So, I was one of the poor slobs who got the axe in mid-October. My performance evaluations were always very good (never anything lower than "Meets Expectations" and frequently higher), I was very efficient and good at my job, and was pretty well liked by my co-workers.
But I was also a legacy DIRECTV guy still working on that side of the business. And with T's (well, Stink's) spectacularly horrible and incompetent management, the writing was on the wall for me and every other poor DTV guy who got reamed by the acquisition. I mean, seriously, how completely incompetent does management have to be to take the pay TV leader and turn it into the poorest performing service - losing more customers faster than Cox or Spectrum or Comcast or the other pay services - in only 5 years? Way to go, Stink!
Anyway, three weeks later I managed to get an offer for a new gig at a 15% higher wage. I don't know whether it's because of luck, timing, that T simply doesn't value competent employees, or a combination of all of those, but my unemployment was (very thankfully) short.
My point is that there are other options, and if you are facing, or have recently been eliminated in order to cover for Stink's running the Titanic into an iceberg, don't panic. There are jobs out there. I got lucky by finding something quick, but I can also say the feeling of seeing T fade into the background is great. The only thing better than knowing I'm no longer a part of that toxic, mismanaged dumpster fire was when I cancelled every single one of the T services and getting to tell the poor phone agent that I will never even consider coming back until Stink is gone and someone competent takes over.
I will miss the free DTV service. But I'm already getting over it.