In the team meeting today the director took pride in the fact some of us were caught off guard. I guess she is proud to be a liar. They opened the meeting for questions, but it was apparent everyone was to afraid to ask questions. We'll all live in fear now. If Devon IT would be more response to business the lay off might not have been needed. They have become bogged down in needing so many reviews, so many approvals, so many forms, that they have forgotten how to keep things simple. IT is viewed as the monster that nobody wants to deal with. Wake up IT getting rid of people won't lean out the organization.
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In the many years I was at Devon, I've seen this is the way things are handled. People will just disappear without a word, and in larger scale cutbacks like the current one, layoffs are never announced. Notice how there is never a press release? Your comments about IT overhead are well founded. Frustration is widespread among both IT and business groups. IT never has a chance to adapt to a change in their organization before the next great reorg (lame) thing comes along that fizzles out in about 6 months and the cycle starts again. Further, the real culprits are not in G&A expense, but e.g. with the horrible return on capital from the oil sands operations. Even long term, this has questionable ROI. Many Wall Street analysts agree.