Agreed. I was at a small enough and private company that even you could even small talk to the C levels in the hall. No mater what I was facing I was able to stay resilient and positive. I was known for this.
Since the 1950s this famous California company was known for technology adoption and was known for employing people until retirement. If jobs or departments were eliminated they would be offered other roles even in other divisions.
When they announced the “strategic sourcing” plan in 2019 I was sure they would RIF just one or two non-performers on each team and augment our staff like they said. This will get rid of the busy work so you can focus on work that drives the business they said.
I always offered all the senior executives white glove support even though I was a lead on an application delivery team and helped all IT teams where applicable. I was well liked and had many accolades from the senior leadership. I was considered the superstar of my team. I received my first AWS certificate and was planning to pilot Azure virtual desktop.
I was laid off in the first round of 100 and trained my offshore outsourced replacements over WebEx………….
The one or two LEAST expensive and LEAST performing team members kept their jobs until….
They were laid off once the outsource offshore team was up to speed the next year - another 100.
Any functional human being who had anything at all to do with IT was laid off also - another 100.
Those of us mid career have been fed the lines. Only slackers get laid off they said, only quitters get laid off they said, they always keep the best people they said…
It’s a different world now, that era is behind us…