And today was definitely one of those days.

First off, can I just say I hate this fucking economy?  I know, nothing like stating the obvious.  But, like most other companies in the US, my company has been hit.  So today was the day to do layoffs.  Yippee.  And, I cannot talk about layoffs without commending the fine women (and men) in the HR field.  How you get through days like today without finding the need to take shots between the meetings is commendable  While as a manager, I may only have to do one or two, you get to be involved with every single one of them.  In the days of yore at my company, the HR team would have gotten it all wrapped up so they could go have lunch and drinks before resuming the day.  I totally get it and believe you deserve it.

As an IT person, I get to do the back office dirty work to the work HR is doing.  Our team gets to shut off access to accounts, gather systems, and basically create an environment where no one loses data or gets accused of destroying data.  And, in the midst of it all, we are also having to take care of ourselves which means we get to change all important passwords, etc.

What created another layer of complexity on this process was the fact we are having some pretty nightmarish weather for our region of the US.  It never went above maybe 25 degrees, and the roads are pretty icy.  I made it into work but wondered why I was doing it the whole way in.

Excuse the rant, but can I just say that if you have chains on your car, it doesn’t make you invincible or able to go 60 on an ice covered freeway?  The same should be pointed out to the SUV drivers who hold the same belief.  There is no wonder that I passed 6 accidents in a 5 mile stretch on my drive home.  But, I digress.

So, the weather screwed up the notifications plans.  Most of the company worked from home instead of making the drive into work.  So it was all done via phone calls which makes a lot of things dicey.  I have a number of stories where we didn’t get back functioning laptops from employees notified via the phone.  It can be ugly.

As my boss said, it is one thing to lay someone off in an economy where there are jobs.  It’s another to lay them off in an economy where more companies are laying off employees than hiring them.  I know the execs who decided this lost a lot of sleep over it for exactly this reason.   I am close enough to many of them to know they didn’t take this decision lightly.

In addition to the weather and work fun, I am getting the cold going around.  The girls both have it, many people at work have it, so I was doomed to get it.  Tis the season, I guess.

So, that’s my day so far.  But, now I am home early.  That’s a plus.  🙂