Life

A couple of months ago I mentioned some changes in our department that have since escalated greatly:  on April 25, the Development team was summarily dismissed, effective 30 days later, and Joe hired two of his friends from Wells Fargo.  Within a couple of weeks of our lay-off, the Construction Management Team - well, Seth, anyway - still waiting word on Richard in CA who was out on medical leave - was given their 30 days and in Seattle, another Wells Fargo employee was hired.  The recently demoted Real Estate manager, who was my grand-boss until Lorri's departure, left, though I can only guess at the circumstances, and Val, the Facilities manager in Seattle, was packaged.

The new team will, undoubtedly, do well.  I question how some will fit in with the Umpqua culture, at least at first, but that's not my problem.  The big thing is this, and I mentioned it to the president and the COO before I left: what happend to six members (about a third) of a very productive team was just wrong.  I understand business decisions and have been the "victim" of business-related layoffs in the past.  But the way this was executed was so against everything the bank stands for that as soon as everything had cleared, we closed our accounts and took our money back to our old bank.  So did Seth, and I bet the others may have too. 

Interestingly, since then, I've told the story to friends and many have said "that doesn't seem to be what Umpqua stands for - don't think we'll be banking there anytime soon."

Oops.