I found out late last week that I am changing jobs again, and with the new job I will be going to Colorado in a couple of weeks to train. Theresa, how far are you from Fort Collins?
Anyway as background to all of this, I feel a need to spill my story, feel free to ignore if needed. My work life over the last several months has been extremely stressful. DH and I both work for Kodak in Rochester, NY. Rochester is Kodak's headquarters. At it's peak, Kodak employed over 60,000 people in Rochester in the early 1980s. This year Kodak employment in Rochester is less than 14,000 and falling.
Last August, 2005 they announced that they would be closing down the traditional photographic paper manufacturing operations in Rochester, where both my DH and I work. Everyone was being laid off, but they would be keeping 2 machines running and transferring them to a new division. Anyone that wanted to continue employment with the new division had to apply for any jobs they were interested in. Fortunately for both of us, the 2 machines they were keeping were the 2 machines we worked for, and both of our jobs would be continued, but we had to apply for them, and if selected, interview for them.
We were both very fortunate, and secured our own positions. Over 80% of the people in our division weren't so lucky, and about 400 people in paper manufacturing were laid off at the end of October, 2005, including most of our friends. We went for about 2 months not knowing for sure if we would be employed, but ended up relieved to both have jobs, though sad for what this means to Kodak, and to US manufacturing in general. We have been through anywhere from 1 - 3 layoffs/year for the last 15 years or so, so it has been stressful for years, but this was even worse, with closing down our whole manufacturing area.
So a week later, after everyone who was laid off left the company, they called us all together and told us that the machine I had been supporting would now be shutting down at the end of March, 2006. They told us that they would let us know at the end of January if they had positions for us. So I had a total of 1 week feeling good about having a job before they put me into limbo again for another 3 months.
Because of the uncertainty, I had my resume up to date and out on Monster.com. I would occasionally get calls from recruiters, but was not actively pursuing any new jobs. Then in January I got a call from a recruiter regarding a job that sounded really good to me, and I decided to go on an interview, since Kodak wouldn't tell me if I definitely would have a job or not. Well, 3 days before I had the interview, Kodak informed me that they were going to keep me and move me into a new posiition. At that point I decided to go on the interview anyway, since I had already made the arrangements, including flying out to Madison Wisconsin later that week.
Well the good news is that the interview went great, and I got offered a really good job, with a huge increase in pay. So DH and I spent many hours discussing the pros and cons of moving to Madison, WI and me taking this job. All of our families were very supportive of us going, since they have seen all the stress we have gone through with Kodak. In the end, for a number of reasons, we decided to stay at Kodak in Rochester. Not so much because of Kodak, but because of family. So of course we have been waiting to see if we made the right choice.
There are no guarantee's, but last week another girl announced that she would be leaving to take a job with another company. They decided to offer me her job. It is a much more interesting and exciting job, and there is more job security with it, as long as Kodak doesn't decide to shut down completely of course. So for the short term anyway it seems like my decision to stay isn't so bad, and I'm glad that I was patient. I will be working longer hours through some big challenges in the next few months as we start up a new manufacturing machine, but it will be much more interesting than the last several months of downsizing and shutting down and laying off.
I just wanted to share that little piece of my life. Maybe I can look forward to a year of no threat of losing my job. We'll see.
on your new job! I'll keep my fingers crossed that it all works out for you! I'm so glad that you are not in limbo anymore! That is really a bad place! Thanks for sharing your story.
