Last week's post about corporate tap-dancing around the word layoff -- 'Synergy-related headcount restructuring' and other euphemisms for 'you're fired' -- hit uncomfortably close to home for a number of readers. Henry Farkas, a senior Unix administrator for a Connecticut-based health insurance behemoth, sends along these thoughts:
I am an old IBMer. My division was sold to AT&T. Some years ago, AT&T enacted a series of layoffs. They didn't announce that they were going to do that in so many words, of course. Oh no. They announced that they were going to "undertake a Force Management Plan." Naturally, coming from a company that was once creative, I'd hoped for an announcement about some new innovation exploiting the conservation of linear momentum.
Alas, the "force" they were talking about was their "workforce;" they were going to force some "resources" out of work. This immediately became known as being FMPd. I survived several rounds, but was eventually FMPd -- on my wife's birthday. I waited until the next day to mention this to her. It didn't help.
I'm employed again. I spent 11 months without a formal job, me, a well-respected performer (and, occasionally, an innovator) in what was once the most stable of fields; me, once the envy of most of my friends.
But that's what happens when 4,700 people in the same field are relieved of their occupational responsibilities on the same day. That used to be a big number. But it pales in the light of this week's action by Citigroup.
I cannot help but wonder how and why Citigroup managed to employ 52,000 people that they have now decided that they don't need.
I've been working for a Fortune 50 for over 3 years now. I like them, and they like me, but who knows how long any IT job will last anymore?
I hope I will never again have to come home and announce: "Honey, I've been FMPd!" And I probably won't. They'll pick a new euphemism.
Farkas tells me that he had another experience with being laid off much earlier in his career, "and I had a great new job within two weeks, back then." Back then being 1987. Few are so fortunate today. Farkas also wrote an essay about that brush with unemployment and it was broadcast on National Public Radio.
Here's hoping there is no third act for him to write about.
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I survived four or five
I survived four or five "Resource Actions" at IBM. It was a "Restructuring" that merged two divisions which finally got me. The bad news came through about every other year, almost always in May. The word they use instead of "layoff" seems to be chosen by the project office handling it, so it can go by different names in different parts of company.
"Layoffs"
Mr. Farkas should be very concerned as should all Americans. What is befalling us now is no accident. It is well toughtout and planned. It's the desovereignization of the country. No global govt can reign as long as there are independent nations. In this case we all have to be bankrupt. It will be the perfect opportunity for those that created this situation to propose a solution. The country has been deindustrialized. We have open borders with no control of illegal immigration. We are bogged down in two unconstitutional wars(for profit). We are literally bankrupt as a nation. The Constitution has been shredded. If exporting Manufacturing wasn't enough, add H1-B visas at over 100k per year. Those are the endentured technical servants thatwill replace Mr. Farkas ASAP. For those IT jobs that couldn't be exported, we'll just import the labor.
Got any more conspiracy theories?
Robert,
As a person who works in the telecommunications field, I well remember the many friends, family, and yes, even my husband who went through the downsizing and layoffs (and unemployment for years)after the dot com crash. This is a difficult time for many people.
But to blame the current downsizing on a conspiracy to take over the world through illegals wars - please.
You sound like the folks that came to my door 10 years ago and told me that I should join their church in order to protect myself from the "evil" that entered the world after JFK was assasinated. Their theory - America was great for white males prior to that (forget women and minorities who were treated with disrepect and could not advance in many career fields). My engineer, single parent Grandmother had a very different viewpoint about life in the 50s for her..and idealic was not part of it.
Economics are much more complicated than your "great conspiracy".
The point of this column is to call layoffs what they really are - layoffs. Stop trying to change the subject and blame your life problems on everyone else.