Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Corporate Life - The Exodus

The department for which I work underwent a sort of reorg a couple of weeks ago. Marketing absorbed a huge chunk of sales and support. My career started out in support, staffing the hotline and troubleshooting the bullshit problems of pissed off engineers. Always fix the person first, then fix the technical problem. It's always easier that way.

So now we're a honkin' big organisation, full of over-inflated egos that demand perpetual assuaging and reassurance. Those of us in the rank and file, namely me, spend our time scratching our heads in an effort to work out why the hell the move was executed in the first place. Better alignment? Maybe. A parting gift from the outgoing CEO to his man with marketing plan? Now you're getting warmer. Redundancies? Ah, we're starting to hit the mark.

Even still, when I strolled into a meeting this morning I was kind of surprised to overhear that the VP who came over to Marketing as part of the shift was splitsville. Yeah, not more than a month after the move was made official she bailed. There are a couple of rumour sources in the company that I like to check on this sort of stuff, and in this instance he knew nothing concrete. Bear in mind that he reports into this woman's organisation, so the cone of silence around the exit wasn't exactly shocking. Two hours later it was confirmed.

This kind of thing is going on all over the place now. Nobody should be reclining back in his or her Aeron chair, picturing the long, safe career at the company that stretches out ahead. It's time to put the spit shine on the resume, kiddies, nothing is certain anymore.

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