Think of it as getting laid off in slow motion

It's not long after Y2k, and the big company where this IT pilot fish works has just been swallowed by an even larger competitor.

"We knew that our time was short," says fish. "But we didn't count on our one saving grace: Their system could only handle seven characters for an employee ID, and ours used eight. They never did figure out how to fix that.

"It was about eight years after we were acquired that they finally called us into the conference room and told us that our jobs had been outsourced. We could go to work for the outsourcer or quit."

To help fish and his cohorts make that decision, the outsourcing company brings in a dog-and-pony show to tell them how great working there is. There are the usual presentations, including testimonials by IT people from another division who were recently outsourced -- and, most important, a catered lunch.

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