'Black Wednesday' in Tampa

The point isn't to make things rosy for the one getting axed. No matter how humanely they are let go, it is still going to suck for them. But (this week anyway) you do have staff still on the payroll, and if you don't have the decency to handle firings professionally, an already touchy morale problem among the survivors is apt to boil over completely.

 

Like someone was telling me, "we've had layoffs before, and when we saw the names of the ones getting cut. They all made sense. They were dead weight or they weren't really all that good in the first place. Now we are having layoffs and they are cutting people who are actually good at their jobs.
"That's what sucks. That's why morale is in the crapper."

 

I guess I don't understand this concept that it feels better if you get a heads-up. Does your boss say, "You might get axed in two weeks, but you might not. Keep up the good work."

Orlando, by the way, on news side, ambushed people today. No novocaine.

 

Yeah, to hell with those we threw overboard, smacking their clutching fingers with the oars as they grabbed for the side of the boat. We've got people on the lifeboat who are a little more cranky and skittish now.

It all sucks. People have given the best years of their careers to an industry that was happy to pose as more than the mere profit-generating machine that it was, rewarding management stiffs who can't carry the jocks of those who were "called" to this field and now have been banished from it.

How fucking warped is that?

 

It's not that it feels any better, when it's happening, to get a heads-up. It's not that it changes the end result, or makes it any easier to take.

It is just that, an ambush is typically something you do to an unsuspecting enemy.

The fact that somebody is taking the time and seemingly making an effort specifically not to treat people who were colleagues an hour ago as the outsiders, lepers, or, even, the adversaries, that they often suddenly become, is something that can be recognized and appreciated.

Even by someone who is on the chopping block.

The sheer, simple acknowledgment of a person that is involved in such an act is often much needed and very meaningful to those who, job-wise, at least, have suddenly lost their value.

 

The people in sports have known for at least a week, probably two. I can't speak for the rest of the paper.

 

Look, I don't care if someone gives me a blowjob and a Ruth's Chris gift card at the same time they're firing me, it is still going to be one of the worst days of my life. But if I were a manager, no matter how painful the cuts were, I would still have to think in terms of putting out the best paper possible under the circumstances. And if I treat the people I had to fire like shit, those left behind aren't going to be merely unhappy, but downright mutinous.

 

OK, I know this is a serious matter, but ... I'd have to think long and hard, under the cirumstances you describe, to make sure it was absolutely one of the WORST days of my life. I mean, my job's OK, and all, but, a blow job and a Ruth's Chris gift card? There might be some leeway there. I mean, THAT'S a severance package.

 

Love the gallows humor, the only flavor we have left.

 

Princess is back and letting the world know how wrong it is. This time, the sermon on the mount is on what a failure the WaPo's hyperlocal experiment is.
Far be it to me to stick up for suits, but Lovely and Talented doesn't know all...

 

The Tampa employees have to settle for Taco Bell and a Martin Fennelly reacharound.

 

Which is not as much fun as it sounds.