New York Times gift articles

Maybe they can all leave and found a new newspaper?

Years ago, I worked on a project that was being mismanaged. The upper managers kept meeting with clients and promising them difficult things on impossible schedules. At one point, they told us it was crunch time and we really need to meet a deadline, so we all worked really hard to meet that deadline - and when we mostly met the deadline, they put in a new one, and one after that. They were absolutely determined to get every single bit out of us.

We were professionals (in a slightly older time), so we went along with it - some of us working 70 hour weeks - for several months, but we were all getting really exhausted and too many things weren't getting done in our personal lives. Unspoken, we all started pulling back on our hours.

Management noticed and freaked out. They sent out a directive that everyone was mandated to work 50 hours a week until "this next deadline" was met, but we all knew they'd just push us again. So everyone worked at a regular and not frenetic place, and walked out after exactly 50 hours every week. Matters were not helped when the upcoming Christmas bonuses were announced. All us worker-bees got no bonuses and a 50-cent raise. Middle management got five-figure bonuses; they never told us what the big bosses were getting, but we knew it was more than we ever would. Unspoken, we kept walking out at exactly 50 hours every week.

They held an All Hands Meeting in mid-November and chastised us for not working more than 50 hours a week. One of our harder workers stood up and said: "I live an hour from here, so I'm commuting a minimum of 2 hours every day. I'm dropping off and picking up my kids from pre- and post-school daycare, I'm trying to write Christmas cards to send out, and clean the house and organize Christmas decorations to be put up, buying and wrapping Christmas presents for my kids, organizing Thanksgiving, not to mention just all the ordinary stuff in life. I'm finding it really hard to find enough time just to give you guys 50 hours, I can't do more."

And the head of the division looked at her and sneered (and this is pretty close to an exact quote, I remember it that clearly): "If it wasn't Thanksgiving and Christmas, it'd be because it was Easter, or it was summer and nice out. You would always find some excuse."

The room went dead quiet. I personally don't remember anything after he said that, I was so angry! And we all walked out of that room and started looking for jobs. Two people left the following Monday, three on Thanksgiving week, one the next week, five the week after that. Lower and mid-management had to have meetings every Monday to re-arrange the people who still remained on the project, only for more people to turn around and leave. And the thing was - this was November and December, a time when everything slows down and most companies weren't really hiring, yet every single person walking out had a job lined up.

January hit and companies came out of winter hibernation, and it was a blood-bath. 25 people quit the second week of January, another 25 the following week. Out of a starting team of about 450 people, they'd lost probably 300 people by the time I left in mid-February, and everyone left was also just serving their time until they walked out too.

But one of the things I remember so clearly from that time was the sense of time being suspended over the holidays, as we all waited for companies to get back to normal after the holidays, waiting until January before the exodus began in earnest. And I can't help but think that may have happened here, that there was a major internal turning point, and while some people got out early, the rest are just counting time until they walk out the door. I hope they are.

Also, fuck CSC.

bezos wont do anything unless it makes him money.