Redundancy

Did everyone recognise George Clooney’s redundancy mantra in my first blog posting? 'Anybody that ever built an empire or changed the world sat where you are today.'

If not, shame on you. It’s from the very awesome Up in the Air. Go rent it now.

In it, Clooney works for a company that is brought in to lay people off, and the film follows his struggle against a dehumanising management drive to roll out a cheaper technique for firing people over a webcam link. Funny, poignant and utterly absurd.

Well, it turns out that this is a shining model of exemplary HR practice compared to how I got fed my chips.

I found out that I was leaving my job at a Finnish telecoms megalith when my employers emailed the whole company with a bunch of spreadsheets containing the structure of the new organisation. What the new teams are, who’s managing them, and who’s nominated to fill each position. I dutifully opened each in turn, searched for 'phelps', and on finding no matches I accurately concluded that my services were no longer required.

All those coming to the summer party, step forward now. Where do you think you’re going, Phelps?

I'm only whining about this now because I had to go back to the office today to chat over my see-ya numbers, and so no zombie work gone done. But reassuringly it transpired that I was just about the only relaxed person in the building. All my old colleagues were mired in a mixture of survivors’ guilt, nervousness at another impending management re-shafting, and the nagging doubt that they may have just missed an opportunity to go and do something much more entertaining instead.

I passed around the URL for this blog. Hi guys.

Now, I’ve thought about this quite a lot, and I’m pretty certain that I should be feeling at least a little bit of resentment, or even just dented pride. I mean, I’ve just been dumped by my company after 12 years together. Badly. But I genuinely don’t.

I think it's because today reminded me of a fantasy relationship break-up, where you imagine what it'd be like to bump into your old girlfriend while you're out with someone that's way too attractive to normally go out with you.

True, this new girlfriend is also a total bitch. She’s going to clean out my bank account, spoil me for other women and more than likely leave me with a neurosis.

But what can I do? I love her. Fuzzy.