It has been 1 week. It’s been a week.
It started with what I thought would be a routine one on one meeting with my boss. But any pretense of normality was destroyed when he told me to hold while he called HR into our virtual meeting.
My face immediately felt flushed. My heartbeat rapidly and my ears started ringing. Was this the end or my almost 30-year career or merely a change?
I don’t remember who spoke first, my boss or the HR rep. But the message was conveyed. My role was being eliminated. If I wanted to remain, I would have to take on a job for which I was not currently qualified. My current role is that of scrum master. I can hear the non-IT reader thinking “What?” (Think of it as an assistant manager who oversees day-to-day operations, but with no supervisory responsibilities.) I was being asked to take on the role of a senior full stack developer. In plain English, a programmer. I am familiar with programming. I have taken numerous courses, but I have not done hands on coding in over a decade and that using a totally different technology.
Was this an opportunity or the first step leading to being fired? I could barely think straight, but I did have the presence of mind to ask if there was an alternative. The HR guy pipped in and said there could possibly be an exit package. He seemed surprised that I would ask and said that if I needed details, he would have to get back to me. Thank God! This gave me what I desperately needed in this situation: Time.
