In April, all the employees in my department were herded into a meeting room and told that there would be significant reductions in the months to come.

They didn’t say who, or how many, or how long, they just knew that there would be significant reductions.

We were advised that there may be other, comparable opportunities in other departments, and that we should SERIOUSLY consider taking any of these opportunities that may be offered to us.

Unfortunately, what they considered to be a “reasonable” offer and what I considered to be a “reasonable” offer are two completely different things, because the (all of 2) offers that I received were complete shit.

So we have been waiting.

Since April.

With no information.

It has not been a pleasant place to work the last few months (even less than usual) – people are stressing out, worrying, panicking.  Paranoid gossip is running rampant throughout the department because nobody in charge is telling us peons anything, so all we have left to do is speculate and worry.

Then they took all of our work away and gave it to more “qualified” employees to manage.

Then late, last week, we were told that we would all be, once again, herded into a meeting room, and everyone could guess that the axe was about to fall.  But, even as despair set in, there was still a glimmer of hope trying to stay alive.

Maybe the reductions won’t be as significant as they expected.

Maybe some of us will keep our jobs.

Maybe there will be survivors rising from the devastation of our department.

But then today we got an email.

In error.

An email that listed each team in our department and how many notices were to be given out in each.  The email was quickly recalled, but the damage was done; almost everybody saw it. 

Soon there were small huddles in offices across the floor; everyone was counting – how many employees in the possibly affected positions vs how many notices were to be handed out.

It was an easy count in my office – one notice for every single person currently employed in my position.

And they thought morale was low before.

But the message has been deleted, as though that would erase the memory of it from all our minds, and at the meeting tomorrow we can all pretend to be surprised that everyone is losing their jobs. 

Maybe it will be announced with Oprah-style panache – You get a notice!  And you get a notice!! And YOU get a NOTICE!!!

Maybe they’ll just continue with the aura of nonchalance and disrespect by pulling laid off employee’s names from a hat.

With a drumroll.

And dancing girls.

Actually, I might like to see some dancing girls…