Zanna Anderson
Editor-in-Chief
On Thursday, Feb. 5, The College of Wooster laid off 22 employees, four of whom were my co-workers. Of course my experience is a biased one, as I hold a total of three positions on campus, including as a facilities manager student assistant, writing center student assistant and economics peer tutor. These positions give me more connections to staff so I was more likely to know somebody who was laid off. Due to the peer tutoring position being largely independent, I did not have any connections to be lost during the mass layoff. However, in the writing center we lost one community member, and in facilities and operations we lost three. The loss of these valued members of our campus community of course hurts emotionally, but it also hurts organizationally, as now the rest of us are scrambling to take on the responsibilities our coworkers left behind. This effect is exacerbated by the fact that these staff members were laid off without any notice. Without any time to prepare for their departure, there was no prior communication about the status of in-progress projects, no time to discuss who would be taking on those responsibilities and no adjustment of normal workflows to be less intense the week of the layoffs so employees could balance their new responsibilities with their old ones. I have even felt this chaos as a student worker.
In terms of my student-facing role at the writing center, before the mass layoff I would normally be booked for a couple appointments a week, but most of my slots would be open. Now that Gillian is not here, I have been booked more consistently for Senior I.S. help. Now don’t get me wrong, I love learning about people’s I.S. topics and helping them become more confident in their projects. Unfortunately, as a junior who is only starting the junior I.S. process this semester, I just do not feel like I have the expertise to be as helpful as someone like the individual laid off could be, as they went through the I.S. process themselves when they attended the College and have worked in writing center for 15 years. Honestly, laying off someone like this feels like a direct disservice to the current senior class and any incoming class that will be doing I.S.
At my non-student-facing job as facilities manager student assistant, I would argue that this ripple effect is heightened. The facilities and operations office lost three individuals out of the total 22, meaning about 14% of laid off employees were from facilities. This feels particularly unfair to those who work in facilities, especially because of all of the renovations happening on campus right now and in the future. The facilities and operations office is directly involved in all of these initiatives, as well as the newly announced Green Belt project. Not to mention that the facilities office was already overworked and underpaid, so since the mass layoff, the conditions have only gotten worse.
The morale of all of my workplaces also took quite a hit post-mass-layoff and the energy has yet to fully recover. Laying off my friends and co-workers in such a sudden and stunning manner quite literally left me shell-shocked. The day of the mass layoffs, I remember walking into the facilities office, being asked to sit down and told the news. Everyone who was laid off had already packed up their belongings and left. I didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye to everyone. This sentiment may sound silly, as I know they all still live in Wooster, but losing that guaranteed access to a person you consider your friend hurts, especially when you weren’t prepared for it at all.