the soft glow of a laminated Christmas tree the way things are going.