Behind the Numbers

It was a brief item in the newspaper, no more than 100 words. Morgan Stanley is planning 1,600 layoffs.

I’m not sure if I hadn’t been laid off myself, I would have even noticed the headline. But having been of one of those numbers personally, I look at such news items much differently.

I don’t just see the numbers. I see a middle manager who has to go home and tell his wife and children he longer has a job and they aren’t going to buy as much as they did before; a single middle-aged cancer survivor worries about how she will pay for health insurance; a 20-something in an entry level job has to move back home and put his adult life on hold.

Just this week, our company cut two product lines and terminated nine people. This recession is far from over. More layoffs are coming and I don’t see an end to it as long as corporations want profits more than want to employ people.

You see, there are real people, with real lives, behind those numbers. But how often are they given a voice, how often are their stories told? No, it’s usually just a number (and a rather shockingly large one) and some corporate spin about cutting expenses to please shareholders and Wall Street analysts, as if those are the only people that matter.

To be fair, the mainstream media has written about the human cost of layoffs, if only occasionally. Scott Pelley of CBS News has done some fantastic stories for 60 Minutes. One focused on a single father with two kids living in his van; another was on a family living in a motel room in Florida. He did another feature on a southern town devastated by the economic downturn and how it was slowly coming back to life.

Not too long ago, HBO aired a documentary on how layoffs devastated a group of people on Long Island. One man who had lost his job contracted a virus and died.

However sad, it’s good to see these stories of the long-term unemployed being told. Good to see us portrayed not as freeloading losers, but educated, hard-working people who just got caught in an economic malaise that rendered us useless to your former employers.

My only quibble with these stories is that they focus near exclusively on white, middle-class Americans. Surely people of color have been hit even harder by the lingering recession. Let’s tell their stories as well.

Considering how many people have lost their jobs since 2009, there is no shortage of stories. Whenever there is a natural disaster, like a hurricane or tornado, the media always focuses on the people who lost their homes. But when there is an economic calamity, precious little is said about the impact on those who have lost their livelihood, even though those people could lose their homes just as surely as someone hit by a flood or tornado.

Perhaps it’s because Corporate America doesn’t want the focus on the harsh human cost of their layoffs: the home foreclosures, the lack of health care, the families that are sinking lower and lower on the economic scale, busted retirement savings, and so much more.

No, we mustn’t think about them, not when there are corporate profits to be made.

“It’s not personal, it’s business,” Part 2

“When people say it’s business, it’s not personal, well that just means it’s not personal for them.”

--RA Dickey, major league pitcher

Never were truer words spoken about a corporation from a soon-to-be discarded employee. Soon after RA Dickey uttered those words at his former team’s Christmas party, the Mets traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays for a bunch of so-called high-ceiling prospects.

When I read that quote, I couldn’t help but think ruefully back to the day I was laid off. On cue, I was given the “it’s a business decision, it has nothing to do with your work” line. And we’re expected to swallow that bullcrap?

How many times are laid-off employees given that line? To the company, it may be simply a business decision, but to the person being kicked to the curb, it’s very personal indeed. The same company you were so loyal to for many years has rejected you. You’ve lost your paycheck and possibly much more. You’re entire life and livelihood has been throw into disarray. Yet we can’t express an ounce of resentment about it or even question the decision. Why not?

Many commentators pointed out that Dickey probably should not have expressed his displeasure over the pace of contract negotiations with the Mets at the team’s Christmas party, a party attended by kids displaced by Superstorm Sandy. I partially agree with that. He could have selected another, more appropriate venue to vent his frustration. He later apologized for that.

But I can’t fault him for giving his honest answer when asked the question.

Nor can I fault the Mets for making the trade either. Yes, Dickey was asking for a fair contract extension, but chances are the Mets would have risen no further than fourth place in the division in 2013 with him. Once the team let it be known they were willing to trade him, it left open the possibility that another team would come along and disgorge its farm system for a Cy Young award winner.

In reality, Dickey was their most tradable commodity. The team was also dealing from a position of strength. Despite their horrid season in 2012, their starting pitching was relatively decent. Trading one of their younger pitchers made no sense.

And I believe that despite what he said, the Mets would have kept Dickey had not a team made an appealing trade offer. Lots of harsh things are said in contract negotiations. Even in a losing season, he put fannies in the seats every five days. Management was not going to turn away those dollars.

But just because a company can justify layoffs from a business sense doesn’t mean the workers left out in the cold can’t be hurt by their actions. And that goes for desk drones or famous athletes.

Will Dickey win 20 games for Toronto? It’s possible, but not probable. Will those prospects pan out as major league stars? Too soon to say.

Nevertheless, I was sorry to see Dickey go and I applaud him for expressing his true feelings. When a company is getting ready to dump its employees, its workers are rarely given a chance to voice their true feelings. So good for Dickey for standing up for himself and saying he didn’t like the way he was being treated by the team.

So many of us discarded employees never do so, and that’s sad. We should have spoken up, just like RA Dickey did.

Do You Remember Me?

It’s been three years since I was laid off and although I’ve found another job (for the time being anyway) and have (somewhat) gotten over it, there’s a question I’d like to ask my former bosses and co-workers:

Do you remember me?

…or am I just another nameless, faceless former colleague who was let go while you stay employed and so the company could still stay in business?

I haven’t reached out to many of my former co-workers very much. Too much resentment (on my part) and awkwardness (perhaps on their part). It’s a sticky situation for all involved and I must be mindful of that. While I can badmouth my former workplace to other colleagues who were laid off, it’s a bit trickier to do so with those still employed there. They may feel some measure of loyalty to the company and don’t want to hear anything negative about it. I have to be respectful of that. For that reason, I’ve kept my distance and would not badmouth my former company to anyone still working there. 

The few times recently when I did reach out to former colleagues still employed at my former company via Facebook, the response has been, well, underwhelming. I’ve gotten no response at all, to be honest; a resounding thud of silence. I thought I was back in junior high. In fact, two former colleagues un-friended me on Facebook?!

Not sure why. What did I do to them? Did my getting laid off to save their jobs somehow offend them? I have never mentioned anyone by name and never will in this blog. So what did I do to make them turn their back on me?

I have also never badmouthed my former company on Facebook. The only time I contacted my former boss was to tell him a former colleague plagiarized an article I wrote. Looking back, if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have done what I did. But the person in question got another job and appears to be doing fine. The whole incident had nothing to do with anyone else who still works there. Why treat me like a leper?

Would they feel uncomfortable talking to me? They don’t have to. I don’t hold what happened to me against them. (Well, except for the head of the company, a thoroughly despicable person devoid any redeeming qualities.) Perhaps it would help my healing process if I did hear from them from time to time. Apparently, they do not wish to do so and I can’t force them.

It's sad. For years, I exchanged Christmas and birthday gifts with these people, attended their bridal showers. Now? I'm nonexistent to them.

And another question occurs to me:

Was it all worth it?

Did all those layoffs done in the name of saving the company really save the company? Yes, my former workplace is still in business and people are still employed there. But it’s doubtful the company is wildly profitable. No company is in our industry.

My former boss used to say, “We want to thrive, not just survive.” What an idiotic saying. Well, it doesn’t look like the company is thriving. From what I can see from the outside, management is doing everything they can just to hang on by their fingernails. It’s barely surviving. They are too busy saving themselves and their lapdogs to find new sources of revenue or do anything innovative to expand the company. 

But I’m glad that people I once worked with whom I liked and respected and who did good work are still employed there.

Further, the former head of the parent company of our company lost his job. So did hacking away at our department ultimately save his job? No.

And what about all of us who were let go? Don’t we deserve a bit of acknowledgement for our hardships? Some of us have gotten jobs and are doing fairly well. Others are still struggling. One lady had to sell her home. Some were near retirement age and with no hope of getting another job have managed to patch together an income.

So you can understand why when I was told I was let go to save the company I was royally pissed off. That’s hollow comfort to us, or anybody who has been laid off.

I don’t think anyone of us who were let go was treated fairly. We were just unlucky to no longer be of use to our bosses. But as the hoary cliché goes, that is neither here nor there. What is done is done.

Yet I would remind my former bosses that just because you have the right to make staff cuts doesn’t mean that it is the right decision. Are you so sure the people you kept on staff were the best people for those jobs? Or were you simply judging by salary and favoritism?

It was clear the company was struggling financially. But as a long-time employee, maybe I would have liked to be a part of the company’s revival by staying on during the tough times. Instead, I was seen as nothing more than an impediment to the company’s future. I was worthless to them.

And it pains me still to think that other people with less experience in the industry and fewer years at the company were retained while I was kicked to the curb. My self-confidence will never recover from that blow.

It’s easy for those who have never been laid off or whose jobs were saved during massive layoffs to dismiss our feelings as nothing more than bitterness and sour grapes. To them I say, Wait till it happens to you.

And I’d also like to ask them, without any bitterness or resentment:

Do you remember me?

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Life…

Hurricane Sandy. Superstorm Sandy. A tropical storm on steroids. The biggest storm to ever hit the metro New York City area and New Jersey.

By whatever name, Sandy lived up to the hype. I should know. I live in the area Sandy crushed. It whacked the Jersey Shore, Staten Island and parts of Queens like a mob hit in broad daylight.

I was without power for a week, and I was woefully underprepared for it, like many others. But I’ll leave the “I told you so’s” to my bossy older sister.

If I had had a full tank of gas, I would have hightailed it to my sister's house in Pennsylvania, which escaped the storm’s wrath. Alas, I didn’t and so I stuck it out in my cold, dark apartment.

But I was so much more fortunate than others who lost everything. My roof held (despite a thrashing from a neighbor’s tree) and I was able to heat some canned soup and could take a shower. My greatest hardship was having to trash a refrigerator full of groceries. Irksome only because my Italian heritage hates to see food go to waste. But several stores in town were open so I was able to eat.

Since I’m a tech dinosaur, I still have a land line that miraculously worked. I did become something of a charging station zombie, going from one place to another to charge my smart phone…my only connection to the outside world (although I was glad to see I wasn’t the last person on earth to get a smart phone).

It was, to say the least, disconcerting and sometimes depressing. I spent way too much time thinking back to when my college boyfriend dumped me, and rather brutally, too. He and his crew of friends tore me to shreds for whatever reason I'll never know. Not good for the soul.

The whole experience also got me thinking about how we react when our daily routine is suddenly, and through no fault of our own, torn asunder.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we humans are creatures of habit. We like the routine of going to work, shopping on certain days, watching our favorite TV shows, having a roof over our heads. But we hesitate to confess that because it makes us seem, well, rather dull and boring. We should embrace change and be spontaneous, right?

However, I think when people talk about change they mean the good kind of change, the change that is self-generated: You quit your job for another better one; you decide to leave a relationship; you pack up and move of your own accord. Or you win the lottery. That’s the good kind of change.

What they don’t mean is when a storm leaves you without power or worse, homeless. Or when you get laid off and are jobless for a long stretch. Or when your partner leaves you. That's a change you didn't want or ask for.

When that kind of change happens, we are left feeling helpless, frustrated, sometimes depressed and downright cranky. (I only broke down once when I complained to a utility person. She hung up on me. Otherwise, I was pretty calm.)

We like to think we are in control of our fate, but, sadly, we are not. We cannot predict how severely a storm will hit our homes, or when our bosses will decide to terminate us for economic reasons (or whatever reason they can think of).

Nevertheless, we like to feel like we are in control and perhaps having a daily routine gives us a sense of comfort that we have a good life that nobody or nothing can take away from us. That if we do a good job, our companies will keep us. That if we are good people, the people we care for won’t hurt us.

Sorry if I’m getting too sentimental and philosophical. But I do believe that we thrive when we do have a routine. A life of constant change would be too chaotic to endure for very long. We all need some semblance of stability.

Yes, we do like to change it up a bit. We go on vacations. But when we return from the tropics or a trip around Tuscany, think how good we feel when we get back home and get to sleep in our own bed again.

Yet even when harsh change is forced upon us, we find a way to survive. Eventually, we find another job or another way of making ends meet. We brave another relationship even after somebody has hurt us.

And homes will be rebuilt, although not as swiftly as we’d like. The Jersey Shore will be restored and come back the way it always was: lovely (in its own way), a bit tacky and a heck of a lot of fun; it truly is the soul of the state.

When I was sitting in my dark and cold apartment, I would curse myself for not being better prepared. But now I’m kind of proud that I did stick it out. That I made it through a tough time, just like I did when I was laid off and found another job.

So while my douchey former bosses and nasty ex-boyfriend may have wounded my soul, I still survived.

Although I don't think I'll be eating peanut butter or canned soup any time soon.

Bitterness is My Brand, Part 2

Maybe it’s because of the oncoming “Frankenstorm” in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, maybe it’s because of the side effects of the antibiotic I’m taking that range from mild to you don’t want to know, or perhaps it’s because my job is making me an exhausted wreck, but I’m cranky, real cranky.

So what better time to whine about my layoff one more time…

Really, I’m getting over it little by little. But some days I think back to that day I was told to pack up my desk and leave or I get a picture in my mind of my former boss smirking and acting smug and I know he’s still there, well, I can’t help it, I get angry, real angry.

Perhaps it’s time I reveal why I’m so bitter so maybe you’ll understand.

I’m a cancer survivor. Been in remission since 2004, but is anyone truly cured of this terrible disease? It’s not something I like to talk about. Honestly, I’ve found that most people want to talk about their problems, not yours.

The cancer recurred twice, so I’ve had three major surgeries, the last one was one of the most radical a person can undergo. Yet every time, I healed and went back to work.

I even went to work every day when I was undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. I was tired and sick, but I put in a full day’s work. (OK, I had to go to the bathroom a lot, but I worked harder than most healthy people I know.)

Now, I’m not saying that my former company shouldn’t have let me go me because of my cancer. It was a business decision, right? No special treatment, right? No personal feelings or loyalty to our employees, right? It’s all about the bottom line, right?

But if my working during treatment for a serious illness didn’t engender any loyalty on the part of my former bosses, well, there wasn’t much more I could do for that godforsaken company, was there?

When I’ve mentioned how betrayed I felt when I was laid off even after dragging myself to work during cancer treatment, I’ve gotten mostly indifference.

Yet I don’t feel angry at my bosses so much as myself. What a fool I was!

I remember one time they took us to a skybox at old Shea Stadium (what a dump that place was, but oh, the memories!). Knowing my cheapo former bosses, they probably got some kind of a free deal to take us there.

When they flashed the name of our company on the giant scoreboard, I cheered. Every time I think of that, I get sick to my stomach. I cheered the very same company that I worked so hard for, for so many years, even during hellish cancer treatments, that eventually laid me off! What a stupid fool I was! What was I thinking?! Never again will I be that loyal or trusting of a company.

But, hey, who’s bitter?

Déjà vu All Over Again

Some things never change.

The day after our company-wide meeting, our CEO sent around a rather exasperated email in response to office gossip that more staff cuts were coming. He said there wouldn’t be, but surely he could understand why there would be talk of such things. After he clearly stated during the meeting that positions were being eliminated, it’s understandable other employees would think their jobs were in jeopardy as well. He was naïve to think there wouldn’t be office gossip about more layoffs, especially after so many have either experienced a job termination firsthand, or seen friends and relatives and co-workers laid off.

Yet, I think it’s unrealistic to think company brass is going to announce who is being cut during a company-wide meeting. Those people deserve privacy in such a personal, sensitive matter. Eventually, we will all find out.

(As a side note, one of the people who was let go was a woman who argued against my being hired…what goes around…)

And—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—I think the CEO was wrong to say no more layoffs were coming. Yes, on that day, no more staff cuts were planned. But what about six months from now? Economic conditions can change swiftly, and no CEO should make promises he cannot keep. I don’t want to lose my job or see anyone else lose theirs, but the reality is no one is immune from a layoff.

I recall three months before I was laid off being told by the head of the company that our jobs were safe. A month later he stopped talking to me, and a month after that, I was gone. Was I lied to? No, I don’t think so. I think at the time he believed what he told me. But then the head of the parent company ordered him to make cuts or the entire department was gone. And, well, you know what happened after that.

I will give this new CEO props for being as candid as he can be. At least he and upper management have a plan for the company, a vision. My previous company really didn’t have a proactive business plan or a blueprint to where the company should go. Therefore, they were always making moves in reaction to something else…the economy, what a competitor did, etc. Hence, they made panic moves, like cutting half the staff and killing products that were relatively profitable.

After having been through that experience, I wasn’t really upset by the swirling gossip about possible cuts. I have no reason to think at this date that my job will be eliminated. Maybe I just can't put myself through that emotional drain again. But who knows what will happen a month or six months from now? I also know that if management has targeted you for a layoff, there really isn’t much you can do to save yourself.

Will it be, like Yogi Berra said, déjà vu all over again?

Corporate Doublespeak

Just today, we had one of those company-wide meetings about the new direction the new corporate brain trust wants to take the company.

It can pretty much be summed up thusly, “Blah, blah, blah…consolidation…blah, blah, blah…more profits (we hope)…blah, blah, blah.”

Now, I’m not complaining. At least this company and the new CEO are more open and candid than my other workplace and its executives who were so secretive they would make the KGB look like a girls’ night out.

Nevertheless, there is only so much they are going to say outright. And basically, as workers, we only want to know two things:

1. Will we be getting raises and bonuses this year so I can buy that new jumbo flat-screen TV and move to a new apartment? 
2. Is my job being cut?

Somebody actually asked about staff reductions and to my surprise the executives were fairly candid…up to a point.

They said they wanted to grow the company not downsize. However, later they said because of the new direction/strategy, positions will be eliminated and people will be let go. So which is it? Typical corporate doublespeak.

I understand they were not going to say the names of the people who are about to be let go during a company-wide meeting. Yet judging from my own experience, those people probably already have an inkling of their fate.

They did say those poor sops were going to be treated respectfully. Nice to know. Still, it’s never comforting to know your company is contemplating layoffs (although they will never use that word.) And it's sad for employees to learn that the job they were hired for and did well for so many years is no longer of use for the company. They did nothing wrong, but are being let go because of a business strategy that has no guarantee of success.

At least I can take some solace that by being cut, the jobs of certain people I liked and respected were saved. Not that those bloody ingrates will ever acknowledge it.

It also got me thinking…Which is worse: To lose your job because of a nebulous corporate strategy that may or may not boost profits? Or to lose your job because of a bad economy and stupid bosses who wouldn’t know a business strategy if it bought them a drink in a bar?

The answer? It really doesn’t matter. You are out of a job and no amount of corporate doublespeak is going to make that better.