Monday, February 09, 2009

The difficult goodbye

Letting people go is never going to be easy.

We've done all we can to put this off, but until the regul@tor and our main client work out the funding issues...

We remind ourselves that this is the risk people take when they take the extra money and go contract, but...

Week after week we pour over backlog graphs and resource schedules, but amongst the numbers and lines, I see people and livelihoods and...

We've done what we can, we managed to find work to take five down to four, but it's still four too many and...

The phone calls from agents have been received, department briefings have been given, the news is out and I'm not sure if I'm finding it easier or harder to look people in the eyes.

And at the back of the head, the selfish, nagging thought that you try to deny - how safe am I?

Not good times.


2 comments:

Cal said...

Oh, how horrible.

I'm freelance - it is indeed a scary time

Rachel said...

Sorry to hear that. We've had some of that here - tho not to such a large extent - but 17 is now 15 and we've let the one consultant we had go. Wearing the HR hat of the office I get pulled into it all and it makes me feel bad.
The worst part was knowing before they did - knowing the impact that was coming on their life - and not being able to do anything about it. The joys of working for an organization which depends on donations from individuals and companies (and foundations too, who keep loosing their funds through bad investments).
And there is that unsettled feeling of where does it stop.