Matt Ryan

A journey lugging aspirations and experiences, tools and ideals.

management-NOT

Another chapter begins, a door opens, [insert moving on cliche here]

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Hmmmm, just about 16 hours ago, about 15 minutes before it was time to leave the office for the weekend – that would be 4:45 pm – manager IM’s me asking me to step into his office. Note to self – this is a bad omen – prepare yourself. After some light pleasantries, a couple of moments of banter, him writing 1 or 2 more emails and taking the phone call – all while I’m sitting in his office – he turns to me and says, looking above my head, we’ve decided to part ways with you. 

Part ways with me! Are you leaving me? Sounds like a very awkward breakup if you ask me. To paraphrase, it seems like the directions manager gave me last week were incorrect, and the powers that be were not happy with the progress I was making on the items that manager told were not an issue. Manager deflected all responsibility to powers that be. Effective today. Insurance through the rest of the month. No severance. HR will get your PC from you and escort you from the building. By now it 4:55 and most everyone has left. Guess that is good so I won’t make a scene!

Said goodbye to a few remaining souls – two of which were most helpful to me as I tried to learn the company and its direction as quickly as possible – not fast enough, as it turns out. 

Packed up my box of stuff, deleted my password manager from my work laptop, signed out of my cloud storage/work area, handed over my super-special, handy-dandy key fob, aka key to the kingdom. And was escorted out. On the way home realized that I left my prized Phillies magnet on the side of my desk. Damn, I gotta go back next week and retrieve it. Along with a termination letter. Realized the last time around that it is necessary to prove that I didn’t quit – for a number of reasons. 

Fell off the wagon last night. Oh well, it WAS a very stressful event. I’ll climb back on today and start again. 

Back to my networking with a host of new skills. I am now a strong cold-caller, have tripled the size of my LinkedIn network to 1600+, and have gotten used to a daily commute for the first time in years. 

Thanks for listening. I’ll be back. 

Difficult decision?

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“…we have made the difficult decision to eliminate your position effective today…”

It was just about 48 hours ago that I heard those words. I don’t think it has still fully sunk in yet. Really? Are you kidding me? 

I guess I figured something was odd, after all, the CEO was standing in the door to my office, and he has NEVER been to my office in the 8 years I’ve worked for him. He did text me about 15 minutes prior to his appearance asking if I was going to be in my office for the next little bit. Of course I’m going to be in my office. We have a standing 10a video call every week. Why wouldn’t I be here in my office. Now I should point out that I work remote from the office, I guess “worked”, is the correct term now, and my office is a little over 2 hours north of the company headquarters. So, it is quite unusual for anyone from the corporate office to show up unannounced at my office. 

About 11 minutes later he was back on his way to the safety of HQ, but not before requesting that I unplug the laptop and give it to him. “Do you have anything else that is our’s” he asked. Really? Are you kidding me? I know I am repeating myself but I guess the absurdity of the whole thing still hadn’t passed. “Sure, here’s the power cord and the dock station” I said. “I’ll get the office supplies and phone back to you.”

So I am now one of the victims of the economic downturn, the recovering economic downturn. It’s time for me to now put into practice all those things I would offer as nuggets of help to my friends as they were downsized over the past half dozen years or so. Network, update resume, network, tell everyone, network, get active on LinkedIn, network, update your skills, and oh, by the way, did I say to ‘network’. 

I think that this little blog will help me get through the whole thing, at least its a first step. We’ll see how it goes. I’m hoping to keep track of progress, throw in a little self-pity wrapped up with a good deal of optimism as I embark on a path to “explore new opportunities” as my LinkedIn headline shouts. Will I end up in a corporate office job (hmmm, been working remotely for well over 10 years now), is it time to do my own thing (right, with 2 college tuition bills and a mortgage), or some combination. Lots to think about. Like I said at the beginning, it has only been about 48 hours since everything changed, and the thoughts are still trying to get themselves in some sense of order. 

I need to find my last resume and update it. I still do need a paper resume, right? 

Kind of ironic that the last line of the letter he handed me says “…we greatly appreciate all the work you’ve done in an effort to help make [us] a success…”