Pink Slip Parties

 

I try and be aware of the global economy. I don’t delve into the financial pages but listen to ‘Marketplace’ everyday to see if they are playing the wah-wah trombones.

When the pandemic came around and everyone couldn’t stand being close in the office and decided to work from home, there was remote control management. Of course if you were declared an ‘essential worker’ you had to go into drive-thro to flip burgers or move the boxes in the warehouse to deliver the purchases people working at home are doing instead of working. The few people on the street looked like a doctor or a cowboy.

Back in plague times, the complaints were companies needed more workers. Incentives were used to increase hiring. Wages went up and employment seemed empyrean.

Suddenly, someone pulled the plug on the health emergency and we all took off our mask, started grouping together with laughter and solo cups while the office buildings stood empty. What will management do?

Come back to the office, so we can have innovation meetings and interaction face-to-face instead of zoom screens. Fill those chairs and a supervisor will come by your cubicle regularly to check up on you. You, as a worker, can get back into commutes in the rain, parking, dressing in something that isn’t elastic decorated in teddy bears, rushed lunch breaks, jammed copiers and anxiety of watching the incompetence of others. This is what ‘work’ was before the plague.

Now it seems we have ‘too many’ workers. Are there too many butts to fill a chair? Is there unforeseen duplication? Is AI accomplishing technology that analog flesh-and-blood human beings used to do? Time to thin the ranks.

The trend today is layoffs. Whether it is an announcement on the companies website or a pink slip handed out by the HR department or (worst of all) a tweet to not come back tomorrow. If you had an idea where you were on the food chain by your annual performance review or just packed up a cardboard box, handed in your security codes and escorted out the door; you’ve been fired.

Personal deflation to your ego and financial disruption happen in a moment. Like an illness, no one plans for a sudden life change. Some will take it as a sign to redefine their priorities and transition; others will whine and moan and complain.

I can’t tell heads or tails of the employment/unemployment figures. The candidates who want to maintain the plush life will find the numbers that will report the GDP is growing, the stocks are rising and manufacturing is coming home to the uneducated unemployed to get them off the dole. If everyone is earning a paycheck, will homelessness problem and welfare disappear?

So I read of thousands of previously employed getting together for ‘pink slip’ parties. Don’t know if that is to commiserate with one another or form new networks for the way forward. Each one of these parties needs to include the families, educators, realtors, law enforcement and politicians for it will affect them all.

My ‘pink slip’ came fourteen years ago. I’m too old to have to look for options. The former company is still sending pension checks and I may not outlive the industry that employed me. I will continue to watch the crystal ball and have empathy for future generations.

YOU’RE FIRED!