Some requisite background: a vulture capitalist firm bought Noble Systems and Aspect Software and merged them into Alvaria. The name was sourced from a Latin word relating to bees; this is appropriate because, like a beehive, the welfare of the individual worker is expendable.
I cannot overstate the corporate nightmare at play here. Every story you've ever heard of a corporate hatchet-man coming in to clean house or moving jobs overseas to save pennies is at play here. Shortly after the merger, roughly 40% of my department was laid off. This was not unexpected, but what was unexpected was the C level team taking every opportunity to let us know that we are not wanted or needed. We were explicitly told that they do not want employees that "log off at the end of their shift" (tell your kids sorry). After a mass exodus of people, they must have realized the dire situation they would find themselves in without anyone with any knowledge to support the product, so they offered us a deal: you allow us to set your termination date and we will give you a severance package, i.e. you train your replacement and we will let you go with a few weeks of pay. Many of us took this deal. The remaining people were offered raises in the range of 2-4%. This is bordering on insulting considering the already low pay compare to the knowledge/work required and the situation. At the time of writing this post, they are continuing to hire new people in India and the US office dwindles to nearly empty. The few that remain have either taken the deal or are sure to quit or get fired in the coming months and I wish them and the remaining management team all the best; they were a wonderful group of people that pulled together to solve any problem that was thrown at them and provided the highest quality of personalized support.
To Patty and the rest of the C level management team: I truly hope you choke on your
crudité and that your company fail spectacularly. The vultures that financed this debacle will undoubtedly walk away unscathed, as always, but the same goes for them.
