Hi, Gyps, perhaps so. But either way I think I need to just stand guard against her intruding further whenever she visits.
...
I don't know why I'm still awake now. I am exhausted from a very busy weekend with my S's. Mostly us working on S9's pinewood derby (PWD) entry. But things with work have me on edge.
I work in IT for a large corporation based in Charlotte, NC, but with branches all over North America. I work for a division that serves customers in the Triangle area of NC. For the last three years or more we have watched as the corporate offices have centralized more and more of their operations and control. We've gone from a division with a great deal of autonomy in serving our local customers, to one that is becoming increasingly regional in its practices -- as such there is continuing consolidation of operations. Our IT group is starting to merge with those from other divisions, to operate with our counterparts across our region (the Carolinas) and corporate-wide. The IT teams from our region have been working well to coordinate our efforts together as a wide-spread group, while each team still serves the immediate needs of our local customers at the same time.
Since last fall we were placed under a regional VP of IT and the indication is that we were going to embark on a long difficult project of merging our databases and application systems into one regional system. We could easily see this as an effort that would take up more than a year or two of development and implementation. Nevertheless, given our professions we had assumed that all the divisional teams could perform these tasks remotely and without any problems. At the same time there was a reshuffling of our entire management structure from one based on geographics to one based on functional areas. This change in structure meant that managers were now going to be reassigned/reassessed, but there was no indication that this would impact the rank-and-file employees. In fact they had assured us last Fall that we were all desperately needed for our skill sets and we were thus secure in our positions
Well, Friday this all changed. It appears that the Regional VP, despite the nature of our high tech jobs and despite any earlier assurances, has decided he wants not only his upper management to be based in the corporate offices in Charlotte, but eventually the entire management structure and even the rank-and-file folks too. They made a call out to everyone in all the divisional IT offices to see who would like to go ahead now and relocate to Charlotte (some 3 hours away). The story was that they had office space available and needed volunteers to relocate. The other part of the story is that eventually the VP wants all of us there. No one can tell us how long "eventually" means.
Most of us are now speculating as to how much time we might have before our jobs move to the corporate offices. Until Friday, I thought that if such plans were to be fulfilled we wouldn't expect any pressure until at least two years or more, and certainly not before the divisional merge was completed. But these latest moves have me thinking they're moving awfully fast. I'm not sure I have six months, much less a year, before they ask us if we are willing to go to Corporate. Out jobs will move certainly, but it remains to be seen whether we'll go as well.
Naturally everyone is trying to think what to do. We have ties to this local area and it's not easy to pull up stakes, if/when the time comes.
I am stuck. The funny thing is that I am in the process of getting myself moved, but only locally. I actually have no permanent stakes in this area, when I get right down to it. But I am obligated to be an active parent to my two S's, and they are now anchored to this area by their mother. She will never let me take them away from here, and I must live where they live. So while I could entertain (and partially welcome) leaving this place with it's sad memories behind me, my automatic answer is no.
And with my finances so strained right now, the prospect of eventually being out of a job, in this economy, has me quite concerned. What I see on the horizon coming at me is not too good.
