After a lengthy and quite heated financial forecast meeting with top management here at 'the quarry', several things became very obvious. The most important of which was, some changes needed to be made immediately.
So this morning after our general meeting with the Production department, I was the one to hand pick some of them out of the crowd and ask them to stick around for another short session. Then I was the one that handed them their termination papers and I was the one, that looked into each pair of eyes and said, "I'm sorry."
I find myself considering an awful lot of numbers this morning. Numbers like I just terminated 25% of a group, that I'd been working with very closely. The shortest of which was for about 7 years. There are now 12 new people looking for gainful employment in a pretty rough time to do so. There are 12 spouses finding out today, that their loved one has lost his/her job this morning. And finally I know them all well enough to know, there are now 31 children out there wondering why their Mom or Dad isn't at work right now, or tomorrow, or the next day. 'The quarry' is a small'ish family run business and these people worked for me. I could recite all 31 of the children's names and probably get at least half of their ages correct if put to the task.
I've just touched at least 60 different lives, in a way that I wish I'd never had to. I don't really like me very much right now.
My sincerest thanks for dropping by....