Funny, the very phrase ‘laid off’ is such a light sounding one, but being made redundant or fired or whatever is anything but. I’ve had that experience a few times in my life. Once it was at a time when I had another plan, so it was anything but traumatic. Another time myself and a couple of others were let go on foot of union organising, and there was no plan. That was difficult, not because the job was any good but because it was, well, the source of income and suddenly cut adrift from that and trying to find work, and then trying to find permanent work, was difficult in the extreme. The level of instability was beyond stressful. But this piece on Slate.com was of particular interest because while the article itself is just okay, the comments under it are well worth a read for accounts of people who were in a similar position. Ostensibly the piece is about revenge, but the actual course of action taken by the author doesn’t seem to be particularly exaggerated in that respect. On the other hand, I’m deeply sympathetic to anyone in that position, so if it provided some satisfaction fair dues.
The account of the company is striking. A publishing outfit that was outsourcing. Astoundingly:
…that wasn’t the end. I would have to work there for another month, doing my usual job while my manager trained my replacement in India. After all, these weren’t the sort of layoffs where jobs were cut and reabsorbed by other staff. No, these were the sort of layoffs where your company builds an office overseas for the sole purpose of sending work offshore. This change was called an “efficiency” in the email we received that afternoon, as if sending a job to another country would somehow make things run more smoothly.
Bad enough the working for a month to train up the replacement, but then:
The following Friday, we had a company-wide meeting with the CEO, who I’ll call “Daniel.” He implied that we should be excited about the amount of money we were saving, and that we had far surpassed our original goal. His voice was smooth and enthusiastic: “Think about all the customers we’ll be able to help!”
Sometimes, Daniel reminded me of a love bomber, only corporate. In meetings, he would go on and on about our company credo, our company values, how he cared about the “employee experience.”
“As it states in our credo,” Daniel said, invoking one of his favorite words. “We are accountable to and for each other.”
His other favorite word was “family,” as in “this company is a family,” and he continued to use it in the meeting about layoffs. I don’t know how Daniel’s family works, but I have never kicked out one of my siblings so I could exchange them for a cheaper model.
No. It’s not an effing family. In the place I was ‘laid off’ the boss once pulled aside a new management hire who had made the mistake of addressing him by his first name at a meeting, saying ‘I’m your boss, not your buddy’. Say what one likes, for all the crap there was a certain honesty in the way the power relationships were made manifest in that.
Anyhow the author got onto Glassdoor, which is some sort of anonymous review site of workplaces, and left an account of the processes involved. Which got likes. And moved on with their life.
But it’s under-reflected, this whole area. Work consumes so much of life, but the dynamics that it brings into play, hiring, being made redundant, are often absent from consideration. And it’s not that infrequent that people experience those.
I didn’t bother with revenge. I got another couple of jobs. The company tried to hire me back on a part time basis when ran into trouble because they couldn’t under labour law just replace me (as might be the case under ‘at will’ in parts of the US as I understand it). They had to wait a year. In a way that was hilarious, I already had hours elsewhere, and I went in a couple of days and then ‘resigned’, which I guess evened out the score a little. But they didn’t care. And why would they? There’s nothing worse than people thinking they’re indispensable to something – a company, any organisation, will move on. There is no loyalty (perhaps in more paternalistic settings there might be, but that’s long gone and have to wonder what the pluses and minuses of that were). More satisfying was the fact they screwed up redundancy payments and they had to provide compensation, and more satisfying again was a year later when they were able to hire a replacement and the General Manger of the group rang me to ask would I come in to get the new person up to speed. No fireworks, just a firm no to that. He knew he was chancing his arm. Perhaps the difference was that by then I was settled into a new position and was more secure.
In truth there is no revenge. The key remains to understand the actual power relationships at work and not be swayed by the froth. And a few comments stand out:
There’s value in publishing your experience as a worker, but it can’t be an act of “revenge.” It has to be an act of labor solidarity. Workers should write and speak about their experiences so that others will know and be able to organize, and to make better informed choices. The writer should not expect any emotional gratification or to see any real effects. The writer should expect only that they’re putting it out there to help others.
And this:
I don’t expect my employer to care about me. I do expect my employer to understand that the lack of emotional connection is mutual.
I love my work, but I am indifferent as to the organization that pays me to do it. Mostly I just want it to give me the proper tools and working environment and then stay out of my way.
But the lack of mention of unions whether in the text or comments is notable.
Perhaps this comment comes close to addressing why that is:
How employers have managed to make workers accept their interpretation of fundamentalist capitalism as the only way is what’s insane.
The company exists only to maximize profits for its investors. Period.
And you can see the utter blindness this leads to in the article. Making laid-off employees attend meetings where you brag about the company culture. Talking up outsourcing jobs to cheaper labor and how it will help the bottom line, directly to the people whose jobs are being outsourced.
On an individual level, almost all of us know how deranged this is, and why the most common reaction to all the corporate Orwellian gobbledygook, at least internally, is “STFU you jackasses”. Yet somehow, on a societal level, it’s accepted as a necessary norm.
As is the lack of unions, the lack of a sense of collective power. I’ve been on the hard end of that, many of us have. But many of us have also seen what can happen when workers work together to improve wages, conditions. It’s difficult, sure, but it’s not impossible.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
