A Life in a Year – 30th June, Onyx UK and Redundancy

The first time that I was made redundant was on 30^th June 2000 after ten years working in the waste management business.  A year or two earlier the company appointed a new boss and I’m not sure why but he took an instant dislike to me and he immediately started to make my life a misery.  He picked on me constantly, offered no support when I needed it and could barely disguise his hostility.  To be fair I didn’t care for him either, he was a twat, so it was completely unlikely that we would ever get on with each other.  He had a shrill high pitched voice, fierce halitosis that could strip paint and a hawk like face permanently etched with spite and nastiness and he barely had a civil word for me, or anyone else for that matter.  It is completely impossible to capture the unpleasantness of this man in just a couple of sentences but, take it from me, he was hateful and contemptible.

By 2000 he wanted rid of me and would go to any lengths to achieve it so in June while I was away on holiday in Cephalonia in Greece, he gathered together a bunch of ‘yes people’ – conspirators from amongst the Regional Managers and announced that due to poor performance (his own mainly) and the need to make efficiencies (to cover up for his incompetence) there would be some job cuts and one of us would have to go.  Of course it had already been decided by the back-stabbers that it would be me but he was obliged to apply the company redundancy policy and he was having some difficulty in squeezing my name to the top of the list because of the complicated points system that worked in my favour. 

This wasn’t a surprise of course because there was some real dead wood in there especially his favourite who was the obvious candidate based on his appalling sickness record and his abysmal academic achievements (not even a cycling proficiency badge).   But I had decided that it was time to go anyway because what was the point in staying where you weren’t wanted so I waited until the last moment, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and he was so relieved he agreed to a generous pay off including the use of the expensive Vauxhall Omega company car for six months (with all my fuel provided, which was an unexpected bonus) and that was the end of my time in waste management in the private sector and I have never missed it for even a fleeting second.

I left the company at the end of June and for the first time in my life didn’t have a job so with £24,000 in the bank did the most sensible thing I could think of and rather than getting on looking for a new job went on holiday to Skiathos instead.

The list of back stabbers is:

Tom Riall

Colin Whitehead

Peter Clint

Elizabeth Pullen

Nick Patterson

Mike Butler

Ray ? (HR Director)

Bob ? (Finance Director)

And Percy Powell (who gave his agreement and approval)

I know this is true because John Wheatley, who was at the meeting but excluded from the process, told me so!