I just off the phone with a friend of mine. He was crying. He didn’t get fired today, but about 3000 of his colleagues did.
His manager was given a list of names and ordered to fire his team mates one by one. So his team (maybe 25 or so people) had to sit in their cube-farm waiting for the door to the manager’s office to creak open every half hour and wait to see if their name was called.
They didn’t know who was getting fired, or how many. This went on for over two hours.
That is really inhuman treatment.
My friend said that he understands that Fed-Ex had to lay off part of it’s workforce; they’re 70% down in profits. But there was no apparent rhyme or reason to the firings. Needless-to-say managerial types were not fired, but developers and lead admin were. So he’s sitting in a half empty office wondering how the hell he is supposed to do his job when his team of 8 programmers is now three junior coders who don’t understand the project or the code yet, and there is no one left to teach them. This is a mission critical project.
What goes on in the heads of the millionaire CEOs and CFOs when they decide these things? Fire all the foreigners, and everyone earning over a certain amount…what an exceedingly ill-conceived and asinine plan.
A rudderless ship now sails, dismasted, into even rougher seas.
That’s awful, Ian. So cruel and shortsighted.
Yeah. And Fed-Ex are often held up as a paragon. This is one thing that upset my mate so much; they are (the other 99% of the time) a great company to work for!
That’s nightmarish- practically up there with mock-executions and other forms of torture.
My heart is heavy. Thinking of them all.
I’m sorry. That was awful. Not to mention very ineffective for the future of the company/division if they don’t have a good mix in the group that is left.
Overall this is something that has bothered me for quite some time> They didn’t know who was getting fired, or how many. This went on for over two hours. That is fucking inhuman treatment.
It seems like, and correct me if I am wrong, that it is slightly more regular to lay people off a bit more arbitrarily here in the States than in some countries in Europe? [or is it only Sweden that has these “months between your told you have to quit and when you actually quit?”]
This “on the day firing” when people get no warning and all of a sudden are told, tomorrow we don’t need you aka “at will employment” gives me chills.
@HG: That’s something we talked about actually. Should be bloody criminal to treat hardworking & loyal staff that way.
@Asa: To make matters worse, the Directive that told managers how they had to lay off (as well as who) explicitly stated that they were not to be allowed to return to their desks, collect their belongings or anything!
Unfettered capitalism, red in tooth and claw…
Nothing to do with capitalism – but everything to do with lousy management practice.
With HG I think. Decreasing your staffing numbers during a financial crisis is one thing. Firing all the experienced staff because they cost more is bloody stupid!
I’m not agin it per se you understand but rather the unregulated, unfettered greed and ambition of our capitalist banking sector that seems to have brought us, and Fed-Ex, to this sorry pass. That doesn’t excuse FedEx’s dreadful treatment of their staff, of course. But the generally rising tide of unemployment has a lot to do with the way we’ve been running our economy…
Not that I have the first clue about what to do differently.
Terrible Ian, send my regards to your friend.
Is it true what they say about firing people on Friday? If I may quote one of the funniest movies of all times (where an attempt is made to make fun of poor management like those at FedEx): “We find it’s always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there’s less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.” More ridiculous quotes available here.
It’s not so much capitalism as irresponsibility, evident in the willingness of financial marketeers to offer loans to people who could never afford to pay them back; and the willigness of such people to take up those offers.
I think there are a lot of reasons underlying this toxic combination, not least the gradual infantilization of culture which rewards instant gratification in adults as well as children (why save up when you can have whatever you want, right now?) and the well-meaning but fundamentally idiotic moves by Bill Clinton and others to pursue the sub-prime marketplace to begin with, so that more people might share the ‘American Dream’, forgetting the first part of the American Dream which is a lot of bloody hard work in a fundamentally unfettered marketplace in which people who work hard will be rewarded.
I think I shall be unpopular for saying this, but, well, sod it. One must have the courage of one’s convictions: I reckon that when the history of this era is written, it will socialism that will be found to have been a greater crime than capitalism, for punishing innovation and incentive and rewarding laziness and mediocrity.
But lousy management is lousy management, whatever the color of one’s politics.
That’s terrible Ian; it must have been so difficult and heart-breaking for your friend and his colleagues. One alternative to the cruel mismanagement practice you described is “pain-sharing”, the economic downturn flipside version of gain-sharing. There was a segment on the NewsHour last night. Workers give up some of their hours, salary, or benefits, in order to save jobs for others, particularly those who are low wage earners.
The examples included a musical instrument manufacturer, a hospital in Boston, and Brandeis University. At Brandeis, faculty were asked to give up a small percentage of their salary, to preserve some of the low wage jobs at the university. Apparently 36% of faculty agreed to this (it isn’t mandatory), but I found myself wondering … what about the university administrators? Typically such individuals make very large salaries, even as compared to those of tenured professors.
I’m trying not to picture the situation, it sounds absolutely awful.
Somebody’s pulling wool over peoples’ eyes.
In other words, they’re still making massive amounts of money (this is a multinational corporation we’re talking about, after all), just at a lower rate than last year. People shouldn’t be getting laid off for doing their job properly and continuing to make the company money. It’s disgusting. Management should be copping the flack for not guiding the company in a successful direction, The current plan will surely (after the short term recovery of a few salary packets) lead them into an even more perilous situation.
Henry, your definition of ‘socialism’ as being a system that shall be remembered
is actually a pretty fair description of the current state of industrial and economic affairs in most capitalist states at the moment. Ironic, huh?
The “not being allowed to return to your desk” bit is harsh – usually that’s reserved for employees who are likely to cause a scene, or have access to information that could be stolen and given to competitors. I can’t believe that all of these folks would fall into that category. And I’d like to see how security handled making sure everybody picked up their coat and walked out promptly.
*thinks of revolutions and rebellion
Fedex – good company for delivering things overnight, except if you’re shipping to, say, Lebanon, or other countries they don’t deliver to (hint: try DHL instead).
Fedex – bloody awful company for delivering things by ground. Use the postal service instead, it’s cheaper and way faster (n=1 observation, your mileage may vary).
@Caryn: Sad but true. Less chance of something happening at work… You hope that folks have had time to cool off over the weekend and not spend 72hrs oiling their firearms and drinking hooch… (a la Binghampton NY, last week)
@HG: I feel some agreement there. One of Obama’s arguments on his road to the Whitehouse was that we need to grow the hell up and get back to work. One worry many of the pundits have is that we so used to being to have whatever we want, whenever we want it, that once the post-coital blush of the new presidency has faded, “we’ll” go back to our old, gimme gimme ways.
I sincerely hope that this marks the dawning of a new age of industry. The Barons of the industrial revolution understood the necessity of hard work and rewarded it accordingly. This lead to a culture change…
@Kristi: The staff were given 4 months salary as a severance package. Which is exeedingly generous and massively misguided (in my inexpert opinion). Something $150 million in golden handshakes. Why not give 2 months and save 50% or so of the jobs?
@Mike: Well spotted mate. Depressing isn’t it?
@Richard: Apparently all these folks (500 in one area) have to now make appointments to be escorted back onto the campus to get their stuff. Bloody criminal.