I had a phone-appointment with my cardiologist this morning. She was almost in tears because of a spat of recent firings at her office. Nurses with decades of experience showing up to work with boxes on their desks and guards waiting to escort them to their cars. We will all pay for the damage being done to our institutions. Some of us sooner than others.
May I say, in the least eloquent fashion possible: > and guards waiting to escort them to their cars That's fucked up.
> and guards waiting to escort them to their cars That's fucked up." For both the employee and employer. Yes, it is fucked up. But also required. When someone is fired, you can't tell them ahead of time. And it comes to them as a shock. People in shock react poorly and show poor judgment. Nurses and doctors have incredibly sensitive information available to them, and very personal relationships with their patients. They are also bound by HIPAA regulations about information handling and disclosure. Those regulations also bind their employer. If a nurse was notified they were fired, and allowed access to a computer (there's one EVERYWHERE in the modern medical office) or to a phone, or to ANYTHING in the office, that would be a violation of regulations, and would also allow the person - who is in shock and probably not thinking clearly because they are offended, affronted, panicking, etc. - to do immeasurable harm to the office and its patients. So. When you get fired, you get escorted out of the building by security. I've been fired twice, and both times it happened this way. In one job I was telephone customer support for a moving company. In the other I was writing website copy for a high tech company. It sucks for everyone. Imagine being someone's manager, and knowing you had to fire them, say, on Friday. For a week you need to act normally. Treat them the same as you would any other day. All the while, knowing that they are going to be traumatized by the experience, and humiliated by being escorted out of the building by security. And you want NONE of that to happen to them; the budget was cut, and you had to cut three staff, and Joe is one of them, so it's going to happen, and you know what it is going to be like for them, and you have to just suck it up and sleep at night and try to get on with your life, knowing that person is going to hate you from this day on. I've also been a manager of large teams. And had to fire people. Nobody wins. Everyone suffers. "May I say, in the least eloquent fashion possible:
The last real jobby-job I ever worked one of my coworkers boxed up my CAD monitors and shipped them to a worksite because she fucked up the work order. I'd fuckin' sat across from Tess for a year, made her coffee, taught her how to do shit. Tess knew that her boyfriend was taking my job in two weeks, and knew she could fucking get away with it. I didn't find out for another three days. Then they all decided I should have a going-away party and none of them showed up. Let's be very clear about something: I don't care how much you love your job? I don't care how valued you feel? THE FACT THAT YOU ARE DEFENDING THIS SHIT EVEN A TINY LITTLE BIT shows that you're fucking infected. Your world needs to BURN. It's been thirteen FUCKING years but you just elevated my heart rate by thirty fucking points, mutherfucker.
So what's the alternative when you fire someone? Let them send that last email? Download the files off the server that will help them get the job at your competitor? Have them talk to your patients waiting in the lobby as they walk out of the office for the last time? The last guy I fired was when I was managing a software development team of ~25 people in Budapest. One guy slept with another guy's girlfriend. The girlfriend came to work. Shit got crazy. Shit got broken. Boyfriend didn't do anything wrong. Girlfriend was banned from the office. But fuck-buddy showed really poor judgment, and I couldn't have that on a team of people who were developing financial software for Deutsche Bank. So dude got fired. When I got fired from the moving company, it was because I was scammed by a customer and her daughter who pretended to be each other. I had no way to know who I was talking to on the phone... the 40 year old mother or the 22 year old daughter. They had the same details and information and shared the account password with each other. But I'd failed to magically intuit that, and therefore had to be fired because I failed to protect their "private information" ... that they themselves had shared with each other. If I'd had a moment with my computer prior to being escorted out of the building, I would have deleted all records of their account. They'd never be able to rebuild it. This was also where I had to be drug tested because I worked in the "transportation industry" and therefore - to sit at a desk with a headset on, a keyboard, and a monitor, taking payments for moving fees - the Federal Government had to be sure I was safe to drive a heavy duty vehicle on the roads, despite the fact I didn't have a vehicle or a CDL license. Be angry. I am, too. This shit's moronic. But in the end, I don't give enough of a shit to do anything about it. I just make sure to turn down people-manager jobs when they are offered to me. I'm not a sadist.
FUCKING HUMANITY. They've got you convinced that employers do not owe employees any compassion whatsoever, that this is an entirely one-sided equation, and that as soon as you've decided an employee is infected, your best move is to stab them in the fucking back because why on earth would you hire someone if you have to treat them like an adult, extend them the slightest bit of trust, and give them the opportunity to part in a mutually-agreeable fashion? They don't fire executives this way and you know it. You sign a paper saying "if this doesn't work out, you get this and we get that and if you do anything to fuck it up we keep your money." This is why executives usually "leave to pursue other opportunities" while nurses have a guy with a billy club waiting with a box. There is ZERO reason this level of humanity can't be extended to anyone. and you fucking know it you're just so cross-eyed from their bullshit you fucking forgot. Healthcare? Fuckers are in EPIC, bitch. I can lock someone out of any goddamn level of EPIC I choose with a note to IT. IT flips their permissions set from "employee" to "transitioning" and suddenly they have read-only access to everything they need for however long it will take me to exit them. For that fucking matter, every time they touch a fucking file I can be notified on my fucking phone and I'm rolling a $600 network appliance, not a $900m EHR. I don't have to trust them to do shit - I can absolutely 100% see everything they're doing 100% of the time. Worse? If I'm laying them off because of circumstance I probably want them to leave on good terms, knowing that it definitely isn't about them, and that fucking hell as soon as things turn around I'm going to do my level best to bring them back on board because I've sheep-dipped them into my culture and I don't have to blow two months training them. So why the fuck am I treating them like a criminal because my wallet is light? What's the alternative? Give me a fucking break. If I hire you, I'm paying you to do my bidding. I have an arrangement with you whereby I am responsible for your livelihood and you are responsible for my success. I didn't enter into that arrangement lightly and I should leave it with every bit as much consideration yet you take it as normal that "employment" means "the guy who signs my checks should be able to murder my career in the dark without the slightest bit of consideration." You have drunk the fucking kool-aid.So what's the alternative when you fire someone?
I'm totally with you as far as healthcare workers go, and the original post. Any skilled worker who you have invested time and effort into developing into a cultural fit into your business, and have to lay off through to no fault of their own, works to a different process/logic than my experiences being fired for dereliction of duty, or whatever they called it. I'm gonna stop talking about being fired now. I thought I was at maximum rage already with all the everyday shit of the world and life right now. But thinking about being fired has me at a new level. Gonna go look at pictures of landscapes and flowers now.
I enjoy the part where you decide being unethical is the best option here.If I'd had a moment with my computer prior to being escorted out of the building, I would have deleted all records of their account. They'd never be able to rebuild it.
It wouldn't have been a decision. It would have been a simple animal retaliatory action against something that hurt me. No thought involved. Just reaction. Later I could consider the ethical conundrum, but in the moment, I just needed to retaliate against the unfair game I had been forced into playing without my knowledge.
Does the antagonistic nature of "you vs. the employer" play any role here? I'm sure I'd be hurt to be sacked, but "fighting back" against something that wasn't of any harm does not come to me as the first natural step.
If my employees' relationship with me is antagonistic I have FUCKED UP ROYALLY. I need them to represent me as the absolute best possible choice for my clients, and I need their every daily action to be one in which they come out shining by way of making me shine. If you have employees, you have them because you don't have the resources to do the work which means you need someone who can deliver the level of excellence necessary for you to succeed. Military recruits are treated like shit when they come aboard because they need to be indoctrinated. Once indoctrinated, many of them tattoo that insignia on their goddamn bodies they're so fucking proud of what they do. A job should be something where you are proud and honored to show off who you work for. It usually isn't these days which is a sign of just how fucking broken the contract is. Don't defend broken contracts.
This off-topic comment got three shares in less than 20 minutes. Something tells me my research won't go fruitfully in this thread. I don't disagree with you. It's just... I asked a simple question.
And I answered. I think you're spooked because you assume as given that the relationship between employer and employee is antagonistic and holy fuck, boy, that's the wrong goddamn way to live. One of my midwives bought a house nine months ago. Keeps me up at night because if I can't find her work? She's on the goddamn street. Another one of my midwives had to go to war with her school to get her thesis accepted. I counted up my favors and lined up a Columbia law professor to unleash the Dogs of War on her school because fucking hell if she can't get through this she's burned her career. This whole COVID thing? My A Number One concern is how the fuck I'm going to keep feeding my employees enough work to cover their family needs because I have like four employees whose boyfriends and spouses are 100% out of work and have been for quite some time. The human thing is to recognize that you have an agreement with other humans whereby they do stuff for you and you do stuff for them and that basic cooperation is the fundamental basis for civilization. But our work arrangements have become so fucking inhuman that we're taking as a basis this Dickensian poorhouse mentality whereby we shouldn't have asked for more fucking gruel or some shit. If my employees are having shitty lives? They're going to make shitty employees. That's the sociopathic way to look at it and you'll note that even from a sociopathic basis, this is a positive-sum game. So why do employers treat their employees like shit? Because when you're big enough they're cogs. And cogs are replaceable. And your business is no longer made of people, it's made of quarterly reports and stock buybacks and what humans are left are human despite the machine but let's never lose sight of the fact that it's a machine, that it shouldn't run this way, that it doesn't have to, and the minute you accept the fact that work is supposed to be torture you're asking to be tortured every day for the rest of your life. And frankly? Speaking as an entrepreneur with six employees? you're fucking worthless to me. Your motivations are pathologically damaged. I can't even get anything out of you until you learn that my hand is out to pet you, not to strike you. Shit was fucking broken when I left in 2007 and it's gotten more broken since. The breakdown has been radically, breathtakingly accelerated with COVID and the center will not hold. The only way you can live through this is by choosing to, and you need to choose not to default to an antagonistic relationship with your employer. And if they choose to have an antagonistic relationship with you? Leave. Leave as soon as you are able.
It is a dominant/subordinate relationship and that can easily become antagonistic especially in a bad work environment or with employees who don't feel safe. And it's very reasonable to note that employees may not feel safe in work environments due to no fault of their employer -- previous bad experiences, trust issues, lack of accepting the self leading to greater insecurities, etc. I see why you would have used that characterization. At a good workplace, the relationship isn't antagonistic. But it easily can be.
I'm not sure you understand what happens when you get fired... rent comes due and you can't pay it. That car repair you were hoping to have enough money to take care of this month, isn't going to happen - and is only going to get worse/more expensive - while you are using your car EVEN MORE than usual to get around to interviews. Food isn't going into the fridge for at least several weeks while you are out of work, and you are reduced to eating those weird canned goods in the back of the cabinet. And, while all this stress is piling up, you need to be all sunshine and rainbows and positivity in your interviews, IF you can even get any interviews. So yeah.... suddenly having the central pillar of your life yanked out from under you DOES hurt, and causes panic almost instantly. So no, there is no calculation of relationship status or any of that bullshit. You go straight into panic mode. Self defense. Retaliation. The psychological process (and damage) is well known.
"Does <this factor> play a role?" "Now here is what plays a role..." How does one receive an answer to a simple question without getting diminished in the process?
Needless to say... None of this paints a pretty picture.
It's a tragic irony that the sector hit hardest by covid is healthcare. Not that healthcare isn't hypertrophied in some ways, but one person's hypertrophy is another person's essential care. My company is projecting up to a billion loss this year (on $5 billion of projected revenue, so a giant loss) depending how the second half of the year goes, and they've already furloughed 10% of their workforce. I feel annoyed instead of inspired by those hero signs all my neighbors have on their lawns.