The Totem Pole

Here at work I think the best place to be is some where in the middle.  It’s hard to get to the top.  My boss and his boss have both been here for 25+ years and there are still 2 positions above them just here in the plant, I don’t even want to know how many in the company globally.  I’m OK with this though because around here the people at the top of the pole have just as good of a chance of going as the people at the bottom. 

There was an unexpected meeting called yesterday afternoon by the VP of Engineering.  Engineering includes many different departments, product (my dept), equipment design, manufacturing, facility, etc.  Anyway, on the meeting invite there was no information on what it was for.  My boss realized though that there were names missing from the invite list.  At the meeting all the VP said was that the latest “reduction in work force” affected the Engineering dept in a big way.  From what we can see, we have lost at least 4 people from the engineering departments.  Thankfully my little department of 4 people wasn’t effected.

This has me thinking though.  Every time they let people go, it puts me closer and closer to the bottom of this pole.  Yes in seniority there is one guy below me because he started a year after I started full time, in time served it’s over 2 years, but he has many more year experience than I do, so in reality we are probably even although our expertise are in different areas.

I’m scared to death to think that in the next 6 months they could do this again and I could be one that gets let go… My family can’t handle that right now.  Our bank account can’t handle that right now.  I need to step up my game at work and start shining.  I don’t have much room to move up, but I can prove myself to be a valuable employee! 

Time to re-structure my days, so if you find me not commenting on your blogs as much, it’s not because I don’t want to, I’m just trying to fit it in some where else so I spend less time on the internet at work (shh I don’t do that).

*After writing this, another meeting was held where we were informed that the entire equipment design group was dissolved.  I’m glad to hear that about half of the employees were absorbed by other groups, but scary to think they can just get rid of a group like that.  Can’t wait to hear what our 1pm meeting holds…