THANKS FOR NOTHING

Over the last six months I’ve had the displeasure of seeing many of co-workers become former co-workers. The manner in which they becameĀ  “former” co-workers went through either one of two routes. The first route is the one everyone is so familiar with, the every popular “massive layoffs”. In this scenario, people who are relatively content with their jobs are told, without warning, their services are no longer required and they can begin watching daytime TV at home. The other route consisted of people who decided their jobs just weren’t satisfying anymore (for whatever reason) and willingly made the choice to leave the company. They just didn’t want to be there anymore even if EA were perfectly happy to have them stay.

Now you can see the big difference between those two groups of people. One group was forced to leave and other group left on their accord because they wanted to get the hell out. Now here’s where the corporate response to these two groups gets a bit weird. This is what happened on the skate team. The people who no longer wanted to work there and wanted to get out were given personalized skateboard decks that were signed by the team. It was a nice gesture and a thank you for the people who weren’t interested in their jobs anymore. What did the people who got laid off get? Nothing. Yes, in the cases where people were outright laid off, they got severance but that’s mandated by law. Did they actually get anything that was of a personal nature or a thank you for their hard work? No. No personalized skateboard. In the other cases where people got re-assigned, they got much worse, in most cases a dead-end job that was a million times less interesting than their previous job.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the logic behind all of this is. People who no longer had the desire to work at the company got rewarded with a nice, personalized gift. The people who wanted to keep their jobs but got laid off got nothing. That’s like giving the partner who wants a divorce a big reward for leaving the marriage while giving nothing to the partner who got left behind. How does any of that make sense?

To be clear, I’m not bemoaning the layoffs happened. I’m beyond that now and I understand that’s what companies do. It’s just that the response to the two different ways that people left the company is so odd that I can’t figure out the rationale behind it. I guess what this has taught me is that given the same level of effort and dedication on your part, you’ll be appreciated more if you leave on your own compared to if you hang around to get axed by the company.

I”l have to keep this in mind going forward.

One thought on “THANKS FOR NOTHING”

  1. I was watching a TV show with Alana last night where two lawyers were competing for their jobs, one would be laid off at the end of the week. One lawyer, “bad guy” was hard working, did whatever he was told, came in early, stayed late and was admittedly by his superiors the better lawyer. The other “hero girl” was a worse lawyer, had family commitments that kept her from putting work first (I’m not against family first, this is just a comparison) and was basically told that she would probably be the one to lose her job unless she used her famous “name” to lure business to the company. You are led to cheer for her obviously, and the bad guy is played up to be politicking for the job and “campaigning” to save his skin (for shame!). While she just goes to an old friend and offers him political favours in exchange for some business to her firm (and she is supposed to be the hero?)

    Anyway, long story short, bad guy lost his job. The show wants you to believe that this is a situation of good over evil, but I was pissed. All it reiterated for me is that sometimes it is not how good you are at your job, or how hard you work, its who you know.

    After the credits rolled I imagined bad guy starting his own firm, and eventually buying them out…doing pro-bono work for disadvantaged persons to prove he was not such a bad guy after all. Then I flipped over to “Man vs. Food” and watched a guy eat 15 dozen oysters…which reminded me of a couple of wing nights in Vancouver. Full Circle!

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