Banks
In June of last year I, along with 500 others in the bank (or should that be "Loan company owned by a bank" that we worked for, were told that 400 people were being laid off. My branch, based in North London, was one that was to be shut. We stopped seeing customers immediately, and within 3 days the branch was packed up and the contents were ready to be moved in their entirety to Head Office. As for the staff, we were all put on 3 months garden leave which, for those that aren't aware of the term, basically means that you are sent home and told that you're not required to attend work, but at the same time you couldn't start work at a new company.

Breaking this rule meant that the company would have grounds to dismiss you and you'd lose your redundancy entitlement, which was worth a few thousand to each person there.

So, the best part of 90 days doing nothing followed on full pay. I don't care what anyone says, the boredom that sometimes comes from doing nothing all do is outweighed by the fact that you are receiving your full salary for doing it.

I was in no rush to find a new job, preferring to wait for the right opportunity to come. I knew that after my 90 days had expired I had the best part of 3 or 4 months worth of salary being paid to me, which gave me time to look around.

On my 89th day of garden leave I received a phone call.

"SeasonTicketless," the call began, "this is the bank calling. We've got a vacancy in our East London / West Essex branch and wanted to know if you wanted it?"

It was closer to my home than my previous branch was, which appealed, but the downside, they revealed, was that it wasn't a managerial position as I had been in before. Instead it was a standard collections position, primarily field based, reporting to a manager who I happened to have worked with a couple of years previously, before we'd gotten promoted. Not only that, I would be covering Essex, which is where I live, rather than the ghettos of North London as I had done previously, with a caveat that I had to go to the East London branch every morning to collect a list of field calls that needed doing, and then go back every night to update the system.

"We would, of course, ringfence your existing salary and the likes."

In basic terms, I would be doing a far-less stressful job for the same money and benefits as before.

"Hmmm," I said, not believing my luck, but wanting to sound fairly apathetic about it all, "I suppose I could do, but in all honesty the area that you are asking me to cover is all around the area that I live, but that means driving 45 minutes out of my way to get back to the branch every day to update the systems so I don't really think it's worth me taking up your offer."

And I meant it. I wasn't overly fussed about going back, and was having interviews for other places, and was confident of getting a job.

A couple of hours later my soon-to-be ex-colleague called, the aforementioned manager of the East London branch.

To cut a long story short, she told me that she'd sort it so I could come in to the branch just once a week, and could self-manage myself.

Sorted. I started back in mid-September on exactly the same package as before having had 3 months off.

Two weeks into being back I got a call from HR.

"We can't find your old branch files. Have you taken any holiday this year?"

"I sent them files off to Head Office!" I exclaimed.

"Good, that's where they needed to go, but we have thousands of boxes here and can't find your holiday files. Have you got any leave left?"

"Yes," I lied, knowing full well I'd taken two or three weeks early in the year, "I had booked a couple of weeks away in the Summer but cancelled them when we were put on Garden leave as I couldn't afford it, so I still have all of my holiday entitlement left."

"That's not good." came the response.

Bugger, I'd been rumbled.

"Well," they continued, "that means you have to take 28 days of leave before the new year as you can't carry it forward."

I ended up working from mid September to mid November, and then having the rest of the year off, returning to the office in early January.

The day after going back in the New Year, we had heavy snow. Not bad enough to stop me from driving in it by any means, but once again HR were on the phone.

"Is it snowing there?"

"No," I told them, "it seems to have stopped, but there's snow that has settled everywhere."

"As we thought," they said, "for health and safety reasons you can't do any field calls until it clears as it's too dangerous. That also means you can't drive to the office."

Two weeks later, long after the snow had cleared, we were given the ok to go back to work.

I returned to the office on the first day back after the snow chaos, and within an hour of being there the manager held a team meeting.

"The company is laying off 80 of the 100 people that are left. As of now we're all on 90 days Garden Leave, full pay"

Eventually, in late April, I finally left the company with several thousand as a redundancy package, having worked apporximately four months in the past twelve, all at full pay.

And they wonder why banks get into so much trouble. Bad management that worked arm-in-arm with bad HR practice.
( SeasonTicketless is too often the statue, and rarely the pigeon., Fri 11 Jun 2010, 16:02, 3 replies)

I've not idea who you are
but lucky cunt comes to mind. well done. :)
(waxdart hello., Fri 11 Jun 2010, 16:23, closed)

One day something like this will happen to me
one day...
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 16:25, closed)

that is
quite, quite stunning!
(stubbledchin, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 16:53, closed)