Well tomorrow my last check (severance) from RJ will be deposited into my checking account. It is so bittersweet after over 10 years of loyalty. There are no jobs out there and Florida unemployment pays a whopping $275 a week for which I’m grateful but what is a 61 year old going to do in this COVID-19 world. Paul and his cronies have already forgotten about us. My former team is moving on , (I don’t blame them). They don’t want to hear my complaints. I put my home up for sale last week in order to downsize. I canceled spectrum to save some money. I should be enjoying life but this is what I get.
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I heard management (think Vin and Bella) are so worried that they canceled the November Disaster Recovery Exercise. Fear and paranoia is rampant at RJ at the moment. This is what low morale gets you and the fact that nobody cares to work "above and beyond" anymore. They have seen what happens when you do.
interesting to hear from someone in an outside office. I often wonder if they realize that the RJ environment is put together with bailing wire and tooth picks. Doesn't take much to cause a major incident and there have been many. Sometimes taking 20 people on a call to resolve. I foresee this only getting worse. Wait until it is time for new F5's, new server refreshes, new IP's if they ever setup that top secret new data center.
I'm in an outside office. I hope you guys know that IT crashed literally the same days they did this to all of you. We were down for several days and they kept pointing fingers at Oracle. Even if that is true, the coincidence of that happening at the same time was hilarious.
We got our severance monies, I am thankful as it will help. At times I am still mad at RJ for throwing us out during these hard times. I guess Tom had no saying on this, we lost the family feeling and security with the new upper management. I think there was no need for the lay offs but it's done.
It's agonizing, there are days when I have high hopes that I could get a job and nothing happens, it's not a good time to be unemployed. I am starting to think if I should look for jobs outside Tampa and relocate. Not sure what could happen and it's kind of scary.
I know we are moving on but for some of us it's slower, I guess in part because the situation is difficult, not many jobs and lots of competition for them plus the Covid-19. Yes, we try to be optimistic but there are times when we need to let our "frustrations escape", we are humans and have those feelings. Thank you for your postings here, it helps me to see that I am not the only one that at times has similar thoughts.
I am in my late 50s and same, don't see jobs for my skills/experience. I have applied for a few related jobs but have not heard anything. I have us in my prayers.
Paul Reilly and Raymond James aren't worth thinking about. What is done is done. Nothing we can do will change that. My only selfish wish is for RJ to have some kind of issue where they needed one of us to resolve it. What would have taken one of us an hour or two will now take hours and hours. Let Paul explain that to the newspapers. Those that are still at RJ in IT (yes I came from IT) are paralyzed. No more empowerment, no more taking chances. Just do what needs to be done to get thru another day.
I have many of the same feelings. Time will help all of us. If you’ve been with RJ over a year you still qualify for esop and profit sharing. You will get what everyone else gets. Every little bit helps. This will happen in December. I hope Paul and all of HR are reading these posts. Many of us are really hurting.