Would you give your job up on a matter of principle? Should I?

[dontagreewithit]

I posted back in February about how unhappy I was with the redundancy process that my company was putting my teams through, and how unhappy I was to have to be involved in it.

I am a senior manager in a professional services organisation, with responsibility for support teams across 3 sites. I have been doing the job for a year, and have (it is generally agreed) done a good job and been successful.

I understand that as a senior manager in a small organisation, I have to be able to do difficult things, and to make difficult decisions, and I (think) I have come to terms with that.

However, I have been "consulted" today by group directors on how we are to further cut costs. One of the "suggestions" (ie they've made their minds up, but pretend that others' opinions will be considered) is that we get rid of one of our technical team and some of the admin people. This will account for 10% of the costs that we need to cut.

This would be bad enough; I have worked hard to ensure that my teams have confidence in me and after the awful week of hell in February where the teams were decimated, I told them that as far as I was concerned the teams are as small as they can realistically be. To make more redundancies now would really undermine their faith in me. The real killer for me though is that the technical person they want to get rid of handed his notice in a couple of months ago; he had a good job offer which would have been a great opportunity for him. However, with the encouragement and backing of the board, we persuaded him to stay with the company, and offered him more money.

I am horrified at the thought of the conversation that I would have to have with this person (although we would have to go through the full redundancy process again which also fills me with dread) "sorry we persuaded you to stay and you've lost that opportunity, but we actually don't need you"

I feel this is the final straw, and for me could be a resignation issue. However, I don't have a job to go to. I am fairly confident I could find a job within a couple of months, although I do realise it may not be as "good" a job as I would like. We have no savings, so would have to live off credit cards.

Is this just madness? Do I have to go against all my principles and ethics for the sake of having an income (until I can find something else)?

I once resigned on principle after 6 months of soul-searching (a completely different situation though), because I was unable to reconcile my own very strong views with the way the firm operated, and I felt that as a director and role model/mentor for many women in the firm I would be effectively endorsing the company behaviour.

For me I had to work out if emotional hardship of staying was worse than financial and reputational risk of leaving.

I didn't really sleep that much better at night once I'd done it as I'd traded one set of issues for another. I don't regret doing it now (at all), but I did regret it initially.

Apologies for radio silence, have had problems with my shoulder, possibly a frozen shoulder, which I think may well have been exacerbated by stress...

The cuts are going to be more than I originally thought, they had decided to get rid of 2 of the 3 members of the technical team, although have just today managed to negotiate a reprieve for one of them (not the one we persuaded to stay ). They are going to meet with the affected people on Friday, and one of the group directors is going to have "the conversation".

Have applied for a couple of jobs, and had calls from a couple of recruitment people, so I know there are opportunities out there. I know I can't just jack it all in with nothing to go to; that was never realistic.

I am in the difficult position of being expected to be driving things forward for our "new proposition" and promoting it to remaining members of staff, while knowing that my heart's not really in it.

Some of these people are people who I've got really close to, some of whom look up to me, and I feel I will be betraying them by walking away.

To make me feel worse, I have been given, "in recognition of all my hard work" 2 tickets to the Olympics (the company bought a load to use for corporate hospitality, these were spares). I can't turn them down, it would look strange, but I feel bad for taking them, knowing what my true feelings are...

Am typing this with my left hand, as my right arm is pretty much out of commission...all adds to the challenge!

Look for another job
Secure other job
Write them a stinking letter outlining why you felt you had to move and what you think the failings are in the comapny and what you envisage happening to productivity / morale etc if they carry on in the way they are.

I don't think packing it in would be the right thing to do, with nothing to go to.

Hope your shoulder feels better soon