Forced Retirement

[Gil Martin]

Last Thursday, I was called into a meeting at work to go over my annual performance review. When I saw my boss and the V.P. of Human Resources in the conference room I immediately knew things were not going to be pretty. My position and entire department were being eliminated. Four of us are now unemployed. They gave us a golden handkerchief of severance pay, unemployment benefits and a kick in the pants. I suspected this might happen, but was surprised by the timing. My staff people were all thirty year employees and encountered their first outplacement. It has been difficult for them to adjust to their new current reality. This is the third time it has happened to me in my career. The company wanted us to stay on until early February to clean up our workload and make it a smooth transition. We were also given the option to just leave. All of us gathered our stuff and left the office together.

The interesting part is that were working for a faith-based organization that oozes compassion and concern for others, unless they are employees. All the best...
Gil