Spinning Blades of Death

From Last Wednesday:

The term "Spinning Blades of Death" was coined by a guy named Ed Ho, who worked at a startup with mrguy. "SBD" would be the subject line of an email containing a list of laid-off employees.

Today was the day. I wasn't laid off, but not for lack of trying. I have asked the head of the company to reconsider. In a huge shocker they laid off our manager, and our infrastructure archivist. This is one third of our department. Those two make the department run. And we were told that we are now going to be managed by a senior publicist (very nice person) who knows nothing about archives and already has a job.

My initial thought was to whiteboard and fix and do the things that you do if you stick around. But as the decisions above us have sunk in, the pure thoughtlessness of it, the apparent assumption that we'll band together and make things work? It seems pointless.

I built this department up from the contents of a double office and have seen it grow into a well oiled machine. Our team has had a great run. It seems weird to want to walk out the door without knowing that someone will run the thing, but I'm just so depressed that I can't imagine sticking around. I went to the car wash, and was so disappointed there, as well. I paid for three color foam and there was no pink. It looked like the sink in my hotel in Singapore when the neti pot broke through my sinus infection.

From Today:

It's been over a week now, and I feel better-ish. The day after the layoff the team (I call us the square, cause there are only 4 of us) whiteboarded the departing employees' roles and tried to come to a decision about what we won't do. I came clean with the team that I'm retiring. This was a huge relief. The week has been about coming to terms with this seismic shift in our department. Meeting with the GM. Hearing that they really do want us to do less, and won't fire us if we do. Figuring that they had to lay off the people they did, because if they got rid of me it wouldn't be enough.

I am not going to dwell on this too much, but we were doing outreach to forklift designers who didn't have time for what we were offering. We were hearing and responding to the things that the company was telling us. Then brainstorming and executing things that we could do to align with that vision. I am reminded of mrpeterpotamous, my old diner boss, who said "I don't pay you to think. I pay you to serve". So what if? 

In some ways nothing is wrong. Other than being heartbroken that our teammates are leaving. And feeling guilty that I feel bad for my own situation.

One of the square suggested that I hand off my presentation for the fan fest to another member of the square who is attending. I finished the presentation and did just that. Mrguy has been so sick, and this week I realized it's just too much. Thankfully my sweet colleague is going to step up.

I am going to try to get into this new world in the short term. Mrguy isn't ready for me to retire yet, it turns out. And now that I've delivered a first draft of my presentation, my goal is to power through as much of my processing backlog as I can before I go. It's feeling a little better.