"The second page of hell!"

"A cold & lonely place is hell!"

The president of the organization stated in a memo that he would speak to the staff during the first week in April, regarding the downsizing. On April 3, a memo was issued regarding severence pay, continuation of insurance & applicable benefits after "doomsday". A meeting was held two days later. He said nothing important, except the he "understood how we felt" since he had been a "victim of reorganization himself". Obviously to live, one has to always experience some kind of suffering! (That's not the pain I enjoy!). During the meeting, the Executive Director answered all the questions. The director of the "reorganized" organization did not attend the meeting; she was handling the phone calls.

In January of 2001, our president could be seen in the corridors & the lunchroom eating with the common folk! In March & April, he dashed in & out (we all know why; it's our affliction...see below!). After the meeting in April, he suddenly appeared again.

We employees must have possessed a strange disease or energy that prevented upper management from coming close to us. I thought "opposites attract"!. Even the Human Resources area tells us to look in our Employee Handbook for answers. If you can't find an answer to your question and pay a return visit to the HR director, he'll just say again, "Look in the Handbook!". Nothing was ever addressed about EAP (assistance) programs to handle this crisis. It was determined by those above that the employees knew it existed. Call the EAP and discuss your problems with them. Just don't bother our HR department. You'll interrupt them from watching their news & soap operas. But, you must remember, you had to have an "exitting interview" with the man. He would call you to schedule the appointment, and remind you at least three times prior to the actual meeting. When it was over, you walked away wondering "Why did I have to do that?"

They moved the "chosen ones" (or maybe they should have been called the "remainders") upstairs. These people could be named "the new (stained) carpet" group, as compared to the "old carpet (also stained)" people. A line was drawn...where the carpet color changed! The "unwanted" (my term, not theirs) remained in the basement. The middle area of said level had housed the bustling Customer Service area. People no longer walked the corridors except when going to smoke on the loading dock, or to move the good furniture upstairs. Now it became a big, dark, silent area which occasionally flooded through the floor, in spite of preventive measures. The building, and much of the north end of Alexandria, is on "fake land" which is settling, moreso each year. Hence, so are the foundations of many office buildings, hotels & homes, like those in our neighborhood.

Friday, April 20th, 2001; Brad's last day at work. Very good severence package.

Friday, June 1, 2001 was Mike W.'s last day.

P.S. Many of you may have experienced this before in your lives, or office conditions as bad (if not worse) than this. But we hadn't until last October. And we were a combination of mad, disappointed, unhappy & slightly sadistically happy! As I write some of the entries in April of 2001, these people have no idea what will happen when 90% of the current staff is no longer employed. The work load has not decreased except in the amount of mail that is received. Because we no longer process our own claims, everyone (including us) are at the mercy of our vendors! But the powers above say that they have a plan to turn things around...good luck! Do I hear someone saying "Titanic"?

I have one programmer (a previous employee who started again on 4/2/01), one analyst & myself. There are 2 operators plus their manager; Bonita left in early September, leaving Minh as the sole staff for that department . That's it, no one else in our department (as of 4/16/01, and up to the present [excluding myself]). You may not think I should have been "mad as hell"; and, I don't really care...but you probably don't have to read my mind to know what I thought of this entire mess!

Why was I mad as hell? Because so many things happened at one time, not being able to find answers for so many questions, and not being able to plan anything, both at home & on the job. To Mike, it was being ignored at work and coming home to chaos (due to the mounds of items everywhere). Three rooms had peaks & valleys of boxes; it transformed the first floor into a "cardboard canyon". To me this was Hell!

"A bit of humor...every year the company was allowed to visit government installations to sell our health insurance. And every year we heard about the same speech about tight budgets for marketing & advertising. This year was a very bad year for signing up new enrollees (a total of 90 out of 5+million federal & postal employees joined us). Now we have lots of trinkets, lots of brochures & lots of Preferred Provider directories! "