Suraj loved the office on Fridays. A long team lunch was the usual highlight of the day and the sunny weather meant the place would be empty by 3 that afternoon. He reached work earlier than usual that morning and stopped by the cafeteria for a coffee before heading to his cubicle to start his day. Nothing important had come into his inbox overnight. He logged onto Facebook, opened his Gmail and soon found himself chatting with a cousin in Nepal when a meeting request arrived from Mark, the team Director, asking for a meeting in half an hour. The subject read “Touch Base”.

Mark was in his mid-forties and one of the smartest and most grounded people Suraj knew. He treated everyone on the team with respect - always looking up from his computer when you went to speak to him, never short with you and never displaying  his frustrations in public. He could talk authoritatively about Randy Moss and Tim Tebow one minute and switch to Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama the next with equal authority and passion. He had degrees from Ivy League colleges that he never spoke about. Rumor had it he owned a plush house in an upscale neighborhood that he took great pains to avoid talking about.

The nature and timing of the meeting notice seemed odd. He wasn’t used to getting meeting requests from Mark. If Mark wanted anything from Suraj, he would just swing by his cube or convey it through Bill, the Project Manager. Suraj feared the worst. He wondered if they had found out he was browsing Sajha and Facebook at work  violating the company policy that prohibited employees from accessing social networking websites during work hours. A colleague was  fired six months ago for doing her personal shopping from work and  spending too much time on eBay and Amazon.  Or had they finally figured out he had faked his resume, on the advice of the placement firm, when he had  applied for this job five years ago?

“I have some bad news to share, Suraj” Mark said once the meeting had started. ”The company did not meet its sales and revenue targets last quarter. The leadership team is making cutbacks across the board and every department, function and team in the company will have to scale back. Our team has been asked to reduce its headcount too”.

Suraj listened in silence. He was relieved he hadn’t been summoned for padding up his resume or  excessively using Facebook. He then resigned himself to the inevitable - a layoff. He knew he  would leave the company someday. He imagined that day would come a couple of years down the line, when he had a better opportunity lined up and it would be on his own terms.

“This has been one of the hardest decisions of my life but we have had to re-prioritize our staffing needs based on future business requirements created by the  change of direction the company has taken. Who we are letting go has nothing to do with their performance and everything to do with the kind of work we anticipate we will be doing as a result of this re-organization”.


The axe finally fell when Mark said they would stop doing in-house development and use an external partner if they needed any programming changes to the application that Suraj had implemented. The entire staff of developers would be gradually phased out and Suraj was part of the first round of cutbacks.

He didn’t anticipate this day would be forced on him so soon. Why was it him who had to pay the price for the company’s poor performance?  If a publicly traded company didn’t cut costs after a disappointing quarter, so went the argument,  the market would be unforgiving towards its stock. An  engineer in the IT team who had no hand in sales or revenue was being slaughtered at the altar of corporate performance to appease the gods of the market? What a travesty that was.

He was offered 5 weeks in severance pay and health insurance.

He shook Mark’s hand and headed back to his cubicle. A cardboard box had been placed on his desk for him to gather up and pack his belongings. He had given five years of his life to this company and he loved his job in spite of the long hours and stressful days that came with it. He remembered the all-nighter he had pulled once to fix a bug that had caused the system to spit out incorrect financial statements just days before the company was going to make its SEC filings. That had been his moment of glory. The CEO, CFO and CIO all sent him their notes of thanks and he was subsequently recognized by a standing ovation at a company meeting..

He understood why the layoff was happening. But he felt Mark did not fully understand and appreciate the value Suraj brought to the team. Mark, like many others in the company leadership, seemed to measure one’s worth by their proximity to the clients. IT was a back office function at the bottom of the food chain, the most maligned team in the company that other departments, particularly Finance and HR, took great pleasure kicking around. He had endured the barbs and innuendos from such colleagues only because he loved what he did and truly believed he was delivering value to his team and company.

Bill stopped by his cube and expressed how sorry he was to see Suraj go. He offered to be  a reference for Suraj’s next job. Jagdish, Mohammad and Peter also came by to offer their sympathies and support. Suraj smiled and put up a brave face. He joked the whole thing had a silver lining since there were many things he could now do that he had put on hold because of this job.

On his way out, he handed in his building pass at the reception. He turned and  looked back,  marveling at the magnificent facade of the building - its majestic colonnades and arches had appeared in countless photographs and postcards as the focal point of the cityscape. That’s where I work he had often told wide-eyed visitors from out of town. He was now free to write the next chapter of his life, a task that would be made easier by the five years of work experience he had gained in this building.    

It seemed like only yesterday he had stepped off the college campus, aggressively pursuing job opportunities across the country, talking to countless recruiters  till he finally landed this offer. He remembered his friends in college and how they cheered him on through the ups and downs of the job search. For the first time since college, he did not  know what to do for the rest of the day.

“Jaad khana jaane?” he texted Amir.

“Diusai? :)” Amir replied “Let’s go!”.

 ' He could talk authoritatively about Randy Moss and Tim Tebow one minute and switch to Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama the next with equal authority and passion.' nice one.

Nice one.

Impressed..

Moral of the story: don't use Sajha at work and never ever fake your resume ;)

A day in the Life of Corporate America!

With a pleasant font, smooth flow, accurate depiction, and appropriate diction, it exudes a positive tone overall. Good job.