The Angry Accountant: The latest round of layoffs feels just like to GFC to me. Management is making the same mistakes all over again

You loved her other two blogs, so here's another (angry) installment.

I will never forget that particular day in March 2009. Neither will 400 or so of my ex-colleagues who were laid off at the US firm in Asia Pacific that we all worked for.

In the months leading up to it, a circulated memo stipulated 20 per cent of employees would be given the flick. Working for a financial corporation brought to its knees during the global financial crisis, every single one of us were moving targets, and every day until doomsday, the fear became palpable and the nervousness among the staff was electrifying.

However, being part of a lean and mean finance team (i.e. under resourced and over worked), my colleague Anna and I were told by our manager, the CFO, that we were safe and there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Phew. What comforting words!

Broken promises

But in an instant, these words snapped like delicate glass. As I wander over to Anna's empty desk, unwittingly thinking she was in a meeting, Mark, who sat next to her, solemnly said she had been summoned to the CEO's office to be given the awful news she no longer had a job. Anna could return to her cubicle, swallow her pride and stay on for another two weeks, or she could leave right away. She did the latter.

The little bit of dignity Anna had left wasn't enough to bring her downstairs, collect her bag and bid her colleagues goodbye. Mark had to bring her bag to her. A lady in marketing was also given her marching orders that day, but went about her job as if nothing had happened. Three women from other departments, who were all pregnant, were "coincidentally" kicked to the curb.

For those of us left behind, the crux of this demoralising experience was undeniably going through Anna's desk, taking her personal belongings, sealing them in a box and mailing out the bits and pieces accumulated during four years of dedicated service. Feeling disgusted and infuriated, it seemed as though I was helping to put the finishing touches on the company's dirty work.

None of it makes sense

It didn't matter that Anna was unable to find a role for the next four months nor did it matter that the mums-to-be didn't have a job waiting upon completion of maternity leave. It didn't matter that as soon as Anna left, we were pulling our hair out urgently trying to tabulate and dispatch the billings she generated each month. Our manager hired a contractor from a position of desperation and threw him off the deep end to figure out Anna's work. I'm not sure how all that even made sense, but none of it mattered to the firm.

I understand that if a company is on a downward slope, business won't be what it used to be and the firm cannot feasibly support its existing workforce. I get that. But as I looked around during the GFC, CEOs were still frequently flying business class and upper management still got paid hefty bonuses. A few weeks later newly-created positions were advertised and contractors were all of a sudden made permanent.

Does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture? Has corporate greed and corporate stupidity become so widely accepted and expected that no one bothers to stand up against such practices until about two months ago when workers started occupying Wall Street, Rome, Greece and Sydney?

I wonder if these bigwigs sleep at night with the decisions they make. I wonder if there are still leaders with a little bit of heart left, who make decisions based on what's best for other people and not just his or her wallet. Maybe we can stop the GFC and its ramifications happening again. Maybe.

Press repeat and play

Fast forward to the present and it seems to be business as usual. As I saunter to over my manager's office to get numbers signed off, she hastens past with her bag, rushes out the door and is unusually absent the rest of the week. In the most astonishing blow, she has just been made redundant and we will never see her again.

A classic case of corporate karma perhaps?

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