Only 10 Days left

The final countdown begins.

As of Monday, only 10 more working days. Aug 8th is Last Day. I can’t help but think of Logan’s Run.

Most all of our life clocks are blinking red now. People are stressing themselves into to illness. Several of my colleagues have been experiencing symptoms that seem like heart attacks but when they’ve gone to the doctor nothing definitive is found.

It’s interesting that several of the executives look like they’re afraid they’re going to be beaten any minute. They obviously won’t, but the stress is wearing on them too. Their fear is obvious and only now do they seem to realize that their fates are intertwined & sealed just as ours are.

I’ve been through this kind of thing before. This is the first company that has handled layoffs so badly. 

Everyone seems to be looking forward to the end and honestly so am I. 

I know of several folks that have started trashing the cheap swag from company events. A couple of people have used employee awards for target practice. 

I’ve always hug onto company swag from other companies. This time however I’ve found a certain catharsis in tossing the items from this company. In thinking about it, the difference is that other companies valued me as an employee and I was proud of my work. This company although saying they value their employees, has demonstrated time after time that we are nothing, and not worthy of even a modicum of human kindness or compassion. We were nothing but components to be abused, punished, and beaten down.

How is it that so many employees paychecks will have over a month of vacation time paid out? That’s just one simple example. The way this happened is most vacation requests were routinely denied, and after a time employees stopped asking for time off.

After all why ask, or attempt to make plans of any kind when you know that your request will be denied? It’s easier to not let yourself hope, then you’re not hurt.

Same thing is true of promotions, or advancement within the company.  Why bother, when it is so blatantly obvious that you have no chance.

So with each item of cheap gaudy swag that I toss in the trash, I feel lighter and better about this ending.  I like that I’ll have nothing to remind me that I ever worked for these people. 

If I’m very lucky I won’t remember the mental pain this place caused and honesty if I don’t  remember  the people I’ve spoken to over the past 3 years it will be a blessing.

Not all of them were bad, some were very nice. But all of them had a common theme, that was “Give me something”. It’s draining and very depressing.

I won’t miss it.

I’m looking forward to not speaking to anybody for a time.

Then I’ll deal with the headhunters, and getting a new job.

Until then… I’m just counting down.