OutSourced In

I try not to write articles about my workplace because even in the land of free speech, you can be fired rather quickly for something you write in your personal Blog that your bosses don’t like. But there is one issue I’d like to vent about that hopefully won’t get me into too much trouble. I’ll try to be vague.

I’ve worked at the same job for 11 years now – we will call them Company A. Recently we “merged” with another company about the same size as ours – we will call them Company S. Merged is in quotes there because it felt more like a hostel takeover to me. I’ve had a few issues with this merger but I’ve kept mostly quiet about them until now (see above). Let me try to explain my frustration.

Our e-mail addresses at Company A are composed of a combination of 6 letters from our first and last names and sometimes they form nice little words (often even funny). Since several people in my office had my same first name when I started, and my combination of letters formed a nice little nickname – I became known throughout the company as denbec. It’s been that way for all 11 years. Now we merge with Company S and it was decided that the IT department where I work (and only the IT department) will work directly for Corporate, and as such we will assume their e-mail address standard. We were told we were no longer to use the old address and we even needed to change our signature files, business cards etc. Suddenly denbec is dead. Now even people inside our original Company A get messages from me with Company S’s address. It feels like a shotgun marriage where I was forced to take a new name and the old one is gone forever. I wonder how many of my messages are being deleted because people don’t know it was from me.

While I am still mourning the death of denbec, I have another issue with this change. The building I walk into each day says Company A, the security badge I wear says Company A, and most of the people I support work for Company A – yet it appears to all concerned that I work for Company S. It’s like I have been outsourced to my own job while I sit at the same desk. When new employees call do they realize I really work directly with them and not at the new corporate office? Does it matter? Well I think it really does. For example, since the merger we also take support calls for Company S after hours and when they call and realize they are talking to someone who is mostly unfamiliar with their business it can be unsettling. But that’s one of those topics I decided not to comment on before so we will leave it at that.

Since this merger, Company S has “merged” with several other companies and I’ve been assured that eventually we will all assume the new email standard. I would have been happy to wait and make the change with everyone else.

The good news is that denbec is not totally dead. In the years I have worked this job that nickname has become such a part of my life that I use it on my personal accounts as well. You might even notice it happily residing in the URL of this blog. Maybe Company S won’t be able to recognize denbec and I won’t get fired after all.