Our group keeps hearing that is what will happen to us Monday. Of course we haven’t been told anything officially because everything has to be a secret. They’ve known for weeks how many and who is going, but they “can’t” tell. I don’t know how these dept heads can look any one in the eye when they pass us in the hall.

Wonderful isn’t my wife who is in that department gets to have her personal meeting at 8 am. I can not think of a better way for Inbev to say Merry Christmas then to layer off over a 1000 employees right before christmas. Somewhere down the road Inbev is going to see their own stupidity and realize we just layed off the people that have made A.B the company that it was, but hey who cares the big stockerholders got their money and the economy continues to spiral downward as another ONCE great company lays off more people. One can only hope that american will realize before it is to late that this so called global economy is starting to leave america out of it.

I’m staying home on Friday also. Additionally a source up high(really up high) told me look for an additional 1500 people to lose jobs in mid to late 09.

budselectlady - as a manager, but not for ABInBev, who sometimes “can’t” tell bad news to staff, it can be hard to look staff members in the eye. The bad news may not be happening to me directly, but it still tears me up personally. I care about my employees, and want them to have good things. Unfortunately, the responsibilities of my job sometimes also involve delivering bad news.

This has been happening all year at Citimortgage out in O’Fallon, MO. Same stuff. I am not a manager, but I know it tears them up to have to do it at this time of year. It sucks, but its business. What stinks in our case is a falling stock price, making all our Sandy Weill-inspired stock options worthless.
Hopefully, some of the “impacted” AB employees were able to reap the rewards of the InBev stock buyout.

I don’t understand why companies can not be straight with people.

I have been told by co-workers that when they did a mass layoff at my current company 5-6 years ago, everyone knew something was coming. They gathered everyone into two conference rooms. Then after everyone was assembled, everyone in room A was let go, and everyone in room B got to stay. It was like some episode of American Idol!

Why do these companies feel the need to play games with people? I mean, was it really necessary to make the people from “room B” think that they were being let go and worry themselves sick only to be told - nope, just kidding! It just seems sick.

City, Sounds like they were straight with them, not sure what you would expect. No matter how a company lays off people someone will find fault in the way they do it. It’s never pleasant no matter how it is done.

I’m sure not a whole lot of work is being done at AB since they announced the layoff so basically it gives people time to maybe do something like get their resume in order and contact recruiters.

Because City, someone may just decide to sabotage a database, or a piece of machinery, or steal something, or who knows what else. The vast majority of people wouldn’t dream of being like that, but it does happen, so the company protects itself.

I’m not saying companies can’t handle it better either. But when you are talking about people’s jobs, there is obviously an incredible amount of emotion interwined with the whole proceeding.

Has anyone ever watched the movie “Office Space” where the two ‘lean’ people come in. The employees have to go in and interview for the job they already have b/c they are trying to find people to eliminate. And one employee, Peter, flips out and tells how it really is- and ends up getting a promotion. This sounds like the same situation, except i don’t think theres a happy ending for people in AB’s case, especially so close to Christmas.

I am scratching my head. You have all had front row seats to local mergers. Maybe even knew someone involved in losing their jobs at TWA, Macy’s, etc… Did you really think that a multinational merger would be any kinder and gentler? Do you also think that anyone is any more remorseful for firing all of you at Christmas? Noppers.

For any of you who are questioning whether you still have a job needs to look no further than InBev’s corporate chart. All duplication will be eliminated. If someone from InBev had a similar responsibility pre-merger then you will be liquidated.

Funny. Years ago AB did something more insidious than selling the company - they sold out their employees. The Busch’s for years and years and years had a chummy board of directors that for all intents and purposes allowed the family to run the company not as a public corporation but as a family owned business.

Need proof? August A. Busch IV as CEO. The “beautiful one” in charge of AB’s future. Really? The family owning less than 6% of stock? Incredible.

Fear not. I am sure that the Busch family, flush from their hundreds of millions of dollars generated through stock options will be glad to help you through this tough time.
Good luck.