Reunions

This evening, I went to a birthday party for a woman with whom I used to work, and with whom my wife still works. I knew about a quarter of the people there. It was strange.

Part of it was simply listening to these people talk. Much of their conversation was about the working environment now, and how different it is from the halcyon days of the company, when they could with only a trace of over-reaching say that The future's so bright, we have to wear shades. That was when we built our own complex of five floors, filling and overfilling it, to the point where we had to lease space in other buildings nearby. Each of the groups had seven to ten people, and some had as many as twenty or thirty. One floor was entirely filled with technical systems people; another with applications people, and so on. Now, most of that is gone. Four of the five floors are being gutted and will be sold for use by other companies; the one remaining one will have the remaining staff crammed in like sardines in tiny cubicles that are chock-a-block, row after row. No sense of camaraderie or purpose; it's a digital sweatshop. No one would ever want to work there, or show their family where they spent their hours.

Part was listening to the way these people talk. There's an underlying current of bitterness. Nobody said it, but I sensed that they all felt left behind, abandoned, treated as completely replaceable and identical units by a company that doesn't care about them at all. The original company valued them; the new one treats them like an expense they wish could be deleted. Training? Travel? Nothing of the sort. They feel as if each week could be their last -- and frequently, they're right.

A sad function.