Alas and alack, I have some updates. Sorry for the delay.
As most of you know, America is in a Recession. That's Recession with a capitol 'R', meaning an actual Recession. This is not to be confused with recession, meaning a scare tactic used by people in politics to frighten their constituents into voting for/against said person/opponent.
I started to feel the first grumblings of this Recession when I was laid off at the end of June. At my new company (where I feel pieces of my soul die a little each day), we've already had two rounds of layoffs in the last 6 months. The latest occurred on January 19, 2009.
Yes, that was not only the day before Obama's historic inauguration, it was also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day--a holiday--and a Monday, to boot.
The worst part was that the HR manager didn't begin laying people off until around 10:30 am, which meant the unsuspecting souls (and roughly 10% of our office) who were let go, did between 2 and 3 hours of work before they were escorted out of the building. Escorted out of the building.
I didn't even know anything was going on until a friend of mine sent me a message on gchat:
"Are you still with the company?!" she wrote.
"WHAT? Yes--I think so. Are you? Are people getting laid off right now???" I replied.
"Yes! And Yes!" she typed.
This is how our company communicates important pieces of information.
To use a word from my former company's CEO, it's an "organic" way to do things. I don't know what organic means to you, but to me it means delicious fruit and vegetables that contain no preservatives. Synonym: natural. When used in the context of business, I think it means that higher ups would rather have people gossip and speculate than talk frankly with their staff.
Keep in mind, when I asked my boss what was going on she replied, "It's a layoff. You just have to get through it."
Which, of course, left me wondering if I was one of the people who'd be let go in the next hour.
To me, there is nothing natural about this type of behavior. Maybe it's because the big wigs are afraid of people going aggro. But if it were up to me, after I laid off 10% of my office, I would do everything I could to ensure the peace of mind of my remaining employees.
But, just like Michael Scott on last night's episode of The Office, I would have a really hard time handing over the client list of Prince Paper, too.
I guess Corporate America and I just don't see eye to eye. And in the wake of a staggering number of people on unemployment, I wonder who does.
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2 comments:
Nice post, Jessie. I totally feel you on this. Believe it or not, big companies often wait until the late afternoon to notify employees that they're being laid off. They do this for a couple reasons. #1 - Publicly traded companies prefer to announce layoffs after the markets close, so that less knee-jerk reaction trading occurs. By announcing after the market closes for the day, it gives investors a chance to evaluate the situation before making any decisions. #2 - Doing it in the late afternoon also makes it easier for the employee to wait until after work hours to clean out their space, while also having some time to say goodbye to remaining coworkers.
It's an imperfect system for sure, so communicating the news in a clear, professional manner is absolutely critical. As an HR professional, I'm sorry that it didn't happen like that.
Nice to see you posting again!!!
look who's back at it -- an i am loving it :) great post, good words - about a bad thing. you keep up this writing thing, you are great at it and it is a great release for you! keep it up! --stacy
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