Hey, its me. The person with almost a decade of experience at your company that you laid off Thursday. Its okay, though. I knew. I knew before you knew because I know this company better than you. I've been on the ground floor while you've been on the golf course.
The company has changed. Have you even been around long enough to witness it? Im not talking about the missing "snack budget" or lack of team outings. I thought it was bad when talented people were leaving years ago. In the last year its gotten much worse than that.
Pay closer attention! Are you listening? Do you hear the tension in the meetings? The crackling of constant fires consuming your teams? Endless "Priority" and "No budget for that" rings in your ear like tinnitis.
There is a collective amnesia worsening as the brain drain sets in. Teams start to make the same mistakes that have been made before because there is nobody around who was there the last time it was tried or failed. So they have the same conversations, but this time nobody is left who is brave enough to speak the "quiet part" out loud for fear of "being next". The wrong choice is made this time.
But you're managing how many teams now? Did you even notice? Did you see how the work is rubber stamped before being sent to production? The person who actually took the time to thanklessly review it is gone. They won't be patiently fixing or correcting the HIH hire's issues either.
But thats okay because of AI, right? That'll make up for the skill shortage? And the severe understaffing? A trillion dollars has been invested in it! All the world's digital data fed into it! Its "the future" and "inevitable" or so they say. Uh oh, you ignored that silly SME (subject matter expert) who could actually tell the AI was hallucinating? Don't worry, that SME is gone now! You no longer have to hear about how they had to scrap the AI's work because it was "worse than a junior intern" or "if a human had broken the project this bad they would be fired". You can't even fire the AI because YOUR manager would fire you!
I could go on, but let's be honest: they dont pay you to read, think, or care. Your job is to get the CEO rich by helping pump that stock by any reckless means possible. Too bad its failing. Even with stock buybacks, outsourcing, layoffs, etc. Im sure you're safe, Mr. "Top Dog". What's that? An org restructuring is happening? ...HR would like you to read this prompt to yourself. Thank you for your service to the company.