One door closes, Another one opens!
Today, after more than 5 years, I finally say goodbye to AGL. I’m finding that now that this day has finally come that it’s a bitter sweet victory for myself. I’m not really sure how to explain but I think that it might be because after 5 years I’ve become accustomed to the environment and while for the past year it hasn’t been a very stimulating place to be in, I find myself knowing that I’m going to miss it when I’m gone.
In late 2006 it was announced that all of AGL’s IT functions would be outsourced to IBM, one of the largest providers of IT services in the world. The transition would take place in the final months of 2006 with a contract signing date of 31st Jan 2007. From this date IBM would take over all of AGL’s IT functions and all AGL IT personnel would be make redundant. Well that was the plan anyway, and for most people it worked out that way, for me it was a completely different series of events.
In November 2006 most people within AGL IT received a letter from HR stating that as of the 31st of Jan 2007 our positions would be made redundant and at which time we would cease working for AGL. Attached was also a letter stating what our redundancy payment would be. For myself it was a very nice sum and would come in handy to pay off a fair chunk of debt, and for 5 years work you would expect more than just a simple hand shake.
Around this same time we were (and by ‘we’ I’m referring to the team that I was working in) informed that IBM would be approaching us with offers of permanent employment once the outsource contract was signed and I was made redundant. In early December I was present with a permanent employment contract which I was to look over and decide wether to accept it or not. If I was to accept it the only condition was that this offer was only available if AGL and IBM enter into the outsource agreement that was currently being negotiated with the goal to sign by 31st Jan 2007.
I was more than unhappy with what was offered to me. In my opinion I was being underpaid by AGL for what I was employed to do and to add insult to injury the IBM offer only bettered that by a measly $2000. I expressed my concerns to the IBM manager and made it clear that I felt that my skills, knowledge and experience were being undervalued. They revised the offer and I was a lot happier with what they were now willing to pay me.
At this point in time I contemplated the offer and that of my options. I thought to myself that IBM was a big company and could provide a lot of opportunities to further my career in different areas. If I was to take the offer then I would walk out of one job and into another, if I didn’t then I would need to search for another one and that may take months of searching and eat into the redundancy payment that I planned to use to pay myself out of debt.
After thinking about the offer and weighing up the pros and cons and discussing it with my girlfriend Kate, I decided to take the offer.
I signed the conditional offer of employment with IBM and posted back to their HR department. I now was able to relax in the knowledge that for the foreseeable future my career was on track and I could enjoy Christmas and not have to worry about anything. This was early in December 2006.
For the next month everything was business as usual. There was always talk of the outsourcing and the ‘magic’ date of 31st Jan 2007 and what people would be doing after they were made redundant.
The day finally approached and this is where it all went down hill. Early in the day I had to contact HR about some matter that I can no longer remember. What I do remember is being on the phone to someone and having them say the following.
Oh, I’m sorry it looks like your not leaving today.
I was a little confused by this and asked if my colleagues were leaving today. I gave a couple of names and she proceeded to tell me if they were set to be made redundant or were staying on. Out of my team only 2 of us accepted the IBM offers. Everyone else had other plans. It seems, that the people that had signed the IBM offer of employment were the only ones to not be leaving on the 31st Jan 2007, that was otherwise stated in the initial letter of redundancy.
As it turns out AGL and IBM had not reached agreement and had not signed the Outsource contract. Myself and the other teams members that signed on with IBM were told that because we had signed this agreement we would remain as AGL employees until the contract was signed.
We were given an updated notice of redundancy that gave our employment end date of the 28th Feb 2007.
This date wasn’t so bad and as such I would be coming back from holidays in Hong Kong on this date anyway so I had decided that I would fly into Sydney airport, stop off at the office, sign out say my goodbyes all that jazz then go home. It was not to be, and so began a string of setups and let downs that led me to endure almost another year at AGL.
I returned home on the 28th Feb and was almost ready to go into the office until Kate said to me.
Perhaps you should check your phone to see if the date is still going ahead
Good idea, so I powered on my work mobile phone and proceeded to check my voice messages. I was disappointed to hear the following message from a colleague at IBM that was working with us during this ‘migration’
Hi Jeremy, just to let you know that the contract hasn’t been signed again so you wont be finishing up on the 28th Feb.
I wasn’t happy about this but what can you do. So for the next few weeks I went to work as per normal and just tried to get through each day as it comes.
Late in March we received another letter stating that our end date would be pushed back until the end of March. By this stage I didn’t really care about this and was of the opinion that I would believe this when the money was in my bank account.
The end date came and went and guess what, yep we were still there. With no official leadership from AGL or IBM it was very difficult to get any sort of answer about what was happening. In my office we had a number of people from IBM that was working on the contract so we would occasionally get updates from them. The updates usually consisted of,
Nothing yet, but we are looking to sign within the next few months
This went on and on with no end in sight. By about September I finally had enough of this and after much soul searching and discussion with friends and Kate I came to the conclusion that I did not want to work for IBM anymore and wanted out of AGL.
I didn’t want to just quit as I would have lost my redundancy payment and as bad as AGL was I wasn’t prepared to forgo that and felt that I should be allowed to leave AGL with full redundancy payment. For the next month I attempted to get an answer from my manager for a very simple question; If I came to my manager and said that I had another offer elsewhere, will AGL be prepared to allow me to leave with my redundancy payment. I was told that he will consult with HR and get back to me.
At this point I was consulting with the Union about my options and they were of the opinion that they could not deny me those benefits.
While this was all going on I was also in the process of applying for new jobs. I was in the process of being interviewed for a new position when I received word that AGL was prepared to let me go with redundancy if I had another offer.
The timing could not have been better because no sooner had I received the green light from AGL, I was made an offer for a senior position with Thales Australia, located at Garden Island Naval Base in Sydney. This was around late November that this was all taking place.
After all this we are now in December of 2007 and for the rest of AGL IT that are still here the Contract has FINALLY been signed and people will be made redundant on 31st Jan 2008, only 1 year later than was originally planned. However this now holds no consequence to me as I’m off to a new opportunity away from AGL with redundancy payment and mixed feeling about it all.
In looking back over the past year I feel like that it has given me a sort of glimpse into what life would have been like at IBM, and from what I saw I didn’t like it. I realised that I would be stagnant and my career would not progressed as diversely as I would like. While my time at AGL in these past months was hard it gave me a clear perspective as to where I need to go from here and I thank it for that.
To my friends and colleagues that still remain at AGL I wish them the best of luck for the future, and to those that will be going to IBM, good luck. I’m sure it wont be that bad for you. =)
This had been one long post, I hope subsequent posts wont be that long but this is just one thing that needed to be said.
J/