|
|
|
Experian made a large number of people redundant across its subsumed subsidiaries, one of which was me.
On the day that I was supposed to be made redundant I was one of 3 staff presenting issues and possible solutions back to the Experian management team, after which a senior member of the HR team congratulated me on my “superb presentation techniques”, shaking my hand profusely.
That day I had a sudden meeting appointment made with my Boss, however the children were late leaving the building - 4.20pm rather than 4pm - and I was told that it was too late to do the meeting now and it would be postponed until 9.30am the morning after. The morning after... at 9.30 I turned up for the meeting, to be greeted by my Boss, and the senior HR guy who had been present at my presentation the morning before. My boss simply read from a statement which said that through no fault of my own, due to a head count reduction exercise across Sales and Marketing there was no job for me. They were going to do this straight after the two massive events the day before. Of all the memories I will take away from MCL, the last one was “Gareth what a fantastic job... and by the way you’re redundant” ... to "use" me for two really important events... to "congratulate" me on my performance ... and then to call me into the office and say "well done... now f*** off" ...just sucks. Totally sucks. So I drove away ... flabbergasted... in my MCL owned company car... went home and prepared to go on holiday 4 days later to Gran Canaria Pride 2007.
When I got home, I created a CV... after all it had been 14 years since I had one before, and uploaded it to Monster and Total, and started applying for a few jobs that took my fancy. From the moment I uploaded my CV, my mobile phone never stopped ringing for the next two weeks solid... Id be on a call to one agency or company and another would ring and leave a voicemail... I’d ring the voicemail and whilst I was listening somebody else would call. One particular agency, called Howard Jackson Ltd., contacted me about a job – which was to be my new place of employment ...two interviews later, the second of which was a presentation to the MD and Technical Director, I had an offer of employment – and a new job. All of this was in the first six weeks of being made aware I was going to be redundant. So before I got my “official” “we don’t want you” letter from MCL I had a new job sorted.
So its best foot forward, onward and upward and see where the future takes me .... |
I was dumbstruck by this as being
a massive supporter of our abilities, and armed with 13 years
product and client knowledge thought that other people would be more
vulnerable than me. 
1
hour later we had an event to celebrate the launch of “Experian’s
charity of the year”... for which ChildLine was chosen. A marketing
tag line of ChildLine is that "sixty children call ChildLine every
15 minutes"... so the plan was over a number of Experian offices to
have a launch event for 60 local youngsters starting at fifteen
minute intervals. I helped arrange and plan our event ... a
Children’s party... for sixty local children from schools around
Southport. As you may be aware I have done children’s magic shows
for the past 25 years ... and so Gareth & his Magic Show ... kindly
assisted by Jen Allen performed for the invited audience, for which
I was again congratulated by the Experian management.
Due
to my contract and the nature of MCL’s business... from the moment I
was told I was going to be out of a job – ie the beginning of May –
I was on full pay until 15th June – but did not have to
go to the office – ie I was on permanent garden leave. On the 15th
June I was given 3 months official notice of redundancy, a
redundancy package and a deal on my company car... so effectively I
was off on full pay from the beginning of May through until the
Beginning of August and then I had a new job to start – somewhere
that I could make a difference and not just be a number.
