Tantalizing Turmoil

I’m used to change by now. I’ve worked in a corporate environment. Like a snake organizations shed their skin and restructure every couple of years. I’m not a herptologist, I can’t say what they do when their skin comes off. In fact, I avoid anything to do with snakes, they creep me out. They are unnatural. Maybe it was my partial religious influences during my impressionable years that painted me to dislike snakes, maybe not. It is very irrelevant as that is not part of what I’m sharing here. I’m going to share parts of the sweeping changes (they feel that way, but aren’t) that I’m living at work now. I’ve said before that my company was purchased. I’ve also said that I felt they were being very fair with us in their decisions, organizational planning and overall inclusion. That doesn’t mean we were immune to change. I get the feeling that it’s the same atmosphere on either side of the fence as they bring two huge organizations together. I’m safe. In fact, I wasn’t expecting my group to be touched and as such, haven’t been too worried or attentive to the whole process. Seemed to be running in the background. Well it landed and it landed on our doorstep! We lost a team member, sort of. She’s moving to another function but her research farm and locations are going away. That means the rest of us have to reshuffle our whole workplan and maybe some philosophical elements of our programs. It’s going to be big. That’s not even mentioning the human element. There are many people I have worked with for 10 years or more who are simply gone, pushed out. Either due to logistics issues, overlap or “creating synergy.” That part irks me. We’re adults, call it cutting costs. It translates to reducing resources (people, equipment, budgets) while expecting the same results. In big part so someone in a country club can get a few extra thousand this quarter. Call it what it is, shows the lack of “I don’t know what” that exists for employees, especially the grunts like me. Anyways, that is all just a flamboyant and emotionally charged sidebar to the real change. I downloaded an app on my phone that allows me to post from anywhere. Boom! Now, I’m dangerous.