This is going to be a rant, and I doubt it's going to go anywhere, but I feel the need to outline my experience in the hope that it may by chance encourage some discussion at the managerial circle, and improve NCSA's handling of internal operations during Covid and beyond. (Also because it is cathartic in a situation where I feel I was given no voice). I had the privilege of working with NCSA for almost 4 years, and rose through the ranks over my stay there, occupying a number of positions. If there is one thing I think any of my managers/superiors would have said of me, its that I truly believed in the work that we did. I was all-in on the collective goal of helping student athletes make the most of their recruiting and achieve their dreams in college sports. Like any company, Covid abruptly changed how we all needed to operate in order to maintain business. Everyone is struggling to adjust to the new normal, and figuring out how to effectively work from home, and after my sales numbers dipped while on work-from-home orders, I was given a warning that I was being placed on what is referred to as a "Preformance Plan", essentially a probationary period during which an employee must meet specific sales minimums for a set duration or face disciplinary action "up to or including termination." Apparently during Covid, the duration of what had traditionally been the official company policy / probationary period was cut down to an "expedited" timeline, and I recieved no assistance during this time short of my manager telling me that I better get my numbers where they need to be or "we'll be parting ways." Beyond that, there was little communication/clarity on the specifics of this process, and funny enough, I actually believed by the end of this period that I had successfully met the required numbers to breathe a breath of relief that I had kept my job. My Fiancee and I even had a toast over it, which I laugh about now. I was surprised with a morning Zoom appointment for a "Check In" with my manager on an off Wednesday, only to find that when I logged in, my manager was joined by a company HR representative. My manager casually asked me how my morning was going before reading off of a script to tell me that I was being fired. He then got up and walked away from his desk, leaving his webcam displaying video of his empty living room while the HR representative instructed me to mail them back any company equipment that I had at home, and told me that my last paycheck and health insurance would end in ten days. I was in such shock at the surrealism of the situation that I didn't even know what to ask at the time. I assumed that the company would at least make the effort to follow up with some form of written overview of my termination including the official reason / specific breach of policy that initiated it, so that I could at a minimum be able to accurately proceed with the unemployment process. Nothing. The only correspondence I have received to date was an emailed shipping label so I can send them back their phone. So here I am, trying to figure out how to file for unemployment, without health insurance, in the middle of a global health pandemic and the worst job market in decades, and I'm most of all just disappointed in the absolute lack of humanity in the way this was handled. I know everyone has a lot going on right now, and each individual employee cant expect to be the center of attention, but I think this experience really showed an egregious failure to meet the company's core value of "Team First". I will still speak highly of the work that NCSA does as a company. I truly believe that they put good into the world. And at the end of the day, it's a business, I get it. If my sales numbers aren't meeting the threshold at which the company profits from my employment, then it does not make sense to continue to employ me. There are no qualms there. I also applaud NCSA for doing what they could in the early stages of the pandemic to keep us employed, safe/healthy, and avoiding layoffs. I am just profoundly disappointed in how I personally was treated as an employee who has been with the company for almost 4 years of my life, feeling like I was tossed aside like it was nothing and no skin off anyone's back. No humanity in the gravity of the situation whatsoever. There is a signed letter from our President Lisa Strasman still in the office pinned to my desk that has been there since we were sent home for quarantine. It was sent to me on my 3 year anniversary with the company, thanking me for my loyalty and telling me to let her know if there is anything she can ever help with. If this message ever makes it that far up the chain, I ask only that she keep in mind that employees are people, not just statistics. I truly hope this was a one-off failure and that I was the only unlucky recipient of this dehumanising and disrespectful treatment, but a conversation with your managers about handling personnel situations with some level of dignity/reverence, especially in the time of Covid, would go a long way. It means more than you would think.
