That sucks Hyoushi. How is the job market in Sweden? Enjoy your time off anyway!
I thought SOX compliance was only in the oilfield?
I went through something similar a few months back, less the sweet union bargaining.
I worked for one of the most terribly mismanaged companies in perhaps the world. Everything was run out of Houston (small oilfield service company making acquisitions with delusions of grandeur), and no one in the main office had any idea what
any of the acquired companies were doing or how they were run. So they would buy smallish (profitable) companies and splice them together very badly. This was fine when the oilfield was rocking, but all went to shit when it crashed.
After the crash, competition for business just went nuts and the infighting started. Most of the old head guys either quit outright or were content to draw huge pay for almost zero work (not that I can blame them). This all resulted in the people who had been ineffectual middle managers taking the reins, and most of them were totally out of their element. On top of absolutely no direction, everyone was in survival mode because of all the mergers. It became very political and comically Machiavellian. Since I was fairly new, I was able to avoid most of this and just kind of duck my head. People kept jumping ship, and I kept on moving up. It just kept limping along until around April.
Back in April, we had to let over half of the staff go. I was safe but, since we weren't hiring, had to take on responsibilities of like three people for no pay increase. We were pretty slow, but it was still a lot of work. Pay was decent, so I managed. I also figured that in a little over two years I had technically advanced further than people who were with some of these companies for decades, which would look good on a resume.
In early August, I was in the middle of closing on our house. I came into work one morning, and my boss was in my office waiting for me. They said the level of business didn't justify having me on full-time. Pretty bullshit, since they kept a secretary who just answered phones that rang a few times a day, but me being the youngest guy on the payroll came back to bite me. Everyone else had pretty much been with the company for over ten years, or were in good with the bigger guys that were still left. I left on pretty good terms, and they kept me on the payroll for a month so they wouldn't tank my house sale. I got a touch of severance after that, and am able to draw unemployment.
On the plus side, my note is relatively inexpensive (not much more than we would pay to rent around here), and unemployment totally covers it. My wife's pay can handle all of the bills, and we can live pretty well while sparingly using some of our savings. It shouldn't get too tight until next year, so I'm good on that front, but it's only now starting to sink in that I need to start seriously looking for something soon in a really bad local market. I am pretty sure I want out of the oilfield, but don't really want to make much less than I was before. I have a small window to find something that I'd like to do, that is actually feasible, and the thought kind of terrifies me. Better at 29 than at 40 or 50 though!
In the meantime, I make more than minimum wage dicking around the house, which is pretty awesome. I guess.
