continued immiseration ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Fair warning, I just need to vent so there is no optimistic twist at the end of this. If you're having a crappy day you should go read something else instead. I just need to write it, you don't need to read it. I've lost another member of my team to a layoff, the third layoff this year. My boss says that they're working through moving to a new bank for their borrowing that will help them out more and give them more flexibility as they work on building the business - but in the short term the current bank is forcing them to make further cuts. This time the story is that the bank's consultants that have been reviewing our operations and making recommendations to the bank to push onto us have told them that we have too many quality managers (counting a long-time employee who's really only doing engineering support as 'quality'). So the plan is to lay off my inspection manager, move my QA manager into that role, reshuffle the QA manager's work (probably mostly to me) and triage on from there. I'm going to have to get creative in 'implementing' that plan to keep things marginally on the rails - QC morale is already poor and justifiably so. Ostensibly we'll be re-hiring him in a couple months once things stabilize and the new financial backing is sorted out. I wish I believed that. With the usual losses and hirings my department is down a total of six people since I started here, that is one sixth. Even if it's not deliberate, effectively we're getting whittled down. We continue to be asked to do more with the people who are still here. They've been offering this banking change as an excuse as to why cuts are needed and why things are so financially tight and the hope that things will get better Real Soon Now almost since I got here. I am having doubts, have been having them for some time now, about the ownership group (family-owned company) and how honest they are or maybe aren't with themselves about the situation. That of course affects how I take what I hear from my boss. He already knows that I take a dim view of layoffs and terminations, he spent a good half an hour talking about their financial repositioning, bits about the ongoing process for trying to start a new facility out-of-state, and then finally worked his way around to talking about the cuts that are going to happen. He had to tell me about all of the sacrifices the ownership have made to keep the company afloat, etc. - not realizing that all of that just doesn't mean much to someone who didn't inherit a company, still has student loans to pay on and pay off, and really /must/ remain employed with decent health insurance for his wife. I'm sure what they're doing feels like a big sacrifice to them but they have a whole lot more to lose before they would really feel it. Their perspective is very limited. I was told a while back by a member of the ownership, who's also an employee (in, basically, business development) that I should hire a quality engineer. I told him that I didn't want to hire someone only to have to then let someone else on my team go. I relented and put together a job description, not expecting to get any decent candidates, and lo and behold a guy with a frakking master's degree and process improvement and Lean experience applies and seems excited about the job after interviewing and a plant tour. We made him an offer /one/ day before I was told about the layoff, but they still want to hire him. Exactly as expected. Now I might have a new quality engineer who will have to get up to speed and learn our (many) production processes - and managing QC is a part-time job for my QA manager and me to juggle. I feel like I've been here before, with two different employers. There isn't a lot to recommend it really. Both of those employers no longer exist. For this evening at least anger and frustration have now given way to depression. NO CARRIER