Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows I don’t usually talk about work except to share things that I have learned or discovered while doing said work. This post, however, is a break from that tradition, as I am no longer employed. I was laid off in the latest round of RIF (reduction in force, a more polite way of saying downsized). I am back in the market and finding that there are a few things that make it tricky. As I pointed out in this post none of the code I have worked on recently belongs to me.
Which means that for those who desire code samples I need to do one of three things: either hand over old or unfinished code, write something entirely new, or get permission from my previous employer to share samples of some of the work where I was the only (or at least principal) developer. While the first is not appealing and the second will be ok once I have to time actually build something new or finish something I started back when, the third would be the simplest, at least if I felt that I would get the ok. But seeing how the last day went, I am not so sure. I walked some of the remaining developers through the code and documentation for a project I had headed up, and was on hand to put out fires. I was expecting to be answering questions right up to 5:00 PM. But at 3:30 PM my email account was disabled and shortly after that my Jabber account. While that was not unexpected, the lack of a final message from any of my current bosses was. No thanks, no sorry about the lay off, no good luck, nothing. I did get the farewells, sorry and thanks for everything you’ve done (as well a written LinkedIn reccomendation) from my former boss last week, and I appreciate that.
I don’t know, maybe I am just being overly sensitive. Or maybe I just expect too much from people. But would it really have been that hard to send an email to all the departing employees? Meh. I’ll get over it.
Sjan, I regard you as someone with integrity in addition to being very skilled. Anyone you work for gets all your skill and effort. I am very sorry that you aren’t given that last gesture to let you know your value. I know that a number of people, including me, from the university speak of you on occasion and how much you were appreciated and depended on.