When my husband was approached to take on a mangement role at QANTAS Defence Services, he was enthusiastic about the opportunity and I admit that I was never keen for him to take the role. He was unhappy with his previous job, but this particular role meant that we had to move from Sydney to Canberra. That was devastating for me because I had made so many friends in Sydney.
Well here it is 18 months after he started that job, and on Friday he was visited by the grim reaper. He was told that he was being retrenched. There have been cuts across the board at QANTAS. What is odd and even bad about all of this happens to be that this is a small business unit and it should not be touched by these other decisions.
However, at the same time that my husband joined QDS the old general manager retired and the new man was someone who has no military background. The unit looks after Department of Defence and it is not possible to run this particular business without having people who have knowledge of the Defence Forces and the Department of Defence. The new manager, being without that background certainly does not have the understanding of the customer. Instead of fighting to keep his staff this manager has offered up my husband for the chopping block. It is all politics because my husband was on a high income.
This is the first time that he has faced this situation. It is not the first time for me. I have gone through this particular mill on several occasions. It is not very nice and it is a real blow to self-esteem. It is worse now because we are both in the older age-group.
My husband has the skills to find and do any work that comes his way. What QANTAS has done is to leave themselves without a person with that particular skill set. It is their loss and I doubt that the business unit concerned will be around for too much longer into the future. When my husband leaves there will be two more people with military backgrounds who will remain targets for future retrenchment. You cannot beat after all a corporate culture that is so well entrenched – a belief in their own invincibility such that fresh ideas are not wanted, especially if that fresh approach points up the flaws of the old way.
It will not surprise me, if in my lifetime QANTAS ends up not being able to survive in a competitive market of the future. They have too many ingrained old ideas that they refuse to give up so that they can become a great company of the future. It is not just about my husband that I say this, but it is about all the people that they tell to leave, the ones who have necessary skills to help them to move in the right direction, leaving behind staff whose only claim to the job is that their mothers and fathers held QANTAS jobs before they joined the company.
