I’m Just a Resource Being Replaced

Photo by Héctor J. Rivas @hjrc33 on Unsplash

I’ve recently written an article about being laid off from my software engineering role. The way they told us wasn’t pretty and made me feel like a replaceable machine, and “unfortunately” the company preferred one over in India.

That’s nothing compared to what happened next. As I received information about severance (barely above the legal minimum) and the company prepared to extract maximum knowledge from departing employees I noticed a reoccurring theme.

I’m no longer an employee — I’m a resource marked for termination. 

I know this. But the fact they keep referring to me as a resource is destroying me.

Disposable Language

I first thought it was me. I thought I was sensitive, being shocked by the prospect of being laid off. Yet it wasn’t a single incident, it kept happening. 

The departing group of employees were constantly referred to as resources, or just with no recognition of the impact of losing your job.

We were told that “impacted resources” would have one month working as “normal”. Then our replacements from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) would shadow the “primary resources” for a month. Then there would be a month with TCS taking over the “primary resource” role. The “impacted resources” would run knowledge transfer sessions during the time to make sure there would be no business interruption.

Here’s the language they used to make us feel less than human:

“We hope that those impacted resources will take the knowledge transfer sessions seriously, and ensure the business we’ve built isn’t disrupted”

You can imagine that the effort and energy I put into the knowledge transfer process were commensurate with how much the company cared about me. They made me feel worthless and useless, so I turned out to be useless to them, too, in the end.

Resource Down?

Not people. Not employees. Not even team members. Resources. Like we’re interchangeable cogs, no different from the desks and chairs they would no longer need. I couldn’t wait for my status to change to “unregistered” in the company systems.

I feel they ground me down. In one meeting a hero did stand up though, an agile coach who announced that the company treating (through language) people the way was simply unacceptable. They publicly called out the company as referring to departing resources in a way that is less than human. I appreciate their candor and support, even as we were leaving the company.

Here’s how it played out

The Company

The worst part? Nobody seemed to notice. The managers were still pretending everything was professional and normal. This wasn’t cruelty, in their eyes. It was just corporate process.

They weren’t even trying to be dehumanizing. That’s just how companies talk now, and why would they care? People were in the process of purchasing a house.

My Feelings

I was never a resource. I was a developer. A problem solver. A human being who worked late nights, fought bad code and built things that mattered.

Maybe they’ve forgotten. Maybe they never cared. But I know the truth.

Happily, this tale has a twist, and it doesn’t turn out well for the company, but I’ll get to that in a later article. 

But when I find my next role, I’ll make sure of one thing: Never again will I work for a company that sees people as resources.

Conclusion

It has to all come to an end one day. That might mean you resigning your position, it might mean getting fired.

I’ve always held myself to a high standard when leaving a position, and try to work right to the last day/minute/hour of employment. I just wish the company I worked for for years held the same standard. Is that too much to ask?