DISILLUSIONED

Once again, a totally irrelevant photo … but at least a cute one

We were lied to. Plain and simple. Lied to from Day 1 after the takeover from the new company. They welcomed us grandly with a huge welcome party, telling us how happy they were to join forces with us. One big family. And, as you know, I was quite happy to be part of the new company, optimistic, since they had subsidiaries in Austria and I had hoped they would find a way for me to remain working in my department, just from back home.

Well, as you already know, my hopes were crushed shortly before Christmas when they announced that there won’t be a solution for me. And now I know why. Because they just didn’t want to, were just not interested and already knew that my job would be a goner anyway … and little Austrian me being totally irrelevant. Like an annoying little bug asking again and again whether there would be any way to remain part of this company … but let me start at the beginning. The beginning of the end.

One month after the grand welcome party the new company shocked us with the announcement that they would shut down several locations, some of them in Germany, the one in Austria and others around the world because they wanted to discontinue the one or other product. Not even service and spare parts were continued, resulting in annoying customers left and right. This decision put the first chink in our trust to the new owners. But we were confident at our location – since we had the products and know how they were actually interested in, furthermore we had exceeded our planned numbers despite more difficult conditions due to the pandemic and inflation – that our jobs would be relatively safe. Which was also proclaimed one month ago at the staff meeting. Showing that employee numbers at my location would basically remain the same.

Last week they finally showed their true colours. 43% of employees would be laid off (two third at my department), positions moved to “best cost countries”. (Best cost my ass! More like lowest cost!) They proclaimed that they had looked at the numbers closely only recently and decided that this was a necessary step.

Yep, tell me again that this was a recent decision! Please tell me! I don’t believe it for a second! I don’t believe a single word they are saying anymore! I bet they had been planning this from the very beginning! And that pisses me off even more! Loudly pronouncing that their core values are “trust” and “honesty”. And employees being the most important. My ass! Pure mockery! And disrespect towards the new employees who trusted them to find a new professional home, giving their all. In my special case, it’s not much of an issue, my future plans don’t involve this company anymore anyway. But my colleagues … shocked, distraught, angry, worried. And I completely understand, having been in this situation myself a couple of times, being partly responsible for my depressive episodes.

Wanna know what’s going to happen to my location after the reduction to approximately half the staff? They will suck out all the knowledge and when they have what they want, the German location will be a thing of the past more quickly than you can say “Booo”. My estimation? 2025 or 2026, the latest. And they won’t care one bit. Just another competitor successfully destroyed.

I can’t tell you how disgusted I am. Disgusted and disillusioned. And I hope I will find some more “peace” at my new job, with a company which still values its employees and treats them decently.