downsizing

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Good Job Loss?: “Mom, Dad I Have Been Fired”

Over the past few years I have helped several people through the job search process, many of these interactions have followed an involuntary “push” by their organization.  One of the surprising things I have learned is how little anger people feel about losing their job. Mostly people are tired, relieved and downright happy to move on.

I read a guest column by Steve Doppelt in the Chicago Tribune this morning (http://trib.in/KLvl0k) that focused on this very topic. While the center of the story is about how a son struggles to tell his parents about his job loss that he is actually happy about,  the background story is about how a job loss can be a positive. It also reminds us that others can see how unhappy we are in our jobs, even if we think they don’t.  Here’s a quote from the article:

Father –  “You left your job, didn’t you?”

Son – “Yeah, I did, how did you know?”

Mother – “Well, you have been so unhappy. And, lately you’ve seemed so much happier. Maybe it’s for the best, I would cry every night I got off the phone with you. You sounded so miserable.”

So, are you unhappy in your job?  Would you be relieved if someone would end it for you?  And, do you think others in your life don’t notice and aren’t impacted by your unhappiness?  Think again.

What are you waiting for?

 

 

 

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Have We Outsourced Empathy?

I was on site with a company last week, meeting with an employee who had just been told that her job was eliminated. She was unceremoniously terminated after 22 years and today was her last day at work.  Through her anger and tears she told me that she had been planning to retire soon and was hoping to leave on her own terms. That hope ended when she was asked to meet her supervisor in a sterile conference room located near the building exit.  

As we continued to talk, she told me about a company that had changed dramatically over the past few years. It used to be good place to work, a place where people knew each other and cared about each other. But recently, things started to change. The global marketplace had shaken a business that produced a commodity product. Margins were thin and the Chinese could make the product cheaper. Two years ago private equity stepped in. The old world officially spun off its axis and was replaced by a not so kinder and gentler approach to business.

By now most people understand the challenges of running a successful, profitable organization in today’s twitchy corporate world.  One of the products of these challenges is a reliance on outsourcing to gain efficiencies … technology, customer service human resources and accounting processes (and people) have all felt the sting. 

And, as I watched this sad woman leave her place of employment for the last time, I wondered if we haven’t also started to outsource empathy.

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Another job loss day in the corporate life and a career management lesson from Ben Folds.

I met Fred Jones last Thursday.

No, his name wasn’t really Fred Jones … that’s the name of the character who loses his job in a great Ben Folds song that sheds a light on the coldness of the downsizing culture that is so much a part of corporate life these days. The person’s name doesn’t matter. What happened to him, and what’s happening to all of us, does.

The real life Fred (that’s what I will call him) got caught up in a corporate downsizing last week. 56 years old with a wife and two college aged kids.  When he was told about his job loss, Fred didn’t get angry. He got scared. He sat in disbelief in the sterile conference room and then he started to cry. He didn’t know what to do, how to tell his family or how to face himself. He was afraid of the future while trying his best to hang on to the past.  He asked the HR people over and over again if there was anything that could be done. There wasn’t. And, then it was time for Fred to leave.

In situations like this, many want the company to be the villain.  But it wasn’t … this was just business.  Fred was not losing his job to cost reductions but to a different strategic direction. Fred had good skills that were now simply the wrong skills. While you could argue with the timing of the change (the holiday season), the company did what they could to help Fred by providing a nice separation package that included outplacement. 

Fred was complicit in his personal drama. He hadn’t been paying attention to the shifts in the company direction. He buried his head in the sand and ignored the new rules of corporate life and career management. He found himself being reactive rather than proactive to change. And he got caught.

I am not sure the moral of this story is; I do know that this is a corporate drama that plays itself out over and over again across the country and the globe. And, it just doesn’t feel good.

A student group did an excellent video to ‘Fred Jones Part 2, I encourage you to check it out.