Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Fear of being Fired.

I am working for a client called **** in a division called International Banking Group. Due to some big AML Compliance issues, where in they had to spend lot of money (I have to say that my company was a big benefitter from this) to be able to even come close to those compliance related stuff. Finally 4 brains inside the boardroom decided that they had to get out of this business itself to get out this mess. And so they sold this group to another bank called Wachovia. 50 ppl around me and 450 more suddenly got to learnt that they will be out of their jobs pretty soon. Anytime soon. Must be traumatizing I know but I dont think I can relate to this in the same way. But I guess I can feel it a part of it. First reaction is world's over! There is nothing more left! Period.

Most devastating feeling I guess for me! I guess this has been going on here for quite some time here. But this is my first hand experience to have a look at all those employees like this. Mind you in this case its not happening because of 'B' letter word. Any which ways I guess u guys dont think that I am against it. There is no way I can be.
It was just a feeling which occurred to me when I saw bunch of ppl around me in a very despondent mood. Ppl with whom I was working with in last 12 months. Sad to know something like this.

All of us know that this is not the first time when something like this happening here. In fact I spoke to few of them and they told me that they had faced this earlier upto 7 times. Staggering number. So basically what I inferred is this can happen anytime without any appointment. Does that mean all these employees in US are living with some sort of fear? Fear of being fired. Imagine a place where you go out to work daily with this fear that u may not visit the same place again tomorrow. Fear of loosing everything. Fear of not able to give the mortgage. Fear of not able to live happily. Fear of THE END.

How is it possible then most of the companies in fortune list are American companies with American employees. How do these employees with perpetual fear produce such astounding results to make their company best in the world. Does fear breeds motivation? Does fear in person bring the best out of somebody?

6 Comments:

Blogger Sachin said...

Well, the new begining always requires an "old's" ending. :-)

Well, how a company is rated best is on so many factors. If you look at the attrition rate alone, then you can safely say there are lot of india companies which top the lot.

If its just the revenue they generate, well you know excatly where all the worlds money is caught.

2:23 PM  
Blogger Deeps said...

Oh I knew there was some kind of such fear here. But its not everywhere. For Eg: the client, my husband Sri works for has most employees who are more than 50 years old. It seems they have been in their obs forever and the job security is very high.

Most of the times, its due to take-overs that these job security issues arise. One of my friend's husband was in J.D Edwards. It was taken over by Peoplesoft and they were in total worries for sometime. Just when they thought everything was going well (he wasn't fired obviously), Peoplesoft was taken over by Oracle!! Now, he's settling in Oracle and now again is facing uncertainity as Oracle is taking over sompanies like Siebel!! Can you imagine such a man's situation? Consider yourself lucky :)

6:24 AM  
Blogger Amit said...

Wow!...I am not sure when I am going to finish this tagging thing....I dont have answers for
so many of them...Things u r scared of most comes to u fastest:-)

10:22 AM  
Blogger wise donkey said...

i dont think fear helps in motivation.

how can an insecure person perform well? it could be temp. but not permanent or even if permanent not without emotional costs.

perhaps they started ahead and so at the top, and perhaps the political power helps.
would the same industrialists be powerful if they were in some African country? doubt it.

all the best with ur career:)

5:40 AM  
Blogger Amit said...

U never know...Whichever continent you go they all travel in the same cars made by either US, Japan or Germany. They use the same gadgets made by US, Japan or Korea...List goes on n on n on....

And abt my career I m still safe, just that I'll have to work with the new client now:-)

4:18 PM  
Blogger wise donkey said...

good to hear its still safe:)

yes thats an interesting point...

10:33 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home