I hoped we would be spared

So on Thursday I got the biggest scare and heartbreak I think I ever had while at the office. I knew something was going down because of all the meetings that had been held recently by my managers and supervisors. I even asked my manager flat out early last week what was going on and let her in on my observations. She told me not to worry because the meetings were about the new phone system and schedules and training.

My gut knew better.

Thursday morning my manager was at the office (she only stops in once a week on Wednesdays because she is at another office the rest of the week) and I knew something was going down that day. I overheard that she needed to meet with some of my co-workers privately for a meeting. I was hoping it was about the new phone system, hoping that those in that private meeting were just going over needed additional training for the new system that will go live next week.

Soon after my co-workers were pulled into that meeting, my supervisor came up to me and asked me to log off my phone because we were going to the conference room...with everyone else that were not included in the private meeting. We have a conference room with live video feed to the main office across town, we usually go there for company wide meetings. Normally we have company wide meetings on Fridays, unless the owner is out of town or someone else is hosting the meeting. Usually on the video conference before the meeting starts, everyone from the other office is chatting and laughing and waving and saying hello...this time it was deadly silent. I mentioned to one of my buddies that I was scared, I knew something was going on and it was not going to be pretty. He seemed shocked by that and felt the meeting was going to be something totally different.

I wished he was right.

Soon we found out what the meeting was about, seven of our co-workers were just let go due to the economy. Those same co-workers that were not in our meeting but in a private meeting by themselves. The meeting was long, it was so quiet and I am pretty sure everyone I knew cried. These folks were like family to us all and now they are gone. One of the folks was a guy whom I had given my old car too as a gift, so he could have transportation to work instead of riding the bus for several hours each way, waiting in the rain or freezing conditions.

Even though we have two separate offices, we do not have a lot of people in our company. Before the layoff, we had seven people in my department including my supervisor. Now we have only five.

It has just been so heartbreaking and yet I am reassured many times over that for now my job is safe. I am going to prepare for the worst though and hope for the best.