The First Round

In 2001, NDC made a few drastic changes. Since the Servistream division provided live customer service for a number of websites, the company was no longer specializing in sending out dispatches to alpha-numeric pagers. The company was re-inventing itself in order to adjust for the everchanging world of communications.

The first step was to change the name to Aradiant. A big unveiling ceremony was held at the Balboa facility. One of the agents on my team got to take part in the unfurling of the banner with the new name on it. And they held a catered barbecue. It was all very exciting at the time.

A couple of months later, we got word that the executives were looking to expand the Servistream operations. They needed the floor space where the call center was. We were going to have to move to the Chesapeake location. Nobody at Balboa liked that idea. I didn't like it, either. One person said that when she moved from Chesapeake to Balboa, it seemed like she was moving up. Now, she felt like she was being pushed back down.

We all got to work in a section of the Chesapeake center that remained on the Balboa server. There were people who used to work in that section (without working in Balboa) and were later made to work in the main section. A few of them thought they were going to get to come back. I don't know what the big deal was. It wasn't really better in our section. It was considerably smaller.

Two days after we started working at Chesapeake, a former dispatch agent who was working as the receptionist at Balboa came over to Chesapeake for her lunch. She came to tell us that layoffs were taking place over there. A lot of the executive staff were being let go. She said she couldn't stand to be over there with everything going down. Very soon, we started receiving e-mails that certain people were no longer with the company.

Then we found out that the Manager of the Balboa Call Center was among those who had been laid off. I felt bad as he was the one of those interviewed me for my current position. In addition, he had recently been recognized as a "Star" in the annual Employee of the Year awards. I know he didn't see this coming. We were now left with two Call Center Managers. I could see the point. With everyone under one roof now, we didn't need three Managers.

All of the LDAs received an e-mail informing us of a meeting that afternoon to discuss what had happened with the layoffs. I was told that I could come to the meeting, but since it was outside of my regular work hours, I couldn't get paid for it. I didn't mind. I wanted to see what was going on.

There were probably seven of us LDAs at that meeting. It was led by the Director of Operations and one of the two remaining Managers. We were told about the restructuring of the company. They said that the layoffs were determined first by those who had disciplinary actions on their record, followed by seniority. Those who were being removed from their positions were given a choice: They could either take the severance package or continue to work for the company as a dispatch agent in the call center. (Please pay close attention to that last sentence. It will become very important in a later post.) I got the idea that they really didn't offer the lowest level call center jobs to the top executives. I later determined that they were talking about the Manager who was laid off and some people from the Quality Assurance department.

One of the other LDAs asked if it was recommended that we all start looking for another job. The Director said that this was going to be the only round of layoffs for the foreseeable future. The restructuring would help strengthen the company and it would be beneficial in the long run. We left that meeting without a lot of confidence. However, we did feel that if there were layoffs again, we would still have jobs, albeit at a lower rate of pay. But it would definitely be better than not having a job and being on unemployment.

The next day, one of the former members of the QA team showed up in our section. He had only been promoted to the position just a couple of months prior. He had accepted the dispatch agent position. He said the bad thing was that he had a better insurance plan with QA and was scheduled to have surgery for some issue. Now that he was back on the dispatch agent insurance, he would have to pay more out of pocket and he couldn't afford it.

Later that week, a Supervisor and LDA were both laid off. (The LDA did not attend the meeting.) I got the idea that they were not offered to return to the dispatch agent position.

At the time, I was optimistic that I would be able to keep working at Aradiant at least another year. But you probably already know that didn't happen.