I have been quieter around here lately more than usual but, no, I have not been abducted by aliens. At least not this time! 
The short answer is that I've been busy at work.
For the past 15 years I've been a developer for a "major communications company". Originally the location I am at was a subsidiary of the parent company which allowed us a degree of freedom. The best way of describing the organization is as a fulfillment service but we were so much more, including a full call center, our own IT groups, our own accounting groups, purchasing, and so on. Until recently, if you had ever received equipment in the mail in the US for a certain communications company then the odds are pretty good it came out of our location. We were so good at what we did that we actually won contracts to ship for other companies in similar markets and were able to report pretty good profits. So, yes, we were a subsidiary of a major company and we excelled at what we did and were earning really nice profits.
Until a few years ago, that is.
Somebody at the parent organization decided it would be better if our organization was really part of the parent organization. So overnight all of our management employees (basically everybody who was non-union and not hourly) became employees of the parent organization. The work we did for other companies was halted. We were not longer a profit center, now we were an expense center serving just one customer, the parent organization. The call center was closed and the employees laid off. The accounting groups were eliminated and the employees laid off. Within the same building different groups were now assigned to totally different divisions of the parent organization so now the IT group reported to a different group then the warehouse group versus who some of the few remaining other employees reported to. And, of course, none of the directors that the groups were reporting to were onsite because they were in various locations across the country in different divisions.
Last year around Thanksgiving we were finally told what we all assumed was taking place anyway -- our entire location, or what was left of it, was to be shut down. All of the warehouse functionality was to be migrated to a third-party contractor, all of the union & hourly employees were going to be laid off, and a few remaining employees like the IT group & a few others would moving to a new location. For the IT group, we would be doing a lot of what we do now, since our systems are so integrated into the parent organization as part of transaction processing, but of course anything & everything to do with the warehouse operations was essentially eliminated.
Since the announcement we have been kept busy working on having our systems moved to a new data center in a different state. During the move we can't have any downtime so that's been fun trying to move servers & networks to a new data center with no interruptions.
Before Christmas it was decided that the IT group should be hourly employees instead of salary.
In January it was decided that the IT group wouldn't be allowed to work remotely anymore (most of us worked two days a week from home).
We will be out of this location in the next 8 weeks or so. The company taking over the warehouse work are having constant issues and can't handle a lot of the work that our location did. One way or another this location will be closings its doors in a few months, no chance of turning back or delaying.
So here we are in March and those that are left are all working plenty of overtime to expedite shutting down our operations. Nights, weekends... it's a bit of a blur lately merging together.
By the Summer everything should be quiet with us working out of our new location and the work routine returning to a normal pace. Until then though I'll be kept busy.
The short answer is that I've been busy at work.
For the past 15 years I've been a developer for a "major communications company". Originally the location I am at was a subsidiary of the parent company which allowed us a degree of freedom. The best way of describing the organization is as a fulfillment service but we were so much more, including a full call center, our own IT groups, our own accounting groups, purchasing, and so on. Until recently, if you had ever received equipment in the mail in the US for a certain communications company then the odds are pretty good it came out of our location. We were so good at what we did that we actually won contracts to ship for other companies in similar markets and were able to report pretty good profits. So, yes, we were a subsidiary of a major company and we excelled at what we did and were earning really nice profits.
Until a few years ago, that is.
Somebody at the parent organization decided it would be better if our organization was really part of the parent organization. So overnight all of our management employees (basically everybody who was non-union and not hourly) became employees of the parent organization. The work we did for other companies was halted. We were not longer a profit center, now we were an expense center serving just one customer, the parent organization. The call center was closed and the employees laid off. The accounting groups were eliminated and the employees laid off. Within the same building different groups were now assigned to totally different divisions of the parent organization so now the IT group reported to a different group then the warehouse group versus who some of the few remaining other employees reported to. And, of course, none of the directors that the groups were reporting to were onsite because they were in various locations across the country in different divisions.
Last year around Thanksgiving we were finally told what we all assumed was taking place anyway -- our entire location, or what was left of it, was to be shut down. All of the warehouse functionality was to be migrated to a third-party contractor, all of the union & hourly employees were going to be laid off, and a few remaining employees like the IT group & a few others would moving to a new location. For the IT group, we would be doing a lot of what we do now, since our systems are so integrated into the parent organization as part of transaction processing, but of course anything & everything to do with the warehouse operations was essentially eliminated.
Since the announcement we have been kept busy working on having our systems moved to a new data center in a different state. During the move we can't have any downtime so that's been fun trying to move servers & networks to a new data center with no interruptions.
Before Christmas it was decided that the IT group should be hourly employees instead of salary.
In January it was decided that the IT group wouldn't be allowed to work remotely anymore (most of us worked two days a week from home).
We will be out of this location in the next 8 weeks or so. The company taking over the warehouse work are having constant issues and can't handle a lot of the work that our location did. One way or another this location will be closings its doors in a few months, no chance of turning back or delaying.
So here we are in March and those that are left are all working plenty of overtime to expedite shutting down our operations. Nights, weekends... it's a bit of a blur lately merging together.
By the Summer everything should be quiet with us working out of our new location and the work routine returning to a normal pace. Until then though I'll be kept busy.
