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The Layoff Tales: 'They give bull**** reasons to get rid of people'
We asked Get Ahead readers to send their layoff tales and we are getting mails from employees belonging to different sectors of the Indian economy.
In the 36th part of this series, young recruitment agent Gayatri Bakshi* discusses the shock she experienced at being fired instead of receiving a promotion, as expected.
Name: Gayatri Bakshi (*name changed on request)
Company/Sector: Recruitment
Work experience: 6 years
Background:
I have 6 years of work experience in the recruitment field. I joined one promising firm two years back and I was promoted to the senior management level after my good performance.
How I lost my job:
My company was headquartered in New York and they have their offshore divison in India. After my promotion, I was expected to play a senior role and to build a team from scratch, so I worked day and night to do so.
Everything was going great. I was expecting my second promotion, my CEO called me last month and said that I should be taking care of everything, as he had seen the tremendous growth and wanted me to lead the India operations. I was so excited and confident after hearing his proposal, I worked even more aggressively towards my goals.
That is, until one fine day when he called me and said he was laying me off! The reason? I didn't get along with people well and I needed to improve on my interpersonal skills. I was so shattered, as I had never said a bad word to anyone in the company. But people who were deployed onsite had been playing games, as they were insecure about their positions -- we all worked like in a competition and they wanted to lessen theirs. They were successful in doing so.
Life has become tough for me these days as I have lost the ability to trust. I did what I was asked to do, I was told by my CEO that I would be promoted, but instead of that he fired me.Lessons learnt:
Never trust the management -- they give bulls*** reasons in order to lay off people.
Illustration: Uttam Ghosh
Do you have a layoff tale to tell?
Have you lost your job? Do you know someone who has lost her/his job recently and is trying to come to terms with the situation?
If you, your friends or relatives have a layoff story to tell, to inform readers about the lessons that you have learnt, please write to us at layofftales@rediffmail.com. Your name and identity will not be disclosed unless you want it to.