The Corporation Made Me Do It

Back in the ‘60s there was a TV show called “Laugh In.” (Yes, I’m that old.) It was basically a quick comedy-sketch show; think of “Saturday Night Live” on speed. It was also the show that launched Goldie Hawn’s career.

The program spawned a number of popular catch phrases, like Here comes the judge! Another one was, The devil made me do it.

In 2012, I think we can change that to, The Corporation Made Me Do It. Because in our No-Fault times, somebody else is always to blame for our failings, be it cheating, deliberately hurting another person, or running a company into the ground and having to lay off scores of workers.

Soon after I was laid off, an acquaintance who gave me freelance work told me my former boss told him that he really didn’t want to lay me off. The implication being that somebody else higher up in the company forced him to do it. In other words, The Corporation Made Me Do It.

Well, as my late mother would say, bull throw.

I’m sure our parent company told him to cut staff and products, but it was up to him and the other managers to decide who stayed and who was cut. From what I saw, they pretty much kept their drinking buddies and handpicked lapdogs.

He could have kept me if he wanted. But he chose to keep another editor with less seniority and less experience in the industry. Why? Because she is, like him, a heavy drinker and somebody he knew would never question his edicts.

The whole thing stinks of what Jacqueline on the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” calls blame shifting. Like blaming a bad economy for layoffs. Or too much regulation...or my mother was a bitch. Somebody or something else is always to blame for our failures. It's time we took responsibility for our actions and accept the consequences. 

Yes, the recession forced a lot of companies to cut staff. But not all did. My former boss was too busy going to happy hours to figure out a way to save the company. When the economy crashed, he simply took the easy way out and cut staff.

Yet simply cutting staff only eliminates expenses; it doesn’t automatically make a company profitable.

And if a company like the one I used to work for depended on advertising revenue, why not try to find new sources of revenue? Or perhaps what they really needed was new ad salespeople.

But, no, only one low-level salesperson was let go. The blithering idiot who is supposed to be the head of sales was kept because–you guessed it—he was the boss’s favorite drinking buddy.

There is also this theory that it is just as hard for companies to let go of workers and how painful it is for managers to let go of staff. Again, bull throw.

I can understand how it would be difficult to tell someone they are being laid off. But to equate it with what the dumped employee is going through is a stretch. For what is merely a bad hour or so in your day can lead to months and years of unemployment for the person you are terminating. There is no comparison. You still have a job, health insurance and the possibility of getting a raise.

And to act like we’re not supposed to be upset about it is also unrealistic.

But I’d like to tell you a God’s-honest, swear on my parent’s gravesite true story. The head of the parent company of my former workplace used to write a blog. Soon after I and others were laid off, there was an item about the cuts in one of those media gossip sites. (I didn’t give them the information, but my former boss blamed me anyway.)

Someone in the larger company saw the item and commented about it in the CEO’s blog, asking if cuts were coming in her department, too. (Such empathy! I mean, who cares about the poor slobs who were laid off. What about me?)

The CEO wrote back that no one else was going to get laid off. (Whew!) That our department was hard hit by the economy and he was sorry to see so many talented people let go.

Oh, yes, by all means, dump the talented workers and keep the morons.

But that isn’t what bothered me the most. What really irked me was his false sympathy for us, the people he threw out of jobs. He obviously didn’t care. He wanted to get rid of the entire department, which sent my immediate boss into a panic of willy-nilly staff cuts to save himself and his drinking buddies.

Like my boss, he wanted to protect his larger part of the company, which wasn’t doing very well financially either. It must be grand to get other people to take the fall so you can save yourself and don't have to assume responsibility for your poor decisions. My former boss is still there. Any other CEO who presided over the near collapse of a company would have been long gone.

Ah, but there is the Rule of Karma. About two years ago, that CEO resigned from the company. No specific reason was given (there never is), but it was pretty obvious he was forced out because the company was doing poorly.

So what goes around, comes around…