“It’s business, not personal”

I’ve been watching two of my favorite movies this week: Godfather, Parts I and II. I’m partial to Part II myself, but Part I has a great scene that reminds me of something I was told the day I was laid off.

It’s the scene where Sonny Corleone and Tom Hagen and others plot their next move after Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo shot their father, Vito, the Godfather. Michael Corleone is also present, after having his jaw broken by a corrupt cop.

Hagen reminds hotheaded Sonny not to get carried away with revenge, that what Sollozzo did was “business, not personal.”

Then Michael, who has so far stayed out of the family business, chimes in, saying he should be the one to kill The Turk and the police captain. Michael insists that it’s not personal, it’s business.

Well, of course, it’s personal. Anybody with a spit of Italian blood in them (like me) knows this is about as personal as it can get. Every decision Michael makes from then on is made from a sense of personal revenge, a lifelong vendetta. His enemies shot his father, killed his brother and blew up his Sicilian bimbo wife (“Michele, Michele." BOOM!). How could he not take that personally? (However, even I think he went too far when he had his brother, the poor, pitiful Fredo, killed.)

Yet, companies insist that massive layoffs are done for business reasons, not anything personal versus their employees. Yeah, right.

During my layoff meeting, I was told it was a business decision and no reflection on my work.

Well, I beg to differ. While I agree companies must cut back in hard times when revenues are lean, how those layoffs are handled bring in a personal element that is unsettling to say the least.

First, why are some people given the power to lay off other people? Why are they the chosen ones?

Any company that laid off people in late 2009, as I was, knew those tossed-aside employees were facing a difficult employment market and would be out of work for a long stretch of time, as I was (16 months). Our lives were being disrupted through no fault of our own.

When someone is out of work for that long, how can they expect to feed their families and pay their mortgages? What companies see as purely a business decision has devastating personal ramifications on the people they put out of work. How is that not personal? But I guess these corporate overlords can justify anything as long as profits are high and their bonuses keep rolling in.

As is so often the case, after I was laid off, I found out some things that made me wonder just how much of the decision to terminate my employment was based on personal, rather than purely business factors. Such as:

Another editor with less time in the company and who was making more than me was retained. Was he more valuable to the company than me? Perhaps. But perhaps he was kept on because he was the boss’s handpicked lapdog.

The day before I was let go, three of my former colleagues argued in favor of keeping another colleague scheduled to be laid off the same day I was. Why? Was it because he was popular and was one of the cool kids? (Yes, the workplace is just like high school.) Or was it because, as I later learned, one of those colleagues was lazy and afraid if they laid off this person his workload would double? So, I was thrown under the bus because of another person’s laziness?

In the two years leading up to my layoff, the head of the department systematically terminated the employment of anyone who was near him in seniority. Again, he said it was because we were making too much money. But was he afraid of having experienced people around who could replace him? After all, he was making more than any of us. Our parent company could replace him with any of us for less money. Now that there is nobody left but only his handpicked puppets and less experienced staff, his job is safe.

He was also someone who didn’t like it when co-workers, particularly women, questioned him. Was he trying to get rid of people he considered troublesome employees so he could surround himself with his personally selected acolytes? Just asking.

So you see, companies may justify their layoffs by saying it’s done for business reasons. But the impact on those they lay off is very personal. And how can we be sure that those making the layoff decisions aren’t bringing in their own personal feelings (vindictiveness? favoritism? insecurity?) into the equation rather than a purely business perspective? It’s a system ripe for unfairness and abuse. How can they expect us not to be pissed off when we get the boot?

Therefore, when a worker is called into a room and told they are being laid off for business reasons, the perfect response would be:

"Vaffanculo"