One of my favorite movies of all time is "Things Change", starring Don Ameche, about an elderly shoe-shiner named Gino who agrees to take the rap for a murder he didn't commit, serve three years in prison, and live on the generous paycheck promised at his release by the local mafia chief. On his last few days of freedom, Gino's handler -- Jerry -- played of Joe Mantegna decides to give him a fun weekend of gambling in Lake Tahoe. While there, Gino manages to charm his way into a deep friendship with a major Nevada crime boss who has mistaken him for a mafia kingpin, and "things change."
In real life, things change too. In July, my husband and I took a fun vacation to California to celebrate our new status as empty-nesters. Both children had apartments of their own and were on track to graduate college within the next two years. It was time to think about retiring because C. had just turned 60 and planned to work another five years. He was working long hours and was under constant pressure from his clients to close multi-billion dollar financing transactions for the Fortune 500 company he was employed by. In the first half of 2013, he had closed nearly $7 billion in financings and was on track to double that amount by the year's end. In late August, the company announced a massive layoff resulting from a six-month study aimed at reducing the annual operating budget. There had been quite a bit of internal propaganda touting the anticipated benefits of this so-called "momentum" project leading up to the layoff announcement, and everyone, except my husband, was worried about being fired.
On the Monday following the layoff announcement, my husband went to work as usual and was met by a number of his staff who expressed concern about losing their jobs. He assured them they had nothing to worry about. They were all over-worked and involved in the life-blood of the company. C. had a full day of conference calls scheduled and was on the phone with a lender in Europe when his secretary knocked on the door and said that Human Resources needed to speak to him urgently. "Oh, no," he thought, "I'm going to have to let someone go."
As he walked through the atrium separating the two main buildings, C. mentally rehearsed how he was going to break the news to the one employee he thought might be vulnerable and fought back a wave of nausea as he did. She was a single mother with two school-age children and no savings. Letting her go was wrong because she knew her job and did it well without complaint or excuse. When he arrived at the HR representative's office, his boss was there. Suddenly it dawned on C. that the impossible might happen.
"Good morning, C. How are you?" he asked.
"You tell me," C. responded warily.
"Have a seat," said the boss. "Your position has been eliminated, effective immediately. Liz will explain your severance package to you."
"Is this a joke?" asked C.?
"I'm afraid not," said Liz.
"Good luck," said the boss. He extended his right hand which C. was too stunned to shake, and walked out the door.
When I returned home at noon from running errands, C. was there. I asked to what I owed this lovely surprise.
"I'm fired," he said. "Effective immediately."
"Just like that? No 'thanks for your service', no 'we regret having to let you go', no acknowledgement that your work had made and saved the company millions of dollars every year?"
"Nope. I did, however, get to keep my Blackberry once they wiped it clean of every contact and email and photograph without regard to whether it was business or personal."
"Sweet," I responded with just a hint of sarcasm. "What about severance?"
"Six months," he said. "I guess they think it's easy for a guy my age to find another job."
Wow.
That just happened. So much for celebrating the empty nest and planning a comfortable retirement. So much for sacrificing weekends and vacations in order to close deals on time. So much for the notion that if you work diligently and honestly you will succeed. It's enough to give corporate America a bad name.
