It wasn't that long ago that on the last working day before a significant holiday, like Christmas or Thanksgiving or 4th July, management would send out an e-mail saying we could leave at lunchtime. Those days appear to be long gone. It certainly didn't happen today. Maybe this is simply a reflection of how we work now - where a lot of us are working from home. A lot of our leadership has changed, so maybe this is also a reflection of their different approach to management. Whatever the reason, I think it's yet another example of how employee morale is being sapped. From closing the office (or forcing office-based employees to go into the office every day), to outsourcing, to layoffs, to a distinct lack of recent swag (all the more disappointing when you consider we just had a big - and probably very profitable - drug approval recently), to initiating various unfriendly money-saving measures (such as limiting conference attendance - this year we're not even being allowed to attend a departmental symposium being held onsite at our company headquarters in California). It's all very depressing. Currently we are saying goodbye to a lot of contractors, as their contracts are not getting renewed. And I expect there to be more layoffs at the end of the year. And perhaps I might be one of the lucky ones getting laid off in this round.
