ThinkingSkull.com

How long should an employee wait to act if they suspect that their job is in jeopardy? What are the warning signs? Support workers (human resources, upper management) cleaning out desks? Supervisors mysteriously absent? Available time off suddenly exceeding all queue limits? An active lack of denial (or confirmation) of an impending layoff? Rumors circulating of what was heard or who said what from an private meeting that everyone saw but no one talks about?

In order to survive, a company must first and foremost meets the needs of its business; if it cannot, it fails while someone else succeeds. That means changing to meet or beat the competition and increase revenue either by selling more product or services, convincing consumers to pay higher prices for the same, or lower costs at all costs. Unfortunately, sometimes lowering costs means laying off people.

Customer support is a skill based in tolerance, a talent for dealing with complete strangers on the company’s behalf and acting as its voice. Like any profession, suspecting that your days are numbered adds an entirely new dimension, a hanging sword that a company (in its best interests) dares not to confirm too soon. What hurts is when happy employees that inexplicably enjoy their stressful jobs and have historically sung the praises of the company they work for suddenly realize that something is wrong and, for legal and business reasons, the grunts in the trenches must be left out of the loop for fear of what might happen if they realize their goal is to be sacrificed for the greater good (aka “the company.”)

What is the real purpose of keeping employees in the dark? Is it so that they will continue to work obliviously until that final moment when its over, or is there some legal ramification that says “The clock is ticking” once an announcement is made? Obviously SOMEONE knows or has been told what’s happening, otherwise necessary preparations that must occur prior to the closure (or lack of, such as onsite food and vending services) couldn’t take place, so it must not be ENTIRELY a legal point.

Only one thing is for sure: cheese moves, and if you want it, you gotta go where it is.