In the end it took three days to tell everyone who applied for voluntary redundancy whether they had got it or not.  With a few exceptions, nearly everyone reacted badly.   That’s understandable for those who were turned down, but even those who were accepted seem to have found something to moan about.

One of the people I work with is most upset because they have been told they cannot leave until August.  They want to go today, while the weather is good.  I’ve little sympathy for that as it would mean that the rest of us would have to find a way to rearrange our holidays to accommodate them.   But the sheer scale of the moaning is such that it might be the lesser of two evils.  

Another guy, one I’ve know for a very long time has, after applying twice and complaining for weeks that responses were too slow has now decided that he is upset that they accepted him as it means he is not as valued as he thought he was.  And he has therefore decided to stay after all.  And no I don’t understand the logic of that either, although the fact that he was not able to walk into another job as he expected may be major factor.

More understandable is the upset of the people who have been turned down, but even there some people seem to have had strange expectations.  One of the more senior women working in our branches applied.  She has two years to go until retirement, but can’t understand why the bank will not pay her three years salary as a lump sum and her pension two years early to leave now.   It does not seem to have occurred to her that no organisation is going to grant an early retirement as part of a cost cutting exercise, if it is going to end up costing them more than having that person stay right through to retirement.

So far she has contacted a solicitor, her MP, her MEP and the Union, which she resigned from ten years or so ago.   

What worries me most is that some of the people leaving have badly misread the economic situation.  A huge number of them appear to think that they will be able to come back to work as contractors.  That is what has happened in the past, but then financial institutions have not been hit so hard in our lifetimes, at least not in the UK.  When we have had VS schemes in the past, anyone who wanted to come back to the Bank in a different capacity has been able to.  And many of those leaving this time are expecting the same.  Somehow I think that will not be the case.