I have now figured out what the BIB (=Big Investment Bank) layoffs mean to our project. At the time I was engaged, the project manager was in London. Now that he has been laid off, and the new project manager is located in New York, there is no need for a QA Manager in the London office. It is difficult to hear things going on in meetings due to BIB’s crap infrastructure around teleconferencing. The new project manager is an insecure manager and an inexperienced project manager. He issues orders to my people himself rather than asking me to get a task done (and we were engaged to provide a service, not supply bodies to be at BIB’s beck and call).
I am recommending to my management that they remove me from the project and put an equivalent into the New York office. And no, that will not be me.
Doesn’t bother me very much, as I keep getting enquiries from job recruiters. But it would have been an interesting project, so it’s sad that it’s come to this.