The Firing Season

Ah, fall. A time of tumbling orange leaves, pumpkins and apple cider, tweed and corduroy, cooler weather (except somebody forgot to tell the humidity here in the mid-Atlantic), and football (go Jets!).

It’s a time of crisp bright days that seem to close in as the daylight sneaks out earlier and earlier.

It’s also a time of hurricanes and mass layoffs.

It’s true. Nearly every time my former company undertook layoffs it was during the fall season, usually around Thanksgiving (as was the case with my sister), or in my case, Christmas.

It makes sense: The All White Males Club at every company is currently budgeting for next year. What better time to get expenses down by laying off employees now so they don’t have to pay them into the new year.

So watch the employment numbers that come out in the next few months. Don’t be surprised if the unemployment rolls suddenly spike.

I used to love the fall. It was always my favorite season; never could get adjusted to the heat of summer or driving in snow in winter.

Now, while I welcome the cooler temps, I wonder and worry: Will it happen again this year? Will I be one of the workers deemed expendable by my employer?

Because although autumn has many admirable qualities, it does portend that winter is coming.

And it just may be a long, cold winter for many of us.

Confessions of a Free-Food Junkie

I admit it. I’m a shameless whore for free food.

I cannot tell you how many times I have embarrassed myself, family, friends and co-workers with my uncontrollable urge to get any kind of vittles gratis.

Now, that doesn’t mean I steal from the office fridge. Never. And I always pay my own way when having lunch or dinner with a friend.

What I’m talking about are scarfing down free food samples at grocery stores and the mall food court. Whatever they offer, I’ll bite. Even if I don’t particularly like it. Cause, hey, it’s free!

Now what does this have to do with employment (or unemployment) in the 2010s? Well, it goes back to a previous post on how my employer is too cheap to let we mere cubicle serfs have free water bottles. Oh, no, those are only reserved for upper management and visitors.

So the other day, the All While Males Club at my office had a meeting. Because it would be too much to ask the big kahunas to go out and pay for their own lunch, a platter of sandwiches was ordered. Heavens! We can’t let them get too peckish while they decide who stays and who gets laid off.

I was working late that day. And I saw the half-full sandwich platter in the fridge. Being hungry, as I always am, yep, I took half a sandwich. I ate it. For free.

No one noticed, and the next day the platter was left out with a sign inviting everyone to take a sandwich if they wanted. A day later. Just enough time for the salmonella to set in. I didn’t take one that day, although I availed myself of the fruit that was also ordered along with the sandwiches.

But it got me thinking again how cheap employers are. Why not order two or three platters for the entire office? Would it have cost that much more? Maybe, or maybe not.

It also reeks like rotten cheese of the disdain upper management has for their workers. We don’t even deserve an occasional free lunch? Only the high and mighty, the ones with the highest salaries, get that perk?

So next time you see leftover food from one of their silly meetings, I say, go for it. Grab that free food with gusto. It may be one of the few benefits you will ever get from those cheap bastards.

Burp!

Workplace Tragedy

This is a very difficult entry for me to write.

By now, most everyone has read about the laid-off worker who killed his former colleague outside the Empire State Building in New York City.

This is a tragedy for the victim’s family, of course. I don’t want to minimize the pain they must be going through.

However, the minute I heard this story, I thought (selfishly, I admit), “Oh, no, now everyone is going to assume that all laid-off workers are crazy. Just another reason for companies not to hire unemployed people.”

But let’s get the facts straight. From what I read, the person who did this shooting obviously had mental problems. He and the person he shot had had physical altercations at the workplace in the past. So my question is, did someone from the HR department try to mediate that situation? I cannot hold an HR person responsible for spotting an unhinged employee who may be prone to violence, but if two workers have a physical altercation in the office that is a pretty obvious sign there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

It also seemed, from the stories I read after the shooting, that he was an isolated person. Perhaps if there were a relative or friend he could have spoken to about his upset after the layoff, he may have sought counseling, or gotten help in finding another job.

It further seems to me that this was a troubled man who was possibly pushed over the edge by losing his job. We can never know for sure. The man was laid off a year before the shooting, which would indicate his life was in a downward spiral for quite some time.

But to lump all laid-off workers as crazy because of this one incident is wrong and an unfair slime on the millions of good workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. It reminds me of movies back in the ‘70s and ‘80s when all the villains were crazed Vietnam veterans.

Nearly every laid-off worker I know simply packs up their desk, applies for unemployment and tries to find another job. They did not buy a gun and shoot up their former workplace. (The incident also points to the need for better gun control, but that’s for another blog.)

Of the people I worked with who were laid off, the only one who came remotely close to doing anything hostile was a jettisoned co-worker who wrote nasty emails to a former boss. His actions were unfortunate and ill-advised and he was slapped with a cease and desist order. I agree, he should never have written those emails. But I don’t think his actions ever crossed over into threatening or violent. I think he was more angry and frustrated and expressed it in the only way he could.

For the record, I do not condone physical violence of any sort and will never own a gun. Verbal snaps are about as far as I’ll go and by any standard, my heated comments are rare, pretty mild and never insulting. And no, despite my anger over being let go, I think unfairly, I never wrote any nasty emails to former co-workers. What would be the point?

But back to the shooting in New York City. Several articles after the incident did say that losing one’s job is a traumatic experience and care should be taken when letting workers go. Companies, though, seem to think it's not a big deal and is only being done to save their own skins. They don't care what laid-off employees think or feel. So who's really the bad person?

Yet I concede it would be hard for any HR person to know which employee will snap and resort to violence after they lose their job.

Nevertheless, in this instance, there were some definite indications this man was troubled. As I said before, this man got into a physical fight with the co-worker he eventually killed. How could an HR person miss that sign? Part of their job is to handle workplace disputes; it involves more than just making sure forms are signed correctly so the company can legally lay off employees. Most employer health plans have mental health hotlines, so why wasn’t this man referred to one after he got into that fight?

As far as workers having grievances against their employers, one commentator pointed out that most workers today are being mistreated and overworked by their companies. Yet nearly all do not snap or resort to violence.

And if companies are so worried about violence against them by the people they so callously dump, there are some very simple solutions to that potential problem:

• Make sure your company is run properly so there is enough revenue to keep good workers employed.
• Treat us with respect.

That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Buddy, Can You Spare a Water Bottle?

Something happened at work recently that was a stark and rather sad reminder of how dismissive employers are of their workers.

There was a stack of water bottles in the kitchen. Thinking said water bottles were meant for the staff, I put two in the refrigerator to cool. But when I went back later, there was a sign on the rack of bottles:

Please do no take. These bottles are only meant for meetings and visitors.

Oh, now I get it. When the big kahunas have meetings or a visitor comes to the office, they get the water bottles, but the rest of us mere cubicle dwellers cannot.

So I apologized to the office manager and put the water bottles back. But I was steamed.

Aren’t we part of the staff? Are visitors more important to the company than we are, the people who are actually putting together the products and services that are generating the firm’s revenues? It just says to us that management does not think we are very important.

Yes, we have a water cooler in the office. Why can’t they just get a cup of water from that? It’s good enough for us, but not for upper management and visitors?

Despite the tone of this blog, I actually do understand why companies have to make personnel cuts in choppy economic times. I understand why they cannot give out raises or year-end bonuses in certain years.

I don’t expect much in the way of extras. I can do without summer company picnics and pizza Fridays.

I also believe that the biggest (non)perk of all should be outlawed: the company holiday party with an open bar. I have been to too many of those where I’ve been ignored by the cool kids and watched co-workers get drunk and nasty. Ug. Then there was my all-time low point for a company holiday party: The time a crazybitch colleague screamed at me because she thought I somehow messed with a CD she wanted to dance to. Yes, she was drunk. For the record, I was simply retrieving a CD I brought to the event and had no idea she was waiting to dance. But what really got me was that she was going to dance with a bunch of other women. George Clooney wasn’t out there waiting for her.

I’d rather go for a root canal.

But water bottles? Come on. We workers put up with a lot…no raises, crappy health plans and double workloads, all for the sake of a steady paycheck. But this is so, well, cheap.

Are things that bad, or does the company think so little of us, that they cannot give us bottles of better water? 

Loyalty is a One-Way Street

We are in the dog days of summer and my beloved Mets are doing their annual second-half flop to last place. So naturally my thoughts turn to football, and that brings me to…Peyton Manning.

Yes, the same Peyton Manning who was unceremoniously dumped by his former team, the Indianapolis Colts last year. Even after he brought the team a Super Bowl title and did nothing but play like a superstar for the Colts, management decided to go with a younger quarterback.

Not that I can’t blame the Colts. Manning is, after all, well into his 30s and coming off neck surgery. In sports, younger is better. And there was the not insignificant matter of a $28-million bonus the team would have owed him had they kept him on the roster. (Odd isn't it, that the same management that agreed to that ridiculous clause used it as a reason for not keeping him.)

Yet I can’t feel too sorry for Manning, either. He signed on with the Denver Broncos for about $90 million. Not exactly chump change.

Nevertheless, the whole incident shows just how little loyalty employers have toward their employees, even the great ones. Loyalty between employers and employees is a one-way street nowadays. Employers expect workers to be loyal to the company yet they give us no loyalty in return.

Companies know employees can’t move easily to others jobs; therefore, they know we must put up with little or no raises, bad working conditions and high-deductible health plans. Really, some deductibles are so high that the only way anyone could meet those numbers is to get hit by a truck.

If we complain? Too bad, say bosses. If you don’t like it find something else. But they know we can’t. The general attitude is we are lucky to have a job.

And what are companies giving workers in return?

Cue the sound of crickets chirping…

Not much. Companies have made it very clear they will cut workers en masse when it suits them, even if we are doing a good job. Their loyalty is to the bottom line, not us.

So we sit in our cubicles and seethe, waiting and hoping for the economy to turn and create more jobs.

Because when the economy does turn, and eventually it will, it always does, how much loyalty do we think we are going to show our employers?

Good Review. So What?

After 16 months out of work and 16 months into my new job, I finally got a performance review. You know, those employee-crushing exercises in management power plays in which you are told nothing you did is good enough and impossibly high goals are set for next year. What a joy!

Fortunately, I’m happy to report, my most recent review was quite good, glowing even. Hey, after my brutal layoff and some nasty, nitpicking performance evaluations in the past, I’ll take it. The opposite is too unpleasant to think about.

I even got a raise…2.5%. Not much, but anything helps at this point. I can’t keep dipping into my savings every month.

Nevertheless, as my best friend would say, “So the fuck what.”

I’m no longer naïve enough to believe doing a good job will save my position when cutbacks come. Right now, I know at my company, the All White Males Club is evaluating the entire organization. Who knows what positions they will decide to hack? Will they keep the good workers or save their cronies?

I will say this again, in today’s workplace doing a good job is no guarantee you will keep your job. Unfair? Yes, but that’s the way it is.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to do good work. In my new job, I’ve worked my formerly unemployed butt off, been helpful to co-workers, kept my mouth shut and haven’t make any major mistakes. I came close to getting reamed out once, but it didn’t happen because I happened to be working on what the manager wanted. Whew!

Yet, if they decide to eliminate my position, it won’t matter one iota.

Which brings me to the subject of an upcoming post: Loyalty—A One Way Street.

Bitterness is My Brand

As any reader (hello, are you out there?) of this blog has probably surmised by now, I’m pretty bitter about my layoff. OK, a lot bitter.

Please, bear with me and hear me out about why I still have lingering bitterness over my layoff.

In our society, we are not supposed to be bitter or angry. We’re supposed to forgive those who have wronged us. Get over it and move on is the advice most people would give you after something bad, like a layoff, has happened to you. If you are angry or bitter, it will only hurt your long-term happiness, so said one guy I used to work with (who wasn’t laid off). Easy for him to say; he still had a job. What about my long-term happiness without an income stream?

Yet I wonder if that is the best or most realistic advice. It’s easy to say the words “I forgive you,” but unless you truly feel them in your heart, you cannot heal and you’re just fooling yourself.

That old saying, “Time heals all wounds” is certainly true. Why should we be so quick to forgive anyway? It’s almost like a double-hurt: You want to forgive and get over it, because that’s what everybody says you should do, but you can’t. The pain is still there. Then you feel bad because you can’t forgive.

You feel like a bad person because you cannot forgive, at least not yet. No, you are not a bad person. You are merely dealing with a painful situation in your own way, in your own time.

For some people, it may take only days or weeks to forgive. For others, forgiveness may take a much longer time, possibly years. It’s really up to the individual and how they process the hurt and pain of being thrown out of a job and being unemployed for a long stretch of time.

And do we have to forgive everything? Yes, I forgive the young driver who skidded on a wet road surface and dented my car. It was not done intentionally and it really wasn’t his fault.

Forgiving my douchebag former bosses for putting me out of work in favor of people with less experience and higher paychecks is taking a lot longer. Perhaps if I knew the true reasons behind my layoff I could understand why they did what they did and forgive them. But I doubt I’ll ever get a truthful answer, so I’m left to wonder why and that’s hurtful.

Maybe if the actual termination had been handled a bit more humanely I would not feel so, well, bitter. No I was essentially told I was there too long, making too much money, so clean out my desk and leave. No thank you for 16-plus years of hard work.

Yes, I’ve thought long and hard about what I did that may have led to my layoff. Were my poor tech skills to blame? Maybe. Did all those petty tiffs I had with co-workers finally come back to haunt me? Possibly.

Although I’ll never know why, I have taken my new job as a second chance and tried to upgrade my tech skills, making better progress than I would have ever thought (although I will never be a tech person). I’ve worked hard to get along with co-workers (even when they really should be bitch-slapped) and have been quite successful. Whenever I’ve felt myself falling back on bad habits, I’ve quickly changed my behavior.

And I can honestly say that the bitterness over my layoff is peeling away from me, thin layer after thin layer. I’ve forgiven most of the bosses and co-workers who threw me under the bus. I understand why they did what they did and I forgive them and wish them well. I don’t want anything to do with them anymore, but I do forgive them.

The only one I cannot forgive is the head of the company, a truly despicable human being who uses his position to abuse other people to compensate for his own unhappiness and shortcomings. Instead of trying to make the company more profitable, he preferred to go out drinking with his buddies and lay off other people to save himself. Someday, he will be held accountable for his actions.

For many months, I wished the company would go under. But not anymore. That doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon, so why hope for it. Besides, I don’t want to see the many good, hardworking people I used to work with out of a job. Yes, they choose to stay, but I don’t want to see them unemployed because the head of the company has no clue how to make the business profitable.

As far as me being bitter, well, most of my bitterness has been expressed to former co-workers who were also laid off. Those were private conversations between colleagues and it went no further. During job interviews, I certainly never expressed any bitterness toward my former company. I simply said I was let go for economic reasons.

The only time I let my bitterness and anger get the better of me was when I told my former boss one of the editors used a story I wrote a year-and-a-half earlier. But that was clearly plagiarism. I also felt they kicked sand in my face by letting her do that. I mean, if my work wasn’t good enough to justify continued employment, then why was a story I wrote being used again?

What happened to her? I regretfully report that she was let go. I don’t feel good about getting someone fired, but even she later admitted she was the cause of her termination. (Yes, I told her what I had done and apologized. I honestly felt they would simply give her a slap on the wrist.) I still feel awful about it, although she quickly got another job (helped by the head of my former company who wouldn’t lift a hand to help me) and seems happy.

Still, I learned a valuable lesson. When we take action out of bitterness and anger, other people can get hurt.

All the more reason I need to forgive my former bosses…and maybe, just maybe, myself.