04.21.08
Whats been going on
Well its been a long time since I’ve given a rant but I guess its about time for one now since I’m finally nearing my graduation and my family and I are preparing for a new chapter in our lives. So about 4 months ago I was starting my last semester of school and preparing to graduate and finally be down with school when the CIO for my company made a nice revelation to me and my fellow coworkers here in Dubuque. Here is a nice synopsis from our local paper at the time of the announcement:
McKesson Corp. will phase out 79 jobs – all in the Information Technology area – from its Dubuque operation.
Meanwhile, the health-care services company plans to sell the Dubuque Building, Eighth and Locust streets, and lease another facility in Dubuque by the spring of 2009.
Employees were informed of the developments at meetings this afternoon, company spokeswoman Leslie White told the Telegraph Herald.
The jobs being eliminated in Dubuque will phase out over next 9-18 months, said White, who did not disclose the average wage of those jobs. McKesson currently employs approximately 419 in its Dubuque operation.
Announcement of the new McKesson site will be made after lease arrangements are finalized, probably in the next several weeks, White said. “This will allow space for growth for our products and services,” which includes its RelayHealth and Physician Practice Solutions operations, she said.
Employees whose jobs are being eliminated will be invited to apply for positions throughout the corporation, which is offering outplacement services and severance packages to those who do not land positions elsewhere in the company.
McKesson officials also promised to work with Greater Dubuque Development Corp. and Iowa Workforce Development regarding retraining opportunities and other services.
Despite the job cutback and intent to sell its building, company officials insist their tenure in Dubuque is not winding to a close.
“McKesson will continue to be involved in the various things going on in Dubuque,” White said. “We have been a strong supporter of Dubuque,” she added, noting that the company has donated about $500,000 to various non-profits and civic organizations over the past five years in Dubuque.
McKesson is a Fortune 20 health-care services company in North America with more than 32,000 employees and revenues of more than $93 billion. It provides pharmaceutical and medical-surgical distribution services as well as automation solutions and information technology for hospitals, physician offices, payors and retail pharmacies.
Needless to say this rocked everyone’s world here. Now as the article stated they weren’t getting rid of jobs just relocating them to the Atlanta area. If any of you know my family and I are originally from Chicago, not the suburbs the actual damn City of Chicago, and now that we had gotten use to country living we weren’t too keen on returning to a big city especially with even worst traffic than Chicago.
So the search for a new job was on, thankfully I was able to find one and so now my family and I will be relocating again, hopefully for the final time back to Illinois but not to Chicago but we won’t be too far away.
Now don’t get me wrong I have nothing against McKesson per say, I understand their business reasons for transfering the datacenter to Atlanta since this location is truthfully uninhabitable and not worth the millions of dollars it would take to upgrade it to a true datacenter. I just think that no one sat down and thought about what this would do to the people that work and support the systems here. Most of the people in this datacenter are from the area and have never left the state of Iowa let alone the city of Dubuque. So Imagine what they are going through.
Since the announcement, 20 of the 79 jobs have already been vacated as people have found work inside and outside the company. With those departures come the loss of knowledge, so its like they are rebooting CIT in a way. How this will work out I have no idea, but I wish them all the luck in the world. As for me and my family we are bound back to our roots in a sense.
Just a little sidenote for anyone that might be reading this. If you have support staff that is supporting servers that arent in their datacenter does it make sense that they would have to relocate to a new datacenter that won’t even house the servers that the staff will be supporting?
Sorry for the long rant but it needed to be fleshed out…
