Digital Media Exchange (Mobius) Retrenchment Part 2

… about an hour after, my shift ended. I quickly logged out of my computer and walked to the game publishing’s side of the office. On a normal night around that time, you’d see the game masters on their computers muttering profanities while playing DotA but the scene I saw that night was totally different. I could see that some of the girls had been crying, some were in small groups talking, and of course there were some that preferred to be left alone. Their shift had ended over an hour ago but none of them felt like going anywhere yet. I’d usually be nagging my husband to leave as the clock ticked 10 PM but even I didn’t wanna go home. It was like being in a bad dream..

I walked over to my husband where he was talking with one of the other game masters. They were talking about how they kinda knew it was gonna happen eventually, just not that soon.. especially since DME had just launched Closed Beta Testing of Dekaron. For months, it had been hyped up to be THE game to save the publishing department.. THE game that was going to bring the much needed revenue MU and Rakion had not been able to provide for some time now. Some actually thought that there was finally going to be room for advancement but now they realized how badly mistaken they were.

Not all were going to be retrenched. They actually spared a handful of people. They knew that they couldn’t just get rid of everybody at the same time. I can’t go much into details but let’s just say that it seems that their main focus right now is on Dekaron.. but as to the other games, I don’t really know.. *sigh*

Some of us finally decided to leave around 10:40 or so. No goodbyes were uttered yet because they all still needed to come back on Tuesday (August 19th) for a 1 on 1 meeting with Human Resources. They were given 3 options to think about:

Option 1: Resign, get paid for 1 more month + separation pay and 13th month pay.

Option 2: Participate in this “Pilot Program” which will be Scott Countryman’s experiment for about a month. The base pay will be lower but according to Mr. Countryman, they will have the opportunity to make additional money with commission-based sales. Until today, the exact job description of people who decide to try this out has yet to be confirmed. (a bit shady in my opinion..) If the program is successful, they will be able to stay in the company. If not, will have to choose again between options 1 and 3.

Option 3: Move to the BPO Department. They will have to pass an exam and be interviewed AGAIN. Their pay will be about the same but since I’m currently in the BPO Department, I know that whoever decides on Option 3 will experience major culture shock. The games we handle are in no way like the games we publish.. the games in BPO are web-based flash games.

As I’m writing this now, the decisions have already been made and the papers have already been signed. I will give you the latest updates in my next post… which will probably be my last post on this unfortunate but hopefully a blessing in disguise event.

Digital Media Exchange (Mobius) Retrenchment Part 1

Wow, I didn’t think I’d be posting about something like this so soon. It happened about a week ago, on Friday, August 15th. Yepyep, that day turned out to be a much more bittersweet payday.

It all started during my lunch break around 2 PM. We were surprised to see one of our co-workers who was supposed to be on his day off here at the office. My husband Ivan and I asked him what he was doing here and he said one of the supervisors called him up to say that he had to come in for an emergency meeting. I didn’t really think much of it but we kinda sensed something was up.

The meeting didn’t start ’til 8 PM. Only employees of the Game Publishing Department like my husband and other friends were there. I am part of the BPO Department so my shift went on as usual. About an hour later, their meeting ended. I didn’t even realize it because they were so quiet when they came back to their stations. A few minutes later, Ivan walked towards me  like a zombie and told me the bad news.. there was going to be a retrenchment and most of the employees in the publishing department are going to be affected. I still had about an hour left in my shift since I get out at 10 so I didn’t have time to ask many questions. He said he and the others were going downstairs to talk about it and I just nodded my head. I was in shock..