Re-orgs can be good. But I dont care. The topic of the post is why re-orgs suck. (next one will be why re-org is cool but thats later). Anyways, The last week has been a banner week for re-orgs. Couple of very important companies went through reorgs - one very publicly and the other more privately . . . (one starting with Y and the other starting with e). Speaks volumes about the number of mercaneries in these companies on the way these re-orgs are handled so differently.

So, here we go, why re-orgs suck:

1. just when you finally learn how to kiss your manager’s ass, he/she gets re-assigned to China for an ultra “secret project” to take on Baidu/Alibaba/QQ/NetEase etc (aka career suicide)

2. just when you are finally ready to present your “strategy” deck, the new presentation template got re-vamped too (to web friendly colors)

3. packing cubes

4. headhunters who call and offer you your last job (from 3 years ago)

5. Make executives feel useful (and consulting firms paid), but the TPS reports stays

6. You spent the last few ounces of your political capital re-aligning yourself with the “hot new” VP just to have him be left with 10 reports after the re-org. (you are one of the ten)

7. Newly re-orged VP takes over your project and declares himself (and the project) the savior - while you are left packing your cube

8. Farewell emails

9. Techcrunch didnt publish your memo . . . and no one gave it a cool nickname. In fact, people just called it an email . . . it never reached the status of a “memo”, much less one with a cool nickname.

10. New asses to kiss