So we had yet another hideous round of layoffs at my workplace this week. The worst part about being half-assedly in management (I am sometimes in the know but am not invited to the pow-wows or really give a crap about being in on all the executive strategy meetings because they bore me to death and I cannot conceal this. Just tell me what you've decided, and I'll go from there) is knowing about shit like this ahead of time. The last round of lay-offs was in April and went down while I was in Paris. So the folks who lost their jobs then were suspicious that I knew ahead of time and went to Paris anyway, and was lounging around some outdoor cafe overlooking the Seine when the anvil was dropped on their heads. As a matter of fact, I did not know for certain ahead of time. I knew there was a chance but in the current economy there's always the chance right? The second day I was in France I stupidly checked my e-mail and read the series of frantic messages from my boss to call him ASAP. Thinking there was no way in the world there could be any such thing as an actual editorial emergency I called him from a glass cube phone booth overlooking the Seine and Notre Dam. It was a much longer (and more expensive) call than I anticipated. As I stood there absorbing the news that most of my longtime co-workers were about to be fired I felt very detached because it all seemed so far away (it was, and also it was 8 p.m. Paris-time and I had been drinking, which helps with the distance thing). The call cost me $127 because I charged it, not thinking it would be smart to buy an international calling card just in case I needed to return an urgent emergency call from the editorial dept. while I was away.
Anyway, when I returned from the April trip some of my newly unemployed former co-workers asked me specifically if I knew about the lay off before I left on my trip. And why that point was such an issue, I still can't understand. Would I have gone on the trip anyway had I known? Yes. The tickets were nonrefundable and our CEO is intractable. There is no talking him out of anything, everyone who knows him even a little bit knows this to be true.
Flash-forward nine months. It's a week before Christmas. My boss tells me that a layoff is in the offing, probably a week or two after the holidays. I am torn. Do I give one or two of my closer work friends a heads up and ruin the holidays for them or do I sit by silently while they party ($$$) and shop ($$$) as if they have jobs after January 2010? I said nothing. It sucked knowing, I wish I hadn't known, it made a rather dark holiday even darker. In short, it blew. And of course, I threw myself into the exercise in futility of trying to advocate for a few of my colleagues who we really need and who did not deserve to be let go. The boss was willing to discuss saving anyone I suggested as long as I had another employee I would rather see go (I guess he's seen Sophie's Choice). Nice, huh?
The most painful cut was a co-worker who has been out of state for 10 days or so dealing with the impending death of a critically ill family member. The co-worker saw the torrent of e-mails that went 'round following Monday's layoffs and assumed the coast was clear -- no phone calls or e-mails had come in summoning the co-worker to return to the office ASAP so imagine the shock when the co-worker returned to work yesterday just in time for a staff meeting only to be pulled aside and let go. Part of the layoff, yes, but we figured it would be unkind to do it long distance over the phone while you sit in a hospital room. So we're glad you're back and that your relative seems to be hanging in there for now. By the way, your position has been eliminated.
Being in the next room when this went down and watching my devastated co-worker stagger out the door sucked. It was way better to be in a glass phone booth in Paris, looking at Notre Dam and drawing stick figures in the patches of fog that I breathed on the glass as my boss rambled about "restructuring" and "going forward."
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