My Last Day With...

Five min­utes ago I got the ninth “this is my last day with” mes­sage since Thanksgiving.

I rec­og­nize the fis­cal con­cerns that jus­ti­fy to com­pa­nies year-end RIFs (Reduction In Force–layoffs or ter­mi­na­tions). But, Christ! Have fuck­ing heart! Nine peo­ple at dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies with whom I do or have done busi­ness have sent out e‑mails announc­ing their last days, say­ing good-bye, and pass­ing me (and their entire list of con­tacts) off to some­one else at the company.

Some of these peo­ple I’ve got­ten pret­ty friend­ly with, oth­ers I did­n’t even know whether they had kids. But how well I knew them is not the point. It’s the Holidays. Winter Solstice, Christmas, Channukah, Kwaanza–it does­n’t mat­ter what your faith or if you even have a faith, this time of year is a soci­etal insti­tu­tion about being kind to your fel­low man. That would include your employees.

For me, some lit­tle guy who writes about graph­ic design, to get nine good-bye let­ters from pro­fes­sion­al con­tacts between Thanksgiving and Christmas is absolute­ly ridicu­lous! What’s more, it’s bloody heartless.

If some­one screwed up and had to go, that’s one thing–it’s nec­es­sary, and a good man­ag­er usu­al­ly can’t risk keep­ing some­one who needs to be ter­mi­nat­ed around for a few extra weeks. But I seri­ous­ly doubt any of the peo­ple I’m talk­ing about com­mit­ted firable offens­es; all nine worked at com­pa­nies that had either announced their intent to lay­off employ­ees or had recent­ly been acquired by some oth­er com­pa­ny. (This last mes­sage was from some­one at a low­ly lit­tle California com­pa­ny recent­ly acquired by a quirky multinational.)

“Merry fuck­ing Christmas, here’s your pink slip. I wrapped it up nice for you. Oh, by the way, the unem­ploy­ment office will be closed through January 2nd.”

Listen, all you CEOs, board mem­bers, and mid­dle man­agers: Have a lit­tle heart. Find a way to car­ry your doomed employ­ees over through the hol­i­days, or exe­cute your RIF a month before. Give them decent sev­er­ance pack­ages to help with your write-offs.

If your com­pa­ny has been around a few decades, then once upon a time it cared about employ­ees as peo­ple. If your com­pa­ny is new, here’s your chance to bol­ster your brand in the mar­ket by show­ing you do have a heart. And, Christ, this coun­try needs its ven­dors to have a heart.