Thursday, September 20, 2007

Still Employed

I'm breathing a little easier now, but I still feel horrible about what is going on at work. Last week I posted on my company, Trillium's financial problems and my job being in jeopardy. It's been a rough week with rumors flying all over the place on who might get laid off. It's hard to do your job when you are worried if you are going to have one next week.
On Weds, my team sat down with our boss to talk about what is happening. It turns out that nearly 100 people are getting laid off through out the agency which is all most 500 people. Do the math and that means one and five people are leaving. That's big for any company. Nobody from my program, the foster care program will be leaving thank goodness. This is because we are deemed a core program and about the only one that is bringing in money. The situation is pretty bad and it explains why one of my medical claims was denied a few weeks ago--because Trillium hadn't paid.
Programs throughout Oregon are being cut. We lost a pioneering foster grand parent program that was helping out kids who have never had a grand parent. On top of that, we lost a foster care program in Bend and a residential care facility down south. We also lost Children's outpatient services in our building. Worst of all, we lost our cleaning lady, a sweet woman named Cora who has been with Trillium for 26 years. Moral is shot to hell and emotions at work are running high.
I started thinking " so who is going to clean up after us now?" before I realized that our building is closing. My boss confirmed that we are moving to the residential campus right up the road. It is now rumored that we will have to join the union on that campus. Until now, I never realized that there was a mental health union, but apparently there is one and have actually gone on strike before. I would think this would generate some ethical problems. I might have to one day say to a foster child "Sorry kid, I'd love to help you, but I'm on strike."
I will hand it too Trillium, they did accept a lot of the responsibility for the financial crisis, but a lot of the problem is with the system. Basically, this managed health care system isn't working too well and federal funding has been cut (I wonder were it went?).

6 comments:

Portland wawa said...

Praise God you are still employed. I know work must be hard right now. I can tell you are not yourself, for more reasons than this.

This is federal funding? So can we write to our senators and governor to complain about your budget being cut, or is this a white house issue?

Achtung BB said...

They have people that do that, however you can't tap a well that is empty

f o r r e s t said...

I am glad you are still alive and kicking.

Have you got any concert shirts lately?

Achtung BB said...

In matter of fact I did. I'm proudly displaying an Over the Rhine shirt letting everyone know that I went to that show.

shakedust said...

Yeah, those sort of things are no fun at all. At my last job I survived waves of layoffs before everything was shut down, and morale was nearly nonexistent.

Fortunately, it doesn't sound like a shut down is a possibility in your situation. I can't imagine foster care going away, and any time you personally are making money for the company they want to keep you around.

T said...

It's tough to work in an environment where that many people from the company are going. Citi's downsize was bad for us, but dash had so many co-workers that were effected by the mass downsize. His boss was teary eyed when she told him he was leaving.

Not having medical stuff paid and that effecting your medical claim REALLY stinks. I hope they get it figured out and fixed soon and I'm sorry it's at the expense of so many families and co-workers. :(