The new director at Large Nameless Agency held an all-hands meeting today. Various heads in the bloated levels of upper management have been rolling since he came on board in mid-June -- the standard joke has become "who'd he fire today?" -- while rumors circulated about "reorganization."
Well, today we got the good news/bad news, depending on one's perspective. Our center is disappearing. Various functions are going to be absorbed by other pieces of Large Nameless Agency, the various communications specialists (writer-editors, graphic artists, whatever) will go back to working directly for different divisions within LNA instead of serving as internal contractors. Whether this is good or bad depends, I guess, on whether or not a person's current position carries a job title like "branch chief." It's hard to be a chief when the branch vanishes.
I don't think it's going to affect me. The journal will continue to be published no matter what, so there may be changes in division names and the hierarchy above me but my actual job should stay pretty much the same.
Besides, this is a bureaucracy. It's going to take awhile to disassemble a center that employs hundreds of people. The Director may want it gone, but it's not going to happen overnight. If it gets done at the usual speed at which the government functions, I'll be retired long before the string of names (Large Nameless Agency/Coordinating Center/National Center/Division/Branch/Team) that describe my current location on the organizational chart changes.
Good luck with all that seems to be going on around you. It could get hectic I would assume, but I hope you do have security in your position.
ReplyDeleteI'm not worried. The Director isn't talking Reduction in Force (other than encouraging some management deadwood to hit the road); he's just changing division names and doing some shuffling on the org chart. Which is what all new Directors do -- it's government Kabuki.
ReplyDeleteChange is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. - John F. Kennedy
ReplyDeleteI've lost jobs before because of change, it was no big deal to me, I just jumped onto another path, another experience.
Of course I had a few specialty skills on top on my general skills so there was always a new job for me the next day.
Not sure I would want to be in the job market now though. But if I needed a few extra bucks it would just take a few phone calls.
But I prefer going camping and have more than enough money to put food on the table.
Hey, my verification word is 'chain'. Chained to your job for a while longer are you? He he he.
Hell, I never worked for anyone over four years except myself, always said that if I was going to work for an idiot that it should be me. :-)