Outsourcing and cruising

In our staff meeting today, there was a discussion about the upcoming outsourcing offer letter briefing session this Friday. Generally everyone is a bit apprehensive about the offer. Everyone is feeling that they might get the short end of the stick in terms of the benefits offered. It was truely demoralizing to say the least. I mean ... we've been working in the same company for years and suddenly now we feel so expendable just because some higher muckity muck want to see better profits per quarter. What they should do is stop giving the BOD those inflated annual bonuses that every body else feel that they didn't earn.

In away, with this oursourcing program, this marks an end of an era for me personally. Up to now, I've felt pretty secure in my position and future outlook. Now all of the things that I value, security and possibilities, are being yanked out from under me. It's truely a scary thing to have to go through. Suddenly I'm faced with lingering doubts whether I made the correct decision to not leave the company with better terms much earlier. I really hate this second guessing and yet that basically all that I can think about!

BTW .... read an article today that was forwarded to the JS mailinglist. The article which appeared in a local newspaper basically points out to the public most of the cruising places for the local gays in Klang Valley. The detail description leads me to the conclusion that the sender must have close connections to PLU or one of us himself. Like it our not, all our hang outs have been outed for all the public to know. No doubt that there will be more scrutiny to people who frequent these places. What I worry more is that now that they are known, would we expect more trouble in the form of raids by the local authorities or even groups of gay-bashers on site? Will we be safe going there anymore?

I actually just got to know about these places just a few months ago and have never been there personally. From what little I know, these places are the only places that PLUs feel comfortable to congregate in large numbers. Now that they are put in the spotlight, where will we turn to next? In a way, the security and comfort has been violated by the writer of that article. Little by little, they take away the thing that we relate to and in the end we'll be left with nothing to hold on to. What happens then?