... and there's more!

This is completely typifies the attitude that pisses me off about this whole consolidation project.

One of the things that came up in the all-staff meeting today was that they were not going to be recruiting all of the positions in the data center at the same time - they're going to hire the network and security folks first, then the other groups like the mainframe and server people in some yet-undetermined order next. Several of us were all standing around talking after the meeting about the predicament that puts many of us in - do we go ahead and take a less-than-perfect network job to make sure we actually get one? Or hold out for a server job sight unseen, with no clue what they are since the position descriptions won't be available yet. No choice there, take the network job and then apply for the server job when it comes available. Not great, but I get to keep working. But that also means that I just screwed over the person that would have gotten the network job had I took - they're out of a job instead of filling the now-vacant-again position that I held for all of six or eight months while waiting to see what the server jobs turn out to be.

While we were talking, one of the admin communications folks walks up. I know her pretty well because she's who I work with quite often on managing the agency web pages. Very nice person. Doesn't make decisions herself but does have a LOT of control over what info the decision-makers do get. We explains the above situation to her and asks why they don't just release all the position descriptions to us all at once and as soon as possible so that we can make an informed decision when it comes time to apply. She nods sympathetically and makes a noncommittal response about having never thought about that and would mention it to the decision-makers.

So we get back to the office. One of the guys that was standing there calls me up. The communications had just called him. Apparently she ran into the data center manager and passed the info on. His response was brutally telling: He was completely astounded that any of us would care enough about our current and future co-workers to be concerned about screwing them out of a job. And then he went on to say, "thank you for your admirable concern but we're not going to consider changing how the positions are announced."

He was stunned that we care about our co-workers and peers? The thought never occurred to him? Gee ... could this be an indication of just how much he cares about us?