to not attend our 'start of year staff briefing' because it will be so fucking depressig

[Ormirian]

we've heard it all before and if I am being made redundant I will hear about it soon enough

Every Jan the same thing. "We appreciate all your efforts over the past 12 months, and we know everyone has done their best to increase efficiency and productivity blah blah blah....but the current trading conditions mean that we are having to pull in our belts and strive for even greater efficiences and customer satisfaction. Unless conditions improve in the next 6m we will have to consider voluntary reducancies. Of course there can be no chance of pay rises or bonuses...etc etc"

So why go? It's so demoralising. Yes I have a job, yes I am very lucky, but one year I look forward to an upbeat assessment of the company position and some genuined appreciation of what we do.

God I hate january

My old job had these twice a year. They were awful, really boring, the CEO droning on about "achievements" accompanied by a PowerPoint of her on various jollies work trips around the world. Only good point was the free lunch, but even then there often wasn't enough to go round.

I don't want to go to ours, either. So no, YANBU!

Have heard rumours already as the factory staff have had theirs. No pay rise (as expected) but no redundancies (phew!).

A few years ago we 'down-sized' considerably - company is the towns biggest employer and it made big waves and lots of bad feeling for a while. People who have remained have all had to reapply for their jobs and accept big changes in conditions. Even though we get all kinds of accolades from our customers for service levels and quality. And our customers are supermarkets so not easily pleased. So it seems wrong that it's never enough somehow.