Work has been one continuous gut punch for the past three months. There is so much administrative bullshit getting tacked onto things that work has essentially ground to a halt. There are now meetings about meetings and committees about committees. So many of the few perks that we have left are getting taken away. Taking away coffee, the water cooler, and the newspaper saves the company maybe $80,000 a year but the little morale dings probably result in lost wages that far exceed that. Yet we're plowing ahead anyway. Education reimbursement and training is next on the chopping block. We're a science and technology company so continuous education is not a luxury, it is a necessity to stay compliant and relevant. Upper management sees it as a waste, not because it isn't a revenue generator, but because they believe that online resources and subscriptions should suffice. In other words, going on Wikipedia is considered just as good as training. You could find a way to budget for it elsewhere but anything that is considered discretionary is getting cut.
The end product is glorious: it's just a bunch of people not doing any work and attending meetings. That would sound nice but the rank and file like doing their work so even though they don't have much to do these days, morale is crashing and burning. Talks of finding a job elsewhere are now open where it was pretty hushed in the past. Yet we're always being praised for being on the leading edge of the industry we're in. The hollowing out will crash and burn but eh, I'm getting tired of dealing with this shit. I really need to move on.
