Light at the end of the tunnel

I wrote a few months ago that my department at work was being taken over by IBM.

For the past month or so, we've been waiting to find out exactly when we would no longer be needed and would be redeployed or made redundant.

Well, this week we finally found out. As IBM will officially be doing our job starting the 2nd June, most of us will be surplus to requirements, so to speak. There is still a knowledge transfer going on at the moment. Some of us have been helping to train our replacements and that will probably continue until the end of the month. There are a couple of people that will be required to stay on until the end of June, but most of us have only two weeks left in the job.

Under the terms of our redundancy agreement, we have several different options as to when we actually finish. If we opt to go early we could be out within seven days of being given our form A (which will probably happen this coming Friday), and there are generous enticements to get us to do that. There is also the option of a cooling off period while we decide and a jobs program to help us write our resumes and apply for jobs before we go. Basically, we could be out seven days after the form A, right up to eight weeks after, depending on which option we chose.

The question for me is how much better off will I be if I opt to stay until the new financial year, as I will pay less tax then. The longer I stay, the less of those financial enticements I get, but it's swings and roundabouts.

I've worked for this company for twenty four years now, and for the last few all I've wanted to do was get out and do something different, that's why I'm studying for a degree. I could have just resigned and got a job elsewhere, but wouldn't have been able to afford it. A redundancy makes it affordable and our company has one of the most generous redundancy packages of any company in Australia. Now that the time has come though, reality hits and you start to think, shit, I need to find another job.

Because I need to be able to get time off for exams and residentials, I don't want to get a full time job just yet. My first choice is going to be to get on the casual register with CSIRO. If nothing comes up there I'll be heading down to the local bus depot and offering my services.

One thing I won't be doing is wasting my time going for entry level jobs on the same kind of money that I get at the moment. I know of one guy that I used to work with and is finishing at the end of the month. He's apparently applied for about eighty jobs already and hasn't been offered a single interview. He's just aiming way too high. Most of us have vegetated in our jobs over the past few years, so it'll be an uphill battle for some.

I'm glad I've been preparing for my departure for a while and already had a bit of a direction long before the news came.

It's a whole new era for me and I'm looking forward to it, no matter what happens.

Wish me luck.