Mixed Feelings

I now have mixed feelings about my company. About 3 weeks ago, the controller of the company left abruptly. I had thought I was becoming pretty good friends with this guy, but then he left under less than favorable circumstances. Apparently, there had been some financial details that were slipping past him or he was missing or something and it turns out that the company wasn't doing as well as we all believed. Suffice it to say that once the real data came out, it was clear that we owed the Feds some money and we weren't doing as well as we had believed. As a result of this, some rather unpleasant events occurred.

The lay offs began in the IT department first. Half of the staff of 6 was let go in the span of an hour. The lucky ones with a job after the smoke settled were my boss (a developer), a developer (and scripter), and the sys admin (me). I'm lucky in that my boss, the guy who had to implement the lay offs, went to bat for me and made it clear to the owner that without me, the computer infrastructure of the company would collapse in pretty short order. He tried to save another of the unfortunates, but could only get so far with the owner.

The IT department wasn't the only department affected. Another department has to cut its hours in half, 2 other departments are losing 1 member each with the possibility of one department losing 2 members. Have I mentioned that I work for a rather small company and that losing that many people is pretty significant? As far as I can tell, that's approximately 20% of our workforce in one fell swoop. I hope we can pull out of the dive it feels like we're in.

On the positive side, I still have a job, I've been told by the president of the company that I'm critical for the company's continued health, and I got the backups to work correctly finally. This week has definitely been filled with mixed feelings when it comes to the place I work.

I'll live and I'll get through it. I'll also update my resume just in case. I'm so jaded...

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