Nicholas Whitehead signs on the dotted line and takes voluntary redundancy after 11 years at ITV Wales
I’ve done it. I’ve sent the email that will end my employment.
I work for ITV, the major independent TV network in the United Kingdom. Most of the staff at ITV are sales people, managers, administrators and accountants but I am one of those lucky people who actually make programmes. I am a journalist/producer and I’ve worked for ITV for eleven years. When the company announced a round of voluntary redundancies, I put my name forward.
After weeks of waiting, I received the email from Human Resources in London. It was a very simple memo which I had to print out, sign, scan back in and return. “Please delete as appropriate,” it said. The next line was “I confirm that I wish to accept voluntary redundancy.”
Using my favourite pen*, I deleted the words: “I do not wish to accept voluntary redundancy” and signed on the dotted line. The signature looked fine. Cheerful even.
I felt very calm and businesslike as I scanned the signed form into my ITV-issue MacBook Pro. I wrote a brief, polite email to this person in HR I’d never previously heard of and attached the signed memo. It was ready to go.
I considered the touchpad on the computer. I could say that this small, silvery square looked like a swimming pool seen from the top of a skyscraper and I was about to jump. But it didn’t really feel like that. It just felt like the right thing to do. I held the middle finger of my right hand over the touchpad and said aloud “One, two, three …” and smartly tapped the pad.
“Your email has been sent,” said a little message on the screen. Right then.
I hope that whatever I get right and wrong in the coming months will be of some use to anyone considering a similar move. More soon.
* Oh, it’s a Yard-o-Led.
Follow Nicholas’ journey into life after ITV Wales at: misterwhitehead.com