Making Progress

So I received a certified letter from HR on Saturday. It simply stated that my last day of employment with BAE Systems was Sept 1st. I was fine with that as I was tired of getting yanked into the office to do busy work tasks when I had been loosely promised paid administrative leave.

Tuesday I received an email with an attachment from HR. It looked like the same letter (especially when reading it from my Blackberry screen). After looking closer I realized it said Sept 4th. Apparently HR got flak from some other employees that volunteered that they hadn't received 2 weeks notice like the company had promised it would give. The date in the email was amended to reflect giving me 10 business days of employment from the date they sent the first letter.

This brought a question to my Director's mind--"What if the volunteer doesn't want their 2 weeks notice?" A good question. The overwhelming feeling we all have been getting at work is that HR has boasted that they are going to be flexible to the needs of the employee, and then with every decision they make, it appears as if the only driving factor for their decisions is ease of execution for them. This translates into processing everyone at the same time regardless of personal preferences, individual requirements, and common decency. One of my co-workers applied for a new job as soon as the company warned him of layoff. Then he managed to lock in the job before the volunteer period was over. When he notified HR and the Director that he wanted to separate as soon as possible, they refused and basically said they wanted him to quit. "We didn't tell you to go and make plans!" Yay HR!

So now that I have my date, I can appropriately plan my exodus.

Open tasks:

-Organize all my stuff

-Decide what I want to keep

-Decide what I want to toss

-Decide what I want to sell

-Decide what I want to donate

-Buy plane ticket

-Get visa

-Visit family

-Leave country

(not necessarily in that order except for the last one!)