Layoffs

I'm a consultant at a major financial services company. Today I had the unfortunate experience of watching an entire division suffer through a layoff that was 3 months in the making. These poor people have been waiting for the other shoe to drop for weeks, and as the end of the month grew closer, the environment just got more tense. Forget productivity - the company was lucky that folks even showed up.

The area I worked in lost 6 people, including a manager with whom I had become good friends. He was a good person, who truly cared about his team and his co-workers, truly a man of integrity. He was one of the first to be let go, and surprisingly, this really hit me hard - I was as upset as those team members who worked with him for years. This was the second time in my career that I had seen a manager with such character let go. Why doesn't corporate America value these qualities? Does a person have to be coldblooded, robotic and without emotion to succeed?

This layoff, along with a dozen other reasons, led me to decide not to renew my contract. I'll be home this summer, doing the stay-at-home mom thing, and looking for a contract in the fall. My daughters are 7 and 4, entering 3rd grade and kindergarten, so I want to spend more time with them - they're only this small once. I'll pick up a new contract this fall when they're back in school.

So I'm looking forward to sunshine and lazy days .... can't wait!