Rant #1,785: Last Train to Worksville

Well, today I have a real zinger for you.

My place of work is on its last legs, it has given us workers every indication that it is, at best, on life support, and after more than 20 years of employment, I am going to have to start to look for another job.

The spiral has been one in the making for months and years, but the way it has come out at work has been as unprofessional as humanly possible.

We are a small company. At one time, we had probably 35 to 40 people working there.

Through attrition and idiotic decisions, we are down to about 16 people.

Let me backtrack ... why are we on our last legs?

We are a trade publication, and trade publications, and all print publications, are suffering right now. With the advent of the Internet and being in an instant information age, people simply do not make the time to sit down and read a publication, whether it is a newspaper or a magazine.

We are a niche publication, in a company of niche publications, and due to this environment, advertisers won't advertise with any frequency anymore, and without advertising, less money is coming in.

And being a company of niche publications--mainly about quality of life areas of the military, like exchanges and commissaries and mess halls and troop feeding--the ad dollars are even slimmer.

I think all of my fellow employees understand this, but the way the company has handled this situation has been anti-employee at best.

They have made a work environment that is toxic at best. They have built their entire being around "quality of life" for service members, yet they ignore the quality of life of their own employees.

And they have been impossible to work with and for. I often think that I am the only sane one in my department, and with good reason.

The have fired people, and not refilled their positions. They have downgraded our health insurance to the point that we might as well not have any health insurance at all.

Next week, our two-building situation is being slimmed into one, and we all have to move into one building.

And last Friday was probably the last straw. In an email that resembled a "Dear John" letter of the past wars, we were told that our 401K program and profit sharing programs were being dropped.

No explanation, no meeting, no nothing ... and then it was business as usual, as if nothing had happened.

And all of this on Veterans Day yet.

I have not had a raise in more than nine years, and I am not alone.

Their explanations that we are tied into the military, and the belt tightening happening in Washington, are partly true, but this has been going on for years, and will go on for many more.

I don't see us surviving another year.

But the way the employees have been treated has been atrocious. With that email, we were basically being given a head's up to look elsewhere for future employment.

What better way to pare down even further? This way, the blood isn't on their hands when we leave on our own.

The two head honchos there, who are completely impossible to work with and for, are planning their own escape into retirement, and we are, shall we say, the collateral damage of their own follies.

And that is how it is in a non-union workplace, where employees have no rights at all, and basically have to take it, in this situation, literally up the butt.

So what have I done for the past week? I have spoken to my wife about this, and I have slowly set out to do something about it by creating a resume.

Look, I have not been out of work since early 1996, and the landscape has changed dramatically in finding a job, what with the Internet rearing its often ugly head.

And nearing 60 years of age, who is going to hire me anyway?

These are the realities of the situation, but it doesn't mean that I, or anybody else working for the company, has to take it.

This job could last six more months, it could last a year or two, who knows? But it is eminently easier to look for another job when you already have a job, so that is what I plan to do.

I have a resume now, which is still something of a work in progress, but which I can live with, at least for now.

I have no idea what I can do, although writing is my forte.

I have to pick myself up at my bootstraps and move on.

As many of you know through the reading of this column, I have been out of work two times in my life--once for a year and a half, once for about three months. Neither time was very good, but somehow, I got through both of them, albeit scarred from each situation.

It has been an interesting 20-plus years. It will be 21 years in March, and I hope that I--and the company--can hold on as long as it can, but the reality is staring us all in the face.

The time has come, and I plan on meeting it head on.

Wish me luck.

Speak to you again on Monday.