The Axe Man Came

After the doom and gloom start to the IWMW event and the later encouragement that this could be a great time to innovate and to do things differently I returned to work engaged and enthused until Thursday last week.

I received an appointment through from HR called "update" - well I thought it must be an update on the restructure and it can't be bad news as its only 30 minutes long. Oh how wrong I was, a mere 15 minutes later I had been informed my web team was being given to marketing, where there is already a manager so my post was under threat. The media teams I look after (photography, video and graphics) would continue in the new department but the management position of that would be a grade less and myself and my deputy (also a close friend) would be vying for the same job.

The only other option in this 'Hobson's choice' scenario is to take redundancy; firstly go quietly via 'voluntary' redundancy with an 'enhanced package' or secondly fight it and be made statutorily redundant further down the line. Being a manager there is little chance of redeployment unless I wanted to drop so many levels in the pay structure I would be even lower than the developers I used to manage - though that was reading between the lines because they won't say that on the record.

So in 15 minutes my only source of income, my only means of paying the mortgage and the bills had disappeared - to put it bluntly my world has fallen apart. Let this be a warning to you all - the cuts aren't coming they are here.

As with any University there is a formal negotiation period, but I'd be foolish to believe the negotiations will change the situation I'm in. So if anyone needs an experienced manager for a temporary or permanent contract please get in touch - I'll be in need of work very soon.