I was working for Sun Microsystems, and was in Boston at LinuxWorld, for slightly murky reasons. The conference ran Monday to Thursday, the exhibition hall (where I was working) was closed on Monday for setting-up, then open to the public from Tuesday morning - I was flying in Sunday night and out again Thursday night. On Monday afternoon, Boston time (Monday morning UK time) I got an email telling me there was an all-hands meeting the next morning in the office in Watford, mandatory attendance. I obviously wasn't going to make it, so I emailed my manager for advice, telling him I was willing to set an early alarm and call in for the meeting if need be - I got no response to my mail. I left the conference centre, telling my colleagues, jokingly, that I'd see them for the pre-exhibition meeting in the morning, assuming I was still employed by then. I set my alarm anyway, for 4:45am, and called my manager to ask if there was a conference call number I could use - he said he'd see what he could do. Nothing happened.

At about 5:20am, one of my colleagues pinged me on ICQ to tell me the news - they had announced the immediate closure of the Watford office, and the intent to lay off all the staff based there.

So, I felt dazed for a bit, went down and had some breakfast (still on expenses, see), and wandered over to the exhibition to let them know not to expect me around any more. The people there were sympathetic, someone gave me a show shirt, and I went off and had a couple of quite enjoyable days in freezing-cold Boston, paid for by Sun. I did have a quick try at getting some employment leads at the show, but most of the companies didn't have anyone on the floor who could or would talk about recruitment, and even when they did, they weren't particularly interested in talking to someone who didn't have a visa to work in the US.

This wasn't a complete shock. There were already well-advanced plans to close the Watford office later in the year, and we had been offered the option of moving to a new office and commuting (and getting a mileage bonus), moving to the new office and moving house nearer it (and getting a relocation allowance), working from home (and getting the necessary equipment), or voluntary redundancy. I had already chosen redundancy, so I was already planning to move on, and I got exactly the same package as I would have done, just a little earlier in the year.

I did get a phone call a few minutes later from my soon-to-be-ex-manager's manager to formally tell me and talk to me about it. Apart from the minor issue of being by myself in a hotel room in Boston when I heard, over ICQ, and the major issue that I think they should have kept us open until the original closing date, I have no particular complaints about the way Sun treated us. We all got a fair payment, I understand their position - I still wish they hadn't fired me and moved all our jobs to Bejing.

On the other hand, I am now working for an underwear company in Hong Kong, so it's not all bad...

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