Downsizing (NSFW, due to profanity)

[TheBlueOrleans]

Be advised, there was a language warning in the title of this thread, so any further reading is hereby voluntary on your part.

I don't know if this is an appropriate venue to vent my frustrations, but I'm not going to pay a therapist to listen to this bullshit.
At one point we had over a dozen "office" techs in this branch. After downsizing two and readjusting territories over the past two years we (the rest of the team) got used to the workload and were comfortable helping each other with parts, technical advice, or occasionally taking calls outside their territory from a tech who was swamped with calls in their own territory.

Yesterday the company decided to downsize two more. One of whom was particularly helpful to me in the past few weeks due to my partner being out recovering from surgery, I've got this hospital all to myself and MY GOD IT'S FULL OF STARS.
Not stars, service calls. Couldn't resist a 2010 reference in the rambling. Yesterday I started the day with 30 calls, did 22 in just over 10 hours, and ended the day with a total of 20 calls left. Yes the math works when you factor in constant influx of calls.

So in two years (approximately, I've stopped counting) we've gone from a branch handling somewhere around 50,000 machines with approximately (because I shouldn't say exactly how many) 14 office techs (plus half a dozen production techs) to a branch with around 10 office techs with the same fucking workload.
More, actually, since the salespeople never stop lying to get a sale (giving the damned farm away in the process, but cost-per-copy isn't my area so I can't speak much about it) and the deliveries keep rolling out every bloody month.

Some days I get so pissed off it's all I can do not to go sit in my car and scream.




I guess since this is a thread post and not just a reply in another, use this to vent your frustrations about company downsizing, whether it be yourself or a coworker you'd gotten to know well over the years, or a sad prick who never should've gone Company from being a freelancer if he couldn't handle the stress of having 8 calls per day.

Tell the fired stories, if you're at liberty to do so. Note I decided against posting specifics about the general situation.

[exCSER]

Yeah, that can get real frustrating to the guys on the front lines! The real problem is, customers get so upset having to wait longer and longer for service, that they get rid of the machine or the service provider, and then pretty soon guys like us don't have a job because the company we worked for is out of business because they lost all of their customers! Short-sighted management. I understand that you can't staff for peak periods (that's why sometimes there's long lines at the market), but even they are smart enough to have enough people on staff so that we'll keep coming back. If every time we all went to the market and had to wait in a line of twenty people, we'd find another place to shop, right?! Jeeez!!