>Lisa B. asked: > >A couple of weeks ago, the company I work for was bought by a company based >in New Zealand. I don't think my job is in jeopardy, but of course, one >never knows for sure. > >Does anyone have any stories to share about the effects of mergers, >buyouts, and other organizational changes on the technical communications >employees?
I worked for Paramount Pictures a few years back. At the time, they had been outsourcing their help desk services to IBM and it was going well. So Paramount decided that since a) they hadn't had a hit movie in ten years and were running low on cash and b) IBM had been saving them money for a few years, they would send out RFPs to outsource the rest of their major operations. As more and more employees got wind of this, the IT natives became restless. Is my job secure? Is my department going to be here next week. Although the executive VP who sent out the RFPs was trying to be as helpful as he could, telling employees that we were 'down to the short list', didn't do much to assuage them. Employees jumped ship faster than the lookout in the Titanic's crow's nest could yell "Iceberg dead ahead!" In the following weeks our IT department dwindled and we assumed job roles to keep things going. As a tech writer I began managing projects and performing business analyst duties. The documentation for the various departments continue as usual, but there was a bottleneck in the approval process because many of my reviewers/approvers were already in the lifeboats. After the dust settled the services that were outsourced were minimal and, as it turned out, very few of the people who left wouldn't have been laid off. Less than a year later Viacom acquired DreamWorks. They then fired all of their longtime Paramount employees and filled their positions with DreamWorks people.* - Jim *I added that simply to make a few jaws drop, just like it did us at the time. ______________________________________________ Author Help files and create printed documentation with Doc-To-Help. New release adds Team Authoring Support, enhanced Web-based help technology and PDF output. Learn more at www.doctohelp.com/tcp. DOCUMENTATION & TRAINING WEST 07: THE USER EXPERIENCE April 18-21, 2007 ~ Vancouver BC ~ Marriott Pinnacle ~ free city tour 40+ sessions * free workshops * free iPod offer * www.doctrain.com _______________________________________________ Technical Communication Professionals Post a message to the list: email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, unsubscribe, archives, account options, list info: http://techcommpros.com/mailman/listinfo/tcp_techcommpros.com Subscribe (email): send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe (email): send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Need help? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Get the TCP whole experience! http://www.techcommpros.com
