A friend of mine got a harsh reality check this week.
 

I have a friend that spent about 10 years working for a company. Then his boss quit and moved to a different company and ended up calling him and offering my buddy a job at this new place. He took it. It was a better job and more money. This was about two years ago. About 4 months ago he got laid off from this new job. Never saw it coming. He came in one day and was pulled into an office and let go. So he goes to a temp service that gets him a job back at the previous company he worked 10 years for. He found out this week he almost got laid off again, but his boss there went to bat for him and told the managment that if they laid him off they would have no video editor and no flash editor/programmer so the manager said, "Oh, then I guess we shouldn't lay that one off."

My buddy was happy to still be working, but a little pissed that after 10 years before and leaving on good terms he is just "that one" and is looked at like he is a machine that does a job. I told him that is how the corporate world works. you are a commodity. when they no longer need you then you are gone. He said he was shocked they could be that cold and said it was pretty harsh reality check for him.

It is kind of a tough lesson to learn when you are 32. Luckily I found that out when I was about 19.

Very few people are much more than a number.

How does he know the manager used that exact terminology? Or did he address him as "that one" right in front of him?

Bloody hell... some people are never happy.

Maybe he should be grateful that they took him back in the first place.

he should kill all of them :)

Truth hurts big time.

Like you said... Reality check !

exactly :2 cents:

Hurts all the time

the best thing to do is start a porn page

That's a reality, alright. This things happen everywhere. It's a shame

I was a commodity once.

Now I buy and sell them!

Approach them like Ed Norton in Fight Club.... then turn this years Christmas party into a bloodbath :2 cents:

Unless you're a Rockefeller, you'll always be a commodity to someone.

I dont know about your friend or the company that he works for but thats just how it is, and most people realize it. Sadly they do NOTHING to make sure they secure their job.

:2 cents:

Dog eat dog out there indeed

"No fate but what we create"

My immediate supervisor in a mainstream company I worked for a couple of years ago threw me under the bus without a thought. For one I was constantly taking on more and more projects and working with every department without any kind of pay increase. I was in the process of selling my house and moving and was really stressed and overwhelmed. My supervisor called me in the office, told me to take the week off and take care of everything and how valuable and irreplacable I was to the department and company and to her. I took my week off and second day back got called into HR and told that by me taking off the week with no notification showed my priorities and the company was in transition and needed everyone to be on board 100% and I was demoted and would be let go in a month. Found out that the supervisor got called to the carpet for the shitty way she was running her department (she was hardly ever there) and threw me under the bus as the reason certain things werent done or done right, none of which I was even involved in. I was dumn enough to trust her so never double checked with HR to make sure she had cleared my week off with them. In their eyes I called out for the week with no prior notification. I am glad now I am no longer at that company, I have kept in touch with some people the work there and since they have restructured the place it has been a high stress hell hole. It hurt that someone that seemed to care about me personally and was "looking out" for me put me on the chopping block without hesitation.

I find it funny they eventually eliminated my position because everyone they hired kept quitting because they couldnt handle the work load and the stress. They ended up hiring 3 people to do what I was doing.

It was just dumb luck. He was sitting at his desk (in a cubicle) and his boss and the manager started talking not too far away. His boss told him he was going to go to bat for him because he needed him and wanted him to stay. When his boss told the manager he needed to speak to him about this the manager chose to have the conversation right there in the middle of the room so my buddy (and anyone else in the area) heard the whole thing.

That sucks and I know how you feel. Long ago my first real job out of high school was working at Radio Shack. Shortly after I got hired the manager got fired and a new manager took over. This new manager was a jackass. Right after that they moved the store. I worked my ass off for that place and never got any bit of recognition and was actually regularly told that I needed to improve.

To make a long story short I went on vacation, got a new job and never went back. When I went to turn the keys in the manager was pissed because I gave him no notice. I told him technically I was giving him a weeks notice, I was just going to be on vacation during that week. About 6 months later I go into the store to buy something and the manager then asks me if I stole a bunch of stuff from him while I worked there. I told him no and explained to him how he got the inventory loss he had, but he didn't believe me (that is a long story). Then about 9 months after that I was back in the store and this time he asks if I want to come back and tells me I was the best employee he had ever had and that he had gone through 4 people since I left. I told him he should have said something like that to me while I worked there and not treated me like shit and maybe I would have stayed. When he asked for the real reason I left I told him I hated the district manager that we both worked under but more importantly I thought he (meaning my store manager) was an asshole who treated people working under him like garbage.

Jump to several years later and I run into him downtown on a street. He is standing outside a radio shack smoking we talk and when I ask if he is managing this store he tells me that he is not that he is just working as a salesman. Basically the company removed him as a manager of the store I used to work at and knocked him down to salesman which basically meant that after about 10 years with that company he was now making minimum wage except for during the Holidays when you could sell enough to make commission. He asks me what I am doing and I tell him I am self employed and just signed a deal to publish a book and he says, "really, I never knew you had that in you." I simply said, "Imagine that."

As I walked off he handed me his card and told me if I ever needed anything to call him. I made sure he saw me as I tossed it in the garbage. Sometimes karma can be a real mother fucker.

Was John McCain his boss? ;-))

Your friend treated the job like a commodity when he left for more money... can you really expect the company to do any different? Good thing he has skills and it's a good thing they took him back to begin with.

I agree fully. When he left for more money he wasn't emotional about it. There were some people he worked with for a long time that he would miss, but he was thinking only of himself and his family when he did it and to him it was fine. When he finds out that the company sees him as a number and a commodity and not a person he is offended and I was actually a little shocked to hear that. Like I said it was a reality check for him. All along he thought he had a relationship with the company and the people he worked with only to find out that the only relationship he has is that he has a skill they are willing to pay for and if they no longer need it, they will cut him loose.

and thats one of the reasons I won't go back and get a "real job" ... there is a lot of shit going on and basically you need to manipulate and betray people to make your way up.......and don't get me wrong I can be a manipulative SOB but I also know the consequences of such actions.... so nop... a "real job" is deffo not for me.....can't take orders from screwed up and stressed out people who are just looking out for their own interests....

millions of Americans would love to have any job now tell him to stop bitching and moaning and be thankful

you're all just a number to our lord and saviour jesus christ...

praise be allah....

now go kill whitey...

And we have millions of Jobs for Americans... but at a lower pay..

Actually his brother said just about that same thing. When he got laid off we all told him how we thought that sucked. When he got hired back at the place he used to work we all thought it was good. Then he complains about being just a number to them and his brother said, "At least it is a job, shut up and collect the paycheck."

Why should he be treated any differently? He might of left on good terms but he still left. Why shouldn't his former but now current employer view him as anything more than a guy who will ditch his job when any thing else comes along. He might have worked for ten years but he also got paid for his efforts. Now he had the good fortune to be hired back. What else does he expect? A fuzzy pink attaboy?

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Wait a min, so he fucked the old company by leaving to a competitor for more $$, competitor fired him, he went back to the old company, and now he is bitching? Did I get the story right? :1orglaugh

Pretty much yes. He left the old company for more money. They weren't really a competitor though. Anyway, the new company lays him off so he goes back to the old company and is upset that they see him as just a number and not a person. Like I said it was a reality check for him, but I was a little shocked it was a lesson he didn't learn until age 32.

what an ungrateful little faggot

before I even had a job, I knew that it was bogus and that I didn't want one....

That really sucks