After 26 years working in Sears Home Services I too was laid off. The lack of reasoning on who is being let go versus who is not is staggering, The people who showed up every day year after year, placing their nose on the grindstone when they got to work and pulling it off only to shake their heads at those that got away with doing little of nothing for Sears or customers or fellow employees. Watching years of incompetent leadership that felt and managed like they were entitled. They were the anti-servant managers. Those that actually know the business are almost all gone now.
Years of drinking the Sears Kool-Aid left me believing what they said "WE WILL REWARD OUR BEST EMPLOYEES". I watched executives one after the other have "replacements" which were pushing $120,000,000.00 at one point.
A new set of senior leadership and our VP gave replacements to our Director, who gave it to my direct Sr. Manager, who gave the project to me to execute. I was ecstatic that something had the potential to be so impactful had landed in my lap.
I created a plan to reduce replacements and my team executed it flawlessly; reducing replacements in our division by 50% saving ten's of millions of dollars. We were rewarded with a pizza party, while our Director and VP took credit at the senior level for everything as though it was their plan.
Then to add insult to injury, there were senior executives, that were aware days in advance of being let go that only did a bunch of busy work moving from project to project. While somebody like me was dealt with; by having their director walk into my office with HR on speakerphone followed by my boss in tears telling me I was being let go and HR would explain over the phone and go through "THE PACKAGE" a whole 10 weeks of severance for 26 years of loyal service.
Of course I also had a $3000 loan from my 401K that must now be paid back and if I can't they close down my 401K and I pay penalties even though I'm within 4 months of being able to do it without penalty.
It was not all bad as I raised a family and met many friends that I would not have met otherwise. Besides, I'm too old to hold resentments so this is me cleansing Sears out of my life.
Like any bad relationship they all end...RIP SEARS HOME SERVICES