Anyway....A lot has happened in the past few months. The company that I was working for decided to cease operation in Malaysia and move to the US to run their business there. And, the sucky part was, because of that, they decided to let go everything, including their employees!! I never thought that this would happen when I decided to join them just 8 months ago. Everything looked dandy then. How things could change in a blink of an eye :(. The writing was on the wall months before the announcement but I guess everyone was in a state of denial. We kind of immersed ourselves with the work, all the time naively thinking that we can turn around the situation. All the while believing that we will ride the wave together. Alas, it was not to be. Business is business. What saddens me the most was the fact that this company demanded so much from the employees in the name of passion. We worked late hours, we made the product our life. We went above and beyond what was required of us 'contractually' hoping that the effort we put in will result in a return that is many fold.
So, when the company decided to let us go, with one month's notice, everyone felt betrayed. Disappointed. Let down. We were discarded just like that.
Honestly, at the time of the announcement, everyone kinda empathized with the company. The explanation given was that the company was running out of fund (slightly true) and couldn't afford to pay us salary beyond January. But, little by little, we realized that it's not that they didn't have fund anymore. It's just that with the fund they still have, they did not want to spend it on us. They'd rather go to the US and spend the money there so that they can be closer to the market (bah!!). One of us found out soon after that they put up an advert in Craig's list for an engineer with compensation of >USD75k per year. That's more than RM200k per year, enough to cover the salary of most of us at least for this year. Imagine our shock and disappointment when we found out about it.
To add salt to the injury, even in the last month, we were still required to work like nothing was happening. There's this so called work plan that was given to each of us, outlining the things that we had to deliver during the last month. And some of us had to work late hours just to deliver these items. Shouldn't we be focusing on our future during the last month, especially in light of the fact that they're not giving any of us any compensation whatsoever.
Another cheeky act that the company did was not confirming some of us even though we've been with the company for more than 6 months. I for one was not confirmed even though I am confident that I should have been. I didn't ask for the confirmation letter because well, I trusted the company!! And we were all busy focusing on making the dream happens. So without confirmation, the company can terminate us with 1 month's notice, as opposed to the 3 month's notice required of them if we are confirmed staff. In my humble opinion, that's a little bit underhanded.
It hurts me at a personal level because I really thought that these people were my friends and were above this kind of maneuvering. But, I guess to them, business is business. And their business must survive regardless of the cost.
I remembered on my first day in the job, the company's advisor had a chat with me to make sure that I'll stick with the company through thick and thin and will not bail out at the first sign of trouble. Well, who's bailing out now, Mr. Advisor??
Phewww..What a rant! I finally got it out of my system. This experience was a big lesson's learned for me. I know now better than ever that in the game of survival, you have to always be wary of your environment and react accordingly. And definitely, most definitely look after your interests first. Help your colleague as best as you can all the time but don't ever expect the company to put your welfare above theirs. There is no free ride in this world after all.
Such is life.
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