Today there was a bad news teleconference. The parties participating were Dr H, Dr D, Dr L, Mr D, and myself. The topic concerned the testing conducted by Dr L on March 8th, and 11th, of this year.

The upshot of the teleconference is that Dr L does not believe his test results to be valid and he cannot therefore issue a report. Mr D advised that the issue was now time critical. I do not know how long it took to process the test results but it strikes me as odd that 3 months have elapsed since the tests were performed and it is only today that the situation is suddenly deemed time critical.

I do not know how to respond to this outcome. I feel myself sinking and am trying to ward off another depressive event.

The fundamental problem I face is that two events occurred with near simultaneity. On March 6th, 2011, I was rear ended on my way in to work. On March 8th, 2011, I was informed that our entire 35 person team had been laid off. Our jobs had been moved elsewhere, effective immediately.

Our team was the rump of a much larger workforce, one that had numbered over 1,800 people at peak. The last group terminated prior to us had consisted of roughly 100 persons providing technical support for the US server market. Our team was dedicated to providing bilingual support for the Canadian market. Both teams had been told that their jobs were secure, that the company needed our skills. We were the best of the best, the last survivors of all the prior purges.

We arrived at work one day in 2008 and discovered the entire US server team had been let go. Each of them was escorted out and sent home. This was a big shock. I fully believed what we had been told  –  that the last two teams were the best of the remaining support personnel and that our skills were in demand. That none of us had anything to worry about. That our jobs were secure.

My response to these events was unexpected. I began to experience panic attacks. I  became very fearful as I had no understanding of panic attacks. I believed I was going nuts. This psychic upheaval led me to seek out Dr D.

The situation at work quickly went from sad to comic. After terminating the US support team, and sending them home, Gargantua discovered they were needed after all. The replacement team, the one intended to take over their jobs, proved incompetent in regard to technical proficiency. They were unable to handle the call volume. People who own servers typically own a lot of them; a functioning network was critical to business operations. No network – no business. If your business is at risk, obtaining timely support becomes a business critical necessity.

With a home PC problem it was possible to bamboozle the caller. Server customers were technically savvy. They would immediately detect any attempt at “fluffing” the call. They also became quickly upset when agents speaking in a strange foreign accent identified themselves as “Bob” and “Hank” and “George.” When neither “Bob,” or “Hank,” or “George,” had a clue which teams were playing in the World Series, events went seriously downhill. The customers complained.

It cost Gargantua approximately $30,000 to generate a single customer account. Gargantua management quickly realized that driving their customers to the competition was a very expensive proposition. They reversed course and attempted to hire back the entire team they had unceremoniously fired. Less than 50 were willing to return. We welcomed them back, and swapped war stories. They toiled away behind us for another eight months until the foreign team was finally fully prepared. Then they were let go a second time, this time for good. We, of course, were repeatedly assured that our skills were valuable and needed, that we were the best remnants of a once proud team 1,800 strong. Gargantua wanted us. Gargantua needed us. Gargantua’s customers depended on us. Nobody believed a word.

In the spring, following the departure of the US support group, Gargantua moved us from our off-site premises into a building owned and operated by Gargantua. We now felt we were truly part of the Gargantua team. Some of us began to think that what we had been told might possibly be true. I didn’t trust a word of it. I continued to see Dr D.

Two things then happened. I was transferred to a night shift; most of the call volume for the high end storage equipment I supported came in at night. This made it near impossible to continue seeing Dr D. Then, in the fall, Gargantua relocated us to a brand spanking new, high tech office, a mile down the road from our old, low tech digs. This move made clear we were now considered an integral part of the Gargantua team. Even I became a believer. And, when my eleven year old rice rocket developed a serious case of the hiccups, I traded it in on last years brand new econo box. I had come to the conclusion that I worried to much. I decided to relax my sense of thrift and splash out a few dollars on some books, a few new shirts, and a camera.

To be Continued . . .

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The posts fail to follow the intended sequence. If you wish to continue with the story of Gargantua then it may be found here.