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Radio Shack E-Fires 400 Workers
KingSkippus writes "You've got mail! ...and no job! The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that RadioShack has notified 400 workers by e-mail that they are being laid off. The e-mails state, 'The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.' Nothing says thank you for your years of service to our company quite like an e-boot out the door."
0wned!
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
Let's get a hand for RadioShack and their PR skills! I've always wondered when things along this line would start to happen. I'm surprised it didn't become popular to fire people by voicemail when that was the "new" thing. Firings can become a very confrontational situation (especially since the messenger didn't always have a hand in the process), so I wonder if the messenger decided that email would be better than hell.
Radio Shack actually hired these guys from Sony's Advanced Systems Sodium-Chloride Electronics Division (SASSED). The sassed employee's were fired for explosive behavior, assault, and battery. Even though the workers were feeling blue, Ray Sirr, a manager on the project, said that other employee's were safe, and the fired employee's were pre-picked, and put in a queue, cataloging it all. I just hope that all of you, PC in all, realize what was going with, by quickly scanning what i have written.
Have you read my journal today?
I'd say this is worse than getting a job application rebuffed by a form letter. With a job application, they don't know you and you really are little more than a name (at best) and a number (at worst) to them. For termination of employment somebody really ought to know who you are and what service you have provided the company. It's inexcusible - and a good indication of what those up the ladder really think about their workers. "Your job is very important to us... please hold."
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Reminds me of "Office Space".
Obliterate advertising!
My only question is if they outsourced the e-mail pink slip processing to an Indian firm. That would have given Radio Shack double plus style points. I would not be too shocked if someone goes e-postal over this.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
"you-can't-fire-me-I-equit"
I'd reply with, "Ha Ha, joke's on you. I've been working from home for the past 8 months, and have been selling the store's LED flashlights on eBay."
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
They should be e-happy they got e-fired because Radio-Shack e-sucks. Besides, they can always be e-hired again at BestBuy or some other know nothing e-electronics store. At least I e-think so...
Have you ever met a Radio Shack employee? Methinks they should all be fired (and replaced by someone who knows what they are talking about).
I used to want to work there, back when they sold computers and gizmos for hobby electronics instead of being a glorified cell phone store (though I do suppose cell phones are a type of radio, so it is more fitting...)
Well it all depends. How many employees left their red Swingline staplers in their stores before they were locked out?
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
Radio Shack has been in real trouble for years, since shortly before I left. The article mentions RSH stock price closing just over $18, down from around $80 before this all began. I can't say that I am surprised that they chose email as the way to go on the firings.
Make sure you don't have any beverage in your mouth when you read this: All members of Radio Shack management and all of their top sales people from the entire company, plus most of the corporate staff (thousands of people) just returned home from an all-expenses paid 3 to 6 day drip to Las Vegas, NV for a "Peak of Performance" rally. More like a valley of performance, but to hell with it.
FairTax baby!
ehhh you're quite daft for making that statement. the article clearly notes that these are employees mostly at their headquarters, which indicates they are probably mid level executives or IT staff or something like that.. not store personnel.
im sure people who work in stores make $7-8 an hour like most other retail workers.
Wow, so Dilbert is real... and I thought it was just a comic!
Being fired through a form letter, or email must be soul destroying.
Now those employees can sue Radio Shack, because they can claim that every time they hear a "new email sound", they break down into tears. They won't be able to find a job working with computers.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
If radio shack cuts anymore costs , what will be left?
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
So is this better or worse than me asking that girl out to prom over irc back in high school?
Nothing says "e-mail what now? Must have gotten caught in my spam filter, heh..." like going into work anyway, and forcing the boss to say it to your damned face.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
One of the guys who received that mail should have followed it up with a mail to everyone@radioshack :
"Pls ignore the previous mail.It was a prank mail by someone."
Wincopy
At least in CT, sales people on the floor make $7-$8 per hour base (excluding bonuses), with higher tiers (managers-in-training, asst. managers, managers, etc.) obviously making higher bases and different sets of bonuses. No floor salesperson has their own radioshack email address, only a store-wide email account.
And no, they don't ask for home address anymore, only your zip code for marketing / store stock purposes, which you can decline with no argument. Addresses -are- needed in some situations though, for things like service plans and Answers Plus (in-store credit card) accounts though.
They got Radio Shafted.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8JR1 EEO0.htm?sub=apn_tech_down&chan=tc
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Worked a Radio Shack in Oregon 3 winters in a row during my off-season... worked on commission + minimum wage... cleared about 4k a month for 3 months then went back to my job in febrary... the manager (this was in 1988-1991) made between 50-75k a year...
sig goes here!
Anyone who cannot fire an employee (any employee) face-to-face most certainly has no business being in management in the first place. Sad this happened at Radio Shack, though. I find that employees at Radio Shack are among the (very) few clerks who know anything at all about the products they are selling.
Was Radioshack lazy enough to simply list all the fired employees as reccipients of the same email? IANAL, but I'd call that a violation of privacy. As if the violation of common courtesy wasn't enough....
...the TRS-80 Model I support team. I mean, after I splurged on the 16K RAM expansion and everything!
The Army reading list
Honestly Radio Shack, get some class. Firing someone via e-mail is ridiculous. I had a friend who was dumped via texting. It's childish and uncalled for. A Fortune 500 company can do better.
Only Radio Shack's old employees in Korea will actually know they've been laid off.
I would love to know what pointy haired boss thought this was a good idea. I could not even imagine what it would be like to get fired that way, especially since it sounds like most of the people fired were not just retail workers (which would still be wrong) but were employees at the companies headquarters in Fort Worth. I am not one to hold grudges but if any of my employers were ever to do that to me after I had worked for them for years I would forever hate them and I would let them know it. In the article it said that there were meetings prior to the e-mails being sent out that explained they would be notified electronically if they were being laid off but still, that is just plain heartless and gutless. Spend the few minutes it takes and do it in person like it should be done. I hope whoever gave this the OK burns in hell.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
There is no reason for them to do this electronically, even if the computer is used for a lot of job related things, getting layed off should not be one of them. That is just a horrible way to treat your employees.
Radio Shack is like the convenience store of electronics stores anyway. The last time I shopped at Radio Shack all I saw were Robo Sapiens, R/C Dinosaurs, a limited selection of home entertainment equipment, a limited selection of land line phones and cell phones and a wall of misc crap. Nothing important to me because there is a crappy selection.
Radio Shack missed the boat in my opinion. Sure they were before their time when they first opened but by now they should have moved to warehouse-sized stores because if they had played their cards right, I'm sure they could have done it and they could be making a lot more money right now.
Laid-off workers got one to three weeks pay for each year of service, up to 16 weeks for hourly employees and 36 weeks for those with base bay of at least $90,000, the company said.
Hey, at least they are taking care of their upper management with up to 36 weeks of severence pay. Otherwise, they might have to actually give up a whole week of vacation in the Bahamas! Who cares about the nameless masses below them. That's why they are nameless masses!
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
Or even better,remove the 'To' field of the original mail and send to everyone @ RS.
Wincopy
I came in late and everybody was standing around excited for me to check my mail.
Do you have a meeting? Do you have a meeting?
Um, yeah, in 30 minutes.
Oh man, that sucks. Only a few of us got it, and none of the boss' friends got the meeting invite. You're gone.
They were right.
You know, this reminds me of what they did in Major League (the old movie with Charlie Sheen and Wesley Snipes) where they cut the try-outs by putting a red piece of tape inside their locker.
We can see where the company is headed after this event. My guess is that some other company will take over from Radioshack. I want GOOGLE to take over Radioshack. This will cause soo much agitation that even Microsoft and Apple will start to work together against the king of searches.
Poor radioshack.. If their products were better quality and better priced, and the salesmen not so pushy.. I'd probably shop there.
Radio Shack is now Radio Sack
Wincopy
In a Radio Shack when I was there, if you made under $9/hr, either you were slow or your store was. Some folks made as much as $30/hr or even more when cell phone sales were up. Being the only one that could sell parts was worth $1/hr. As a manager, I was looking at $55K/yr for my first year. I think the emphasis has changed from commission since, so you're probably on the right track, though I bet they average about $9.50/hr.
FairTax baby!
Are you one of those guys who look lost when i walk in and ask for a BNC conector or cracks up when i ask for a rectifier for my Johnson........ outbord motor?
\
Being the late 80's, I think you probably knew what this stuff is. Most radio shack employies i come across now think the radio stands for cell phone or remote controled cars. I was looking for a metal-oxide varistor a few months ago and the sales boy asked if i could use one made from plastic becuase most thier resistors are plastic. Well thats what they looked like to him, he admited.
There probably is a reason radio shack is restructuring and fireing some people.
They won't be able to find a job working with computers.
...Although, yeah, I do kinda feel sorry for them when they get laid off like that.
These are Radio Shack people. They don't know anything about computers anyway.
I thought about this for a few minutes, and I think I disagree. It must be very clear to everyone involved that these were very significant budget issues, not related to talent or skill. The only depressing part would be admitting that you were dumb enough to work for them in the first place. It seems to me that such a firing would be less painful than a direct "You're too dumb to be employed" conversation, or a "We gave you a chance, and you didn't live up to expectionations" letter.
They got screwed. It sucks. But at least it's nothing personal.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
When my co-workers were sacked by email I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn't get one. The next morning my swipe key wouldn't get me in the door. The guy I asked to reactivate my swipe key at lunch time was the one that let me know that I had lost my job.
A friend of mine was recently fired via text message while on vacation. I thought that was pretty poor.
Cheers.
I have found new comfort in the fact that I never gave my employer my email address. I guess now I never will.
Mr. Kim: You got a message.
Korben Dallas: Yeah.
Mr. Kim: You're not gonna open it? It might be important.
Korben Dallas: Yeah, like the last two I got were important. The first one was from my wife, telling me she was leaving. The second was from my lawyer, telling me he was leaving... with my wife.
Mr. Kim: Aigh, that is bad luck. But grandfather say 'It never rain everyday'. This is good news, guaranteed. Hey, I bet your lunch.
Korben Dallas: Okay, you're on.
Mr. Kim: Come on. [opens message, in a excited voice] 'You are fired'. Oh, I'm sorry.
Korben Dallas: At least I won lunch.
Mr. Kim: Good philosophy, see good in bad, I like.
I also disagree with this being "soul-destroying," but for a slightly different reason. It could have been a lot worse - TFA says that there were multiple face-to-face meetings prior to the announcement, with an opportunity for employees to ask questions. There was also a severance package. It wasn't the best way to approach the problem, but at least it wasn't unexpected.
Dear Slashot Editors, The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated. Enjoy the rest of your day, Management. (I jest, I jest.)
Or do they expect their employees to carefully inspect the SMTP headers to make sure it's not a forgery?
Or does Radio Shack management just not understand technology?
Oh, never mind, I get it.
Someone must be trying desperatly to keep their job. RadioShack is having WEEKLY job fairs advertising that they are hiring! If they would just fire the moron who is waisting resources on interviewing people for jobs when there are none, they could have kept at least 50 of those positions!!!
I heard a rumor from what appeared to be a reliable source that Radio Shack had to close a bunch of stores because they lost their contract with Verizon. Apparently cell phone sales were carrying the stores.
next thing you know they'll SFTP a red swingline stapler away from the wrong guy and the whole mail server will mysteriously go up in flames a day later.
At least where I live...
If an employer did that here, they'd find themselves in a bit of a pickle with those employees that didn't happen to get the message before coming back to work the next day.
And they'd be legally _required_ to pay them for coming to work!!! (this is on top of any appropriate severence package that they are eligible for).
Well, not for the full day. Where I live, the legal minimum is 3 hours. But still... that could add up, if enough people didn't collect the message before showing up for work.
You discharge an employee in person. Always. Unless you want to risk owing even more money.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's a good thing that no one at Radio Shack has any technical skill or understands the Internet. Otherwise, someone who worked there and resents this happening this way might forge an e-mail header and fire everyone that didn't get the first e-mail. Not that I'm advocationg that, because that would be wrong.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Do you need any batteries today?
The firing of employees by email is just another way to automate away just another management function. If people find it acceptable to be fired by an email, rather than a face to face meeting with a manager, then this means we are just one more step to automating away most of management in company decision making. Anything that eliminates the jobs of useless corporate butt munchers who are adept at convincing their superiors they are valued exployees in the company with "people skills" is not just a good thing, but a great thing.
This means that eventually expert systems and other AI based systems will execute all firings in a fair and objective fashion. If you fail to meet your quotas, the "Virtual CEO 9000" will fire you with a nice little trite email. If you meet your quotas, then the "Virtual CEO 9000" may indeed give you a raise. No performance review will ever again be necessary where you have to interview for keeping your own job every year through kissing up to your former human manager, rather the "Virtual CEO 9000" will instead be constantly evaluating your usefulness to the corporation in real-time and compensate you objectively.
Just imagine what this would do for a company like Oracle that has about 10 maybe 11 engineers doing all the real work in the company with about 50,000 managers whose idea of work is schmoozing with other like-minded individuals on a golf course all day long. The "Virtual CEO 9000" could cut out so much bloat that profits would go so through the roof that Larry Ellison could pay down the entire United States national debt of 65 trillion dollars or whatever it happens to be right now.
Seriously, I have not figured out why the board of directors at our largest corporations has not already outsourced or automated away executive management yet, when they happen to be the least efficient and least accountable group of people in your typical corporation these days. The "Virtual CEO 9000" doesn't need stock options to the tune of 400 million dollars like one of Exxon's former CEO's, instead it just needs some electricity to make the kind of decisions that your typical corporate bean counter makes based solely upon some Microsoft Excel spreadsheet calculation where they say "AHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA THERE IS THE FAT WE NEED TO CUT. THAT DARNED IT DEPARTMENT IS NOT SELLING ANYTHING AND INSTEAD IS JUST COSTING US A LOT OF MONEY, LET'S FIRE SOME EXPLOYEES AND SLASH THEIR BUDGET!".
Oh wait, I forgot that modern corporations usually have a board of directors that also just happens to be personal friends of the executive management they are supposed to be directing. Nevertheless, my point still stands that being managed by a cold, unfeeling, computer application like the "Virtual CEO 9000" is still better than being managed by the sociopaths that typically run our public companies today.
I had temp seasonal job with Radio Shaft back in 1991. The weasels waited until the very last minute to give us our checks on X-mas eve so we wouldn't have time to cash them. The seasonal help was told before X-mas we'd be working through New Years Eve that year. My manager knew I had a 300 mile drive each way to go home for the holidays. I decided I'd rather spend time with my family and girlfriend so I called in sick on the day after Christmas. My manager said "Oh, we weren't allowed to tell the seasonal people but this was going to be your last day anyway." So the assholes would have let me drive 300 miles Christmas evening so I could work the next day and then they'd have let me go. They're truly a heinous company that shits on their employees. I haven't bought one thing from them since 1991 and I've urged friends and family over the years to not give them any business. I don't know if I've actually cost them very much in the long run, but every little bit helps squeeze them closer to bankruptcy.
I received my notice that my position was not going to be renewed (after countless promises that it would be) via email, back in 1997... They even had the gall to request that I schedule my time, to train my replacement.
Talk about a kick in the pants. Very deflating.
But, I'm *NOT* bitter! This is just going to become more common. The same way that a PFO (please f*#k off) letters are rarely sent out nowadays.
Xyst
Honestly Radio Shack, get some class.
I have to agree. That approach is utterly cowardly. On the practical side from the company's perspective, unemployed people have a lot of time to plot revenge pranks and expose's. Plus, the lasting ill-will will harm the reputation of the company (further).
Were they trying to save a buck, or simply too chicken to face people? If the latter, they don't belong in management.
Table-ized A.I.
In the early 80's I was a CPU designer at a large mainframe company that was going through waves of RIF's. All layoff's always happened on Friday, and the sysadmins were always given a list of userid's to disable before hand. So, it became a regular Friday morning ritual for everyone to get a cup of joe, joke about whether their login would work, and see if they could get on the system. An officemate typed his password incorrectly one Friday and nearly crapped. Most victims had their desk half cleaned out before their manager found them.
Heck, at least these people got an e-mail.
I have found new comfort in the fact that I never gave my employer my email address. I guess now I never will.
If they're going to e-fire you, you're still fired, whether you receive the email message from them or not.
Actually, I'm more curious about why you don't give your employer your email address? I'd have never given it a second thought. Why would you not want your employer to be able to communicate with you via email? They already have your snail mail address, bank account info, and SSN. What is the advantage of not giving them your email address?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Welcome to the Right-Wing Hell. People vote for them because they hope for enforcement of "social values". However, they have been railroaded by Inc.
Table-ized A.I.
In another comment someone suggested replying to all of them with "Sorry, that was a a joke." I think it would be better to email the 400 people not laid off with "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated." Might teach them a lesson to do things face to face. Cheers.
Well, if that is now really legally acceptable I know what's going to happen next, expect a new type of spam, the 'sack' spam. That also has the effect ot training your spam filter so you'll never receive the real one. As a matter of fact, it probably pretty much nukes this for the next time it's attempted.
Insert
But not for the reasons you might think. The natural reaction is that it's too impersonal. That's really the least of the problems. The big problem with email is that it's not reliable, and not very official. What's to stop someone sending out a prank notice to non-fired rad-shack employees that says they're fired? Maybe you don't like the rad-shack guy you work with (and you've already been fired), so you send out a fake email to him with headers that look like it comes from rad-shack and the same body as yours. How's your (former) co-worker going to know he wasn't actually fired?
Email isn't reliable either. There's no guarantee that people read their email on a regular basis, and even if they did spam filters can filter out an email like this.
AccountKiller
...a guy from an African nation in the very next message promised to give me a new job if I help him with an international transaction.
Table-ized A.I.
Peter Gibbons: You're gonna lay off Samir and Michael?
Bob Slydell: Oh yeah, we're bring in some entry-level graduates, farm some work out to Singapore, that's the usual deal.
Bob Porter: Standard operating procedure.
Peter Gibbons: Do they know this yet?
Bob Slydell: No. No, of course not. We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.
Office Space
As an aside, I was one of the first people to use SMS messaging for my cell phone, rather than voice mail (ie an operator takes your call and transcribes it). Now, obviously, you couldn't lace it with obscenities... but I did give the phone to my gf's best friend who proceeded to call up and leave me a message: "Tell him he's dumped." She had to repeat it, apparently the operator was a little disbelieving, but had a sense of humour... a few moments later, I got: "Robert...
You're dumped!"
all nicely arranged so I had to scroll down to see the 'punchline'.
They also sent Pluto a notice that it's longer classified as a planet. Poor Pluto does not even know because it will take 9 years to get there.
Table-ized A.I.
It happens only in America. American corporates are a bunch of ingrates. The work culture sucks. There is no humanity, no love and no warmth. All the 'Hi, how you doin', 'Hi, how are you today?', 'So nice to see you again' and other phrases of warmth and caring are all feigned. No one really cares a shit about how you are today. All they know is that this company is not doing well, I need to search for sheep I can shear.
An example from the health care scene: I know a child with a respiratory disorder that had to wait for 2 months just to get a bed. After getting the bed, the child survived only for a day. Its really sad how cold we have become in the pursuit for money and power. We have forgotten how peoples lives get affected by our decisions. There are countless people who are such dedicated workers, people who genuinely care about the company they work in, people who suffer silently when their dedication and committment is met with a terse email saying 'Piss off dawg, we don't need you no more'.
Is it any wonder then that stuff gets outsourced to destinations like India? And that more and more workers are coming from America to work in India?
My experience with them is from 18 years ago, but the organizational style rings true.
I found this organization to be utterly classless, morally bankrupt, and totally incompetent. The sole exception to this was that INDIVIDUAL store managers and a couple of reginal guys were fantastic sales people and had solid retail skills. The entire corporate profile is designed to mass produce cheap crap and sell it at a huge margin, sucking every ounce of effort and creativity from the few good sales kids and retail level managers who give huge efforts to eek out a poor living.
The times I was in Ft. Worth for one reason or another the level of waste and incompetance was stunning to behold.
-- Please forgive the poor spelling and typos. I'm typing on a small keyboard and have limited editing here.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Actually, what might work with the cubicle set would be to put an opposing two of their partition walls on motorised rails, linked to a database that moved them inward when their quotas went down, and outward when they went up. Give them inflatable chairs, too -- so when the walls move in too close, you can fire them directly through the roof.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
As a former long-time employee at RS, let me just say this news comes as absolutely no surprise.
Their entire management structure is irrepairably flawed. Most of their top guys were promoted from store-level positions with absolutely no formal training on how to run a fortune 500 corporation. These 'executives' know only how to lead through threats, intimidation, and constant turnover.
In the 1980s and early 90s, they went from being one of the largest and most respected computer manufacturers (Tandy) to almost zero computer sales. In 1990, there was a RadioShack store in every neighborhood, yet they completely missed the boat on the Internet boom. In about 2000 they happened to be in the right place at the right time and lucked into the cell phone boom, hence their good stock performance during this time. They soon (within months) screwed that up and their stock fell to a third of its former value almost overnight.
Now they've been doing nothing new, with the exception of several scandals involving their former CEO, Dave Edmonson. I'd imaging their long term strategory at this point is simply circling the drain long enough for some conglomerate to buy their name at a firesale price for use in some branding strategy
Is this a news report or a trailer for a motion picture?
They asked you to a meeting. That is a reasonable, and professional course of action to take. People get laid off, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad. The real problem with the article is not that some people were laid off, but that they were told by e-mail not to bother coming in anymore. HP at least gave you the courtesy of a face to face.
Well if they can efire we can eboycott. Not that it makes adiffernce, but it;s just one more place not to go besides walmart
"And that more and more workers are coming from America to work in India?"
Yes, America is literally hemorrhaging population to the third world as people seek opportunity... are you for real?
Most companies would not do this - the very fact that it rates as news should clue you in to this. Don't pick out random news items and try to establish a trend.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
it happens only in America
Nope.
One time, I was 1 week into a 3-month posting in Europe, and I got an e-mail from Australia telling me my 3-month notice period started immediately. I had to work through it of course. I was paid out the 4 weeks of vacation I'd accumulated, but lost the hundreds of hours of time-off-in-lieu. I'd been with the firm 8 years.
Trying to find a new job when you're 10,000 miles away from home isn't easy. And of course the customer, who had paid $$$ for my services, was not pleased, they wanted me to stay longer and work on other stuff.
Yes, I should have taken the time off in lieu, but that would have been cheating the customer. There's such a thing as professional ethics.
I took the firm to industrial arbitration, won, but the legal fees ate up nearly all of the 3 months pay I got.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
satire!
Yes, where a person makes a point about a situation by writing something that often takes the situation to an extreme.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
The idea that your not even worth a face to face firing, would be devasating to most people. I don't see how it could be worse.
Who ever did the e-firing, didn't do there job. Or at least avoided the hard part of it. If you're going to fire some one. If you're going to tell them they aren't needed anymore. It would have been decent to tell them in person.
Anyone who thinks this is no big deal, was either never fired or didn't like the job they were fired from. You also can't assume the ones being fired don't care, or don't like there job. Everyone deserves to be fired by a person, no matter how much prior notice they were giving. You don't KNOW you are fired, until you are fired.
Those endorsing this problaly want to use it in the future, because they don't have the cojones to fire someone in person.
Keila's terminal showed a new message, coded 9BPRW. She smiled. Good old 9BPRW - bad news develops its own standard features. She opened the message:
The Demopol has determined that some posts are surplus to requirements. If your job title following this message is underlined, you are hereby terminated.
(She's pleased about it because she hacked the system to sack her - part of a complicated plan to take over the world.)
You can rent this space for $5 a week.
"Common decency" ... hmm, maybe exists in some 50s romantic B-movie comedies, but alas, welcome to the real world pal. That stuff never existed. Read your histories of work and industry through the ages. Watch a few Monty Python sketches if that's too boring (something about working in coal mines and getting up at 5am and being grateful for it: Victorian decency didn't have a problem with sending 5 year olds down mines and up chimneys after all). That's why unions got going in the first place, to actually give the little guys some real power rather than having individuals just sitting at home feeling shocked after layoff at the wake up call that they weren't actually working for a paternalistic social enterprise.
If you don't like the word 'union' then pick another, but you need some sort of collective ability to organise and respond when the big guys put the pressure on. They screw around with your workmates, you all stop work and threaten to take the company down if they don't start behaving better. Drastic, sure, but the USA is *proud* of its free market hire em and fire em attitude, you aren't going to get some middle manager to change their way by asking them to remember the unwritten rules of Lord's cricket ground and the British Raj. They are watching over their shoulder as well...
The news in this is that we've reached that particular point in our society where a corporation doesn't even have to have the common decency to fire people in person.
What kind of phantasy world do you live in? Labor rights and relations have come a long way since the 19th centuries; companies didn't use to fire employees by E-mail, they used to work them to death and kill them.
You're confusing a company with a thinking, feeling person. Companies are like big, impersonal machines, and they have always been. Complaining about being fired by E-mail makes just about as much sense as taking the BSOD or a washing machine malfunction as a personal insult. The company doesn't want you anymore, so just move on. If people get fired too often in your opinion, then the solution is to fix the system (by working for more labor rights), not to whine about the form in which you get fired.
It's never nice no matter how it's done.
;)
Heck, I had ye old axe dropped on me in Nov '05 by an HR manager(director?) as if that matters. He only had the job for ~ 3 weeks. We had no HR department before that! LOL
So he was there all of 3 weeks and gave me a firm handshake and said something like "*we* want to thank you for you years of service" blah blah I was cracking up inside and screaming "You've been here all of 3 weeks!! How can YOU be thanking me for my years of service?! bwahahaha! Ok, I was alternating between cracking up inside and thinking WTF?!
Thank you. Drive through. (:wq)
Congrats, you should be a manager, maybe even a board member or CEO, if your view of the world is that sociopathic.
Human interactions are not measured just in how many dollars they make for your (or their) bottom line. Sometimes you can take 5 minutes off your busy schedule just, you know, for the sake of making someone's day less shitty. Just because it's the humane thing to do. Someone has just been fired, and it won't kill you to just say a few soothing words and show (or fake) some compassion. Or just show that someone at least remembers their name, or that they worked there. Put a human/humane face on the whole deal, you know.
Yes, being fired is just normal and just part of how the economy works. It's not the end of the world. Etc. But it's still a stressful event in someone's life. It won't kill you to lower someone's stress a little.
It's also an awakening to the cruel reality that, for all the bullshit "we're all a big family" speeches, you're just a nameless disposable cog in the corporate machine. A cog that's served its purpose, produced all the profit that could be made, and now is disposed of when no longer profitable. All the "we're all a big family" idea not only flies out the window, but it turns out that it's never been true anyway. That's not how families work.
And that's not a cheerful thought. Humans aren't robots, and the millions of years of evolution have sorta hard-wired us to be social beings. Our brains are wired for person-to-person relations, not for a nameless-cog-to-faceless-entity existence. That's too why we build father figures in the sky (i.e., religion), or conspiracy theories with a few people responsible for all this or that, or anthropomorphise our computer/boat/gun/whatever. Because that's the kind of thing we're wired for, and the kind of thing we understand: _people_, not faceless machineries.
And the kind of email oozing an "you're one of the nameless drones we're discarding today" tone, like these people received, only serve to amplify that to the maximum impact possible. It's just twisting the knife in the wound. In the ammo arsenal of unpleasant human interactions, this is the dum-dum.
And if you're willing to advocate that just because the humane alternative is "just a total logistical nightmare"... well, as I was saying, you have some serious upper management potential.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Not at all. If I'm ever in the position where I need to fire somebody, I would definitely do so in person.
I know this is a huge deal for the people involved, and I'm not excusing Radio Shack's actions; I'm saying that there could have been far, far worse mistakes than the one they made.
I don't see anybody endorsing this course of action; I know I'm not. I just think this is not the worst possible outcome. Employees could have not been given any warning; they could have been fired without a severance package, instead of up to nine months of free pay; or they could have been escorted off the premises by security instead of a manager. Radio Shack's blunder seems mild compared to what others have done.
> Yes, I should have taken the time off in lieu, but that would have been cheating the customer.
> There's such a thing as professional ethics.
Yes, but there's also a more important thing called `look after yourself first, and the customers of your ex-employer some way after that`. I don't give a dick about my companies customers, any more than my company cares about me. It's a financial arrangement that I would sever in an instant if I didn't have to work. There's nothing particularly ethical about business in that sense.
The other part of the story was three months ago when Radio Shack publicly stated they were closing about 30% of their stores.
In essence, store clerks unlucky enough to be assigned to underperforming locations were the first to feel the long knives although I would image there was at least some shuffling to fill in for natural attrition. Same applies to managers I would well assume. That corporate cutting came later would be the expected flow, although sometimes corporate gets the gullitine first.
No surprise then although no one looks forward to job elimination. Unfortunately this is the continuation of a growing trend.
But did not Radio Shack Corporate bring this upon themselves?
Clearly the early mainstay of the business, hobby electronics, was flagging in the classic regard but was increasing in parallel areas. Less descrete components and integrated circuits were being sold but areas such as car stereo parts was ramping up big time for example. Radio Shack failed to indentify and capitalize on the shifting trends opting to become just another consumer electronics retailer and a rather poor one at that.
That the average hobbyist was no longer building around 741 op amps didn't mean the hobbyist was going away, rather, they were simply changing venues. In the Radio Shacks around here you cannot buy speakers, enclosures, crossovers and all the rest. RS used to be a good source for this and now that every kid on the block is spending megadollars to amp out the stereo in their hoopty, where is the neighborhood Radio Shack?
By the same token there is a large market of people looking to Mod their computers. Again, where is Radio Shack? You could build quite a list beyond the two examples I mention, of RS completely missing the boat and it's sad really. RS was not known for top of the line but stuff was readily available and the company enjoyed success due to convenience and accessibility.
As someone else pointed out, Radio Shack is perhaps best known today as a tier two cellphone store but that market is saturated and highly competitive with corrosponding declines in profit margins. The halcyon days of cell phone companies as high margin revenue generators is over for now it's all about volume. Cell phone sales will not save the company and they cannot compete with Walmart, BestBuy, Comp USA and Fry's etc. Least wise not directly but they turned their back on the "do it your self" crowd and that was their market at one time.
So Radio Shack fades into the sunset?
Put it this way. If the company has what it takes to dig themselves out of this hole, they should have had what it takes to not dig such a hole in the first place. They didn't and I doubt it.
It seems to me painful, now the company they do not want to face the employees. As always the employees, which we do that the companies pull forward, most harmed.
> On xx/xx/xxxx xx:xx The Employee <slave@thecompany> wrote:
>> On xx/xx/xxxx xx:xx The Management <lickmyboots@thecompany> wrote:
>> Knock, knock!
>>
> Who's there?
Not you anymore! Hahahahahaaaaa!
They really should have put e-liminated in the original letter.
Probably beats firing by text-message though.
Warhammer forums
I would like to ask what is wrong with us as an society when a job is felt as important as parents and spouse?
The truth is that a job is just a job, it's a way to pay bills and at best it's a way to fulfil ones dreams and desires. If one looses a job, one can search another job and another way to make relevance to his/her life if the job one loosed even offered that. It should be also noted that a job doesn't raise or lower ones worth as an human being: being a jobless, or a multimillionaire CEO or garbage man doesn't change ones worth even a little bit.
What I argue is that most people are just afraid of change, they are fearful of the unknown and don't want to answer such questions like 'Who am I', 'Why am I important', 'What do I want from my life' and 'Why I want something'. What people don't realize that life itself is in constant change and the future and the present day have full of unknowns. When one let's go and starts to empraise the change and sees the unknown as an possibility, then ones life will be much more joy able than it otherwise would be.
On a note, I'm an entrepreneur with a little software start-up going on. I have never been fired, but I have had my share of bad news in many forms: working in projects that went dead, leading successful projects that backfired to me an an person, working hard in another start-up that went belly up, changing locations many times and having to say goodbye to friends and look for new ones. There has been lot of change in my life, but at the end of the day it has been always for the best of myself. So next time something bad happens, ie. you loose your job, don't be too saddened because there is a change of new beginning.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
I have read all the 5-rated comments and seems to me that the consensus is American job culture sucks, Radio Shack sucks.
Due to my trollish habits, I am always inclined to say something in contrary.
At the last company I worked for, there were 3 waves of firing people. In all of them a top level manager talked to them, thanked them and explained to them why they are fired. That it has nothing to do with them, that it is related to the products performance which is very little to do with them. Of course, people were not happy anyway, and they rightfully should not be: well, they were fired, but there was an effort from the company to alleviate the pain.
The company I am talking about is not the best, and it has a bad reputation in the IT industry for their cold and mindless approach to people, so I assume the situation with graceful firing is better in other IT companies.
I have to admit though that people who were fired were seasoned professional programmers, many with PhD in physical, chemical and biological sciences.
Another important comment is that the waves were about 50-100 people. When the amount of people to be laid off is larger it becomes a logistic problem to fire them at once, in one take to minimize the effect on job. It might explain the "e-mail" twist of it, but in no way it explains the "no-thanks" angle. So yes, Radio Shack sucks.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
This is hardly the first example of this sort of thing happening, you only have to do a quick search on Google to find hundreds of other examples of people being sacked by email or even SMS.
One that particularly stands out in my mind was when approx 2500 people working for an insurance firm in the UK were sacked (mostly by SMS message).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2949578.stm
If they don't open it does it mean they aren't fired?
Not entirely true. Of all the industries I've worked in (Retail, Retail Corporate, Reference Libraries, tech services, etc.; a nice sampling of the market), you know what business was filled with the most cheerful, friendly, kind, compassionate, intelligent and good-hearted people?
An advertising agency. Is that fucked up or WHAT?
I didn't mind when I got fired from a dollar store, on the phone no less, and they didn't even have the balls to tell me I was fired, just that I didn't get any hours that week. I only didn't mind because I hated that job. . . and that I got a job a few months later that pays more than twice what my boss was making. I also got a good laugh when I learned 2 months later that ex-boss got fired for being a dipshit.
If it had been a decent job (even Radio Shed would have been a better job) I probably would have been a little more upset with that kind of firing. Had I been fired by a company form letter (which I normally filter to my delete folders anyway) it would have been much more embarassing when I showed up for my next shift not even having read the letter. . .
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
...we were persons and, being persons, we had a "Personnel" department. Then times changed, and now we have a "Human Resources" department. Non-humans and persons need not apply.
I once worked for a company that was as chickenshit as this. One of the partners was diagnosed with cancer so he sold his holdings and went to Ireland to live whatever he had left. An ex-wife of his son had a job in the company and they wanted to get rid of her quietly so they sent a process server to the bungelow she was staying in on Maui with her final check and severance. She hired a lawyer in hawaii and filed suit there after renting a house that her lawyer found her for residency reasons. She sought 3 million in damages and the company had to deal with the whole thing,including depositions by all of the parties involved in the buyout, in hawaii which damn near broke the bastards. She never figured to win, she just wanted to see them jump through hoops. They eventually settled out of court with the usual NDA but I know it had to be a good chunk because she sent all the people she knew in the company a 250 dollar gift certificate for Walmart that christmas saying she knew the company wouldn't be able to afford the usual christmas turkeys that year.
While it is certainly wrong to e-fire someone, a company I once worked for did one worse. The company got bought out and the new owners started downsizing. I worked in IT, specifically, I was in charge of the user accounts for the network, email, etc. I would get a list of accounts to disable every so often, sometimes with a note saying it was urgent and they needed to be deleted NOW. So I deleted them. Within 10 minutes, my phone was ringing off the hook with people complaining that they couldn't get to their email. They had not been told that they were fired, and I had to let them in on the secret.
When I then started complaining to the asshats in management about that, they informed me that they had sent the people emails about their impending loss of a job. I later found out that this email was sent about 5 minutes before they told me to delete it, thus none of them had actually received the email.
I was later fired as well, though I was pretty happy about the situation since I got a sweet severence.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
:wq!
You know, I usually am the one who says we don't need new laws, but in this case, I think it's justified. Noone should be fired or laid off in any other way other then in person. Not on the phone, not by a voice mail, not via text message and certainly not via e-mail. Any other way should be considered invalid. There should also be other rules also....rules that say you have to be human about the whole thing. None of this shutting down card keys and removing desks or anything else.
Gorkman
Just forward the message to someone you can't stand...
This guy's the limit!
I don't feel at all good about the precedent of firing people using email, but I'm reluctant to make an assumption based on the tone of a slashdot story. The article states:
If this is true, it at least means that the company had given employees some warning that bad news was coming. In another, more complete article, it's stated that employees had a good chance to ask questions before the emails, and meet with management staff after the emails.
To be honest, it does sound a bit dehumanising with the way it's being reported, but put in a different context, it could also be that sending the actual notifications via email (after sufficient warning) was simply the best way to do it, for everyone, in that particular business.
- Radio Shack Canada is no longer affiliated with Radio Shack USA
- Radio Shack Canada no longer exists
- Radio Shack Canada is now "Circuit City: The Source"
- They now carry more electronics components than they have in 5-10 years
At least there is some place local where I can buy SOME components again. I'm happy. Digikey is great, but you just can't run out and grab something you suddenly need when your main supplier is mail order.
I just wish they still carried those little Archer PCBs etched for a single ~14-pin DIP. I used my second-last one last weekend.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Radio Shack is ok for the odd cable, cell phone battery and maybe a pair of cheap headphones. Other than that? Not much.
Maybe the company had an "A Team".
I used to be a technician at a plant where the day shift had what we referred to as the "A Team", a group of mostly polictical appointees deigned to be the best design and problem solvers we had, so deigned by their buddies the management. Additionally there was only one good tech on the graveyard shift and once when he was on vacation one of the machines went down and stayed down till dayshift arrived and the A Team decided to take charge of the machine's repair. When my 2nd shift came on we were instructed the machine was down for repairs and not to touch it as it was under the control of the A Team. After discussing the issue with the graveyard crew when they came on that night we had a pretty good guess as to what was wrong with it, which brought us puzzled looks from the graveyard crew. We left a note for the A Team with our suggestion and went home for the night, when we arrived the next day we were told our guess was wrong, they had not checked it mind you but they "knew" we were wrong. Three days later the machine was still down but they wanted us to do some routine maintenance on the machine while it was down. Thus with permission to work on the machine we proceeded to do the routine maintenance and while we were at it slipped a new latch relay into the control circuit ran by the cam timer. The next morning the "A Team" "fixed" the machine. We were greeted with some evil looks when we came in that night.
Amusingly when the one decent third shift tech returned from vacation his fellow shift techs were telling him about it and he asked them "did you replace the latch relay on that cam timer circuit?" He just shook his head when they said it was turned over to the "A Team" and was down several days. Noticing us laughing into our hands and looking at us with quizzical eyes we simply said: "after a few days they had us perform general maintenance on the machine and then the next day they fixed it." He was still laughing when we clocked out.
As a picky note, you didn't really have to tell them they were fired. You could have told them you were looking into the problem and that they should contact their manager.
E-firings are harsh. And yet, they do recycle my old batteries.... http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/malfy.html
I recently lost my job, though not as mercilessly as the RadioShack method. Well, actually, I tell a lie: I was forced out my job - http://www.btinternet.com/~dr_paul_lee/autonomy.ht m
My web domain.
How long until doctors just text-message the family: "The surgery seemed to be going well, but he didn't pull through. Sorry." Then the hospital can add a $2 charge for the text-message (yes that's ridiculously high for a text-message, but have you seen what they charge for an aspirin?)
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
They got screwed. It sucks. But at least it's nothing personal.
That doesn't help you feel any better though. You're still left with a feeling of failure. In my case, the parent company shut the entire company down. Fortunately, I had only just started, and had plenty of good things on my resume (and current). Others haven't been so fortunte.
Many years ago I was working as a system admin for one of the largest computer companies in the world. We were going thru some major downsizing. Our standard procedure was at the end of the day, we were shown a list of employees who were being let go, our computer operators would disable their accounts that evening. The employee would show up next morning and the person's manager/supervisor would then inform them of the bad news and would walk them to their desk and let them clean it out and escort them out the door.
Of course, the person's manager/supervisor would be too cowardly to show up on time on the day the employee was being let go. The employee would show up at say, 8:00 a.m on the boss would show up at 9:15-9:30 (deliberately late). When the employee couldn't log into their account, they would phone the system admin (me) and ask me to reset their password. I told them I couldn't do that (because their name had been on the termination list the previous day) and they were annoyed at me for refusing to do so. I asked them to talk to their manager (who wasn't there). After a while people had heard about this. The next time they couldn't log in, they would phone me and when I told them I couldn't enable their account, they would say "am I getting let go", and I would hear the "I just bought a house", "my wife is pregnant", etc. They shouldn't have to hear that they were being let go from me. It just shows you how cowardly the local manager of that person was.
Once we had people with the same first initial and last name (such as Carol Brown with login name of cbrown and Christine Brown with login name of crbrown). Lets say that Christine (crbrown) was being let go. The computer operators disabled cbrown (Carol's account) instead. Carol Brown thought that she was being let go when she couldn't log in.
Someone later told her "sorry for the incovenience".
My boss works two hours from my site. I had been with the company for 30 years. When it was time to let me know that I was history, my boss wanted to drive to where I work and tell me in person. My boss's boss didn't want to pay mileage so I got the info via phone.
What a company.
Companies are soulless and heartless. I am surprised more people don't go postal these days. Also, when people are let go, the workload doesn't go with them, its dumped on the poor suckers who remain behind.
Email: media.relations@RadioShack.com
I emailed them and told them that I won't be shopping at their stores until they make this right. An apology attached to a 4 figure check is what I suggested. Let's face it, a corporate apology that doesn't have money attached to it (since corps only care about money) is an empty apology.
This sig used to be really funny...
After reading the posting calling you a sociopath, I figured I'd chime in to say I agree with you.
/are/ largely an anonymous cog in an impersonal machine. All of the lip-service paid to the "we're all one big family" idea is just that - lip service - and all but the dolts know it.
Working for corporations means you
I've been laid off once before, and if I had to choose between an email and having it done in person I'd take the email.
Feeling like you got special, personal treatment being laid off in person is like feeling you got special, personal treatment from the greeter at WalMart. It's meaningless fluff.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Exactly - it could've been much worse.
One of my friends dumped his girlfriend of over two years last week - by fax, no less.
He's being cremated tomorrow.
How utterly crass and unprofessional. My ex worked as a manager at a Radio Shack in Connectict for nearly 10 years before finally quitting in disgust after the company literally tried to suck the soul and lifeforce out of him. Their policies have been atrocious for years, low pay, as many hours as they think they can get you in for and still MAYBE have time for sleep, racist tendencies and now this ultimate in laziness and unprofessionalism. I feel for these people, and hope they get some kind of justice or at least recognition from this incident.
"I am treated as evil by those who feel persecuted because they are not allowed to force me to believe as they do."
Even if they do have what I need, it's usually hideously overpriced. I've given up on Radio Shack (or The Source or whatever it's called now) for my parts. As nice as it is to be able to get things from a brick-and-mortar (since I'm very impatient), I've found that using http://www.digikey.com/ is just better all-around.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
>Is it any wonder then that stuff gets outsourced to destinations like India?
>And that more and more workers are coming from America to work in India?
Don't sweat it - very soon the same mentality will be there, too.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Just kidding here about the boss bit, but the telnet part is *very true*. Don't even believe email if it is signed with a crypto certificate that you know you can trust. It could still be a hacker who got access to your bosses email account and company address book. How many bosses you know that would detect that their account was breached? Not many, unless you work for a security firm.
Just don't believe the email until you talk to your supervisors boss to see that it was authorized. Your boss may just be hoping you don't show up so they can fire you with cause.
And this doesn't surprise me one bit.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
If they were in the UK I am sure they would be a member of "Investors in People", the organisation that gets you to emphasise that your people are your best asset.
"I was later fired as well"
Let me guess... they gave you a list of accounts to disable, and your name was on it?
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
I once worked for a small ISP that was bought by a big ISP. The big ISP layed us all off only to bring us back a few weeks later because they didn't know how the stuff worked. Then they moved us to their home office. I worked there for a few years. I got a girlfriend and we were going to get an appartment. I noticed the signs that they would be doing a layoff soon. So I approached my boss and told him I was going to sign a lease on a new appartment (with increased costs) tomarrow and I wanted to make sure my job was secure. He said it was secure and the layoff rumors were just rumers. Then he reminded me of our saturday morning meeting to cover policy changes. So I went home, signed my new lease, work up saturday morning and went to work for the meeting. When I got to the meeting we were told we were all being layed off and asked to sign a Non disclusure agreement to get our last paycheck. I walked up to my boss, put my fist though the wall directly next to his head and left. My paycheck came on time.
I was one of those nerdy geeks as well. Worked at RS while attending high school & college back in the early 1980's. I created a spreadsheet in VisiCalc to help the manager with inventory allocation -- it got distributed all over the company. The job was a joke, as was the company. Management was really dumb, even for retail! It's hard to believe they are still in business.
You are correct about the parts. Margins on those were tremendous, and local competition was non-existant. They had the PC market cornered at one point, and they blew it. To an extent, customers are the problem. They are quite content to shop where competent people give reasonable advice, and then make the actual purchase at a big-box store where nobody knows anything but the price is right.
RS would love to be a mainstream electronics retailer, but their prices were not competitive. Either they did a poor job of negotiating and their cost was too high, or they did a poor job of analyzing competitor's prices. Or maybe they drowned themselves with internal overhead costs. They also had their inventory spread out too thin over too many stores. Although they tried to be the 7-11 of electronics, the typical customer seldom found what he wanted at the first RS he visited. Some convenience!
I'm told they did well in remote sections of the country where they didn't face big-box competition. Sure didn't pan out that way where I lived.
Business practices, wages, working conditions all pretty much sucked. If I were one of the employees getting those e-mails, I would look forward to getting a raise at my next job. It would be hard to find anything that pays less.
Being the product of a recent major layoff, I can definitely add some thoughts to this. Had my employer of 8 years taking the b*tch way out and sent me an email letting me know I was one of the unfortunates who was being let go, I more than likely would have been angry and beligerant about the whole affair. Sure, they had meetings discussing their intentions, but still, its demeaning to have a souless company further prove that point by issuing a sterile, cold email letting you know that your life has just been flushed down the toilet. And yes, the severance is a nice gesture, but I'm gonna tell you right now...I got 27-weeks worth of severance when I was let go and while it is a nice chunk of change...it bites you in the a$$ in the long run as you're taxed higher for the lump amount, leaving me with $12,000 of my $19,000 severance. While this isn't the worst thing to do to someone, it still would be demoralizing to know you were the recipient of a form email that took someone 3 minutes to type and no emotion whatsoever. At least with my layoff my boss was there and I watched the man break down in tears. No matter what the circumstances, someone being let go needs compassion and encouragement...sending a "get out" email doesn't do the trick.
You think American companies are cold and heartless, try working for the British. Since they've taken over the CEO has personally told at least 5 people I know not to worry about their job and then fired them that week. It's almost like they take a personal satisfaction in raising up their hopes and then smashing them on the rocks. At least they do it in person though.
Last summer, I worked through as a tech for an area school district doing re-installs/reformats of the schools computer systems. After about a month and a half of working with a growing team. The liason in charge of the project sent out an email tuesday afternoon to pretty much all the techs on the project saying. "Hi thanks, don't come back tommorow." What was funny is that her email created an impromptu email bitching list since she left all the emails visable (in the to and cc: fields) So everyone knew everyone else was fired as well. Was 30-40 people fired I believe.
It happens only in America. American corporates are a bunch of ingrates. The work culture sucks. There is no humanity, no love and no warmth. All the 'Hi, how you doin', 'Hi, how are you today?', 'So nice to see you again' and other phrases of warmth and caring are all feigned.
What does that have to do with America? I used to work for a French company where the upper management didn't care about how we were and didn't even bother to try feigning it. Indeed, by the time I got laid off, the most important thing to management had become keeping us in R&D from talking to the sales department, so that our "negativity" wouldn't affect them. Seriously--I know someone who was reprimanded just for saying, within earshot of the sales manager, that getting laid off really sucks.
I really doubt that nationality matters that much; a prick is a prick the world around.
When I've been in this situation, everyone got invited to a meeting. But there were two meetings. People invited to one got to stay, people invited to the other got laid off. There were, of course, managers at each door to ensure that everyone was in the right meeting. It was actually a decent way to handle a bad situation.
Could be worse. One place I got laid off the HR person came in and asked to "see you for a few minutes"... By the time you got the bad news and went to clean out your desk IT had cut your accounts and deactivated your entry badge. That's not so bad, but... In one case, IT threw the switch before HR talked to the guy. "Why won't the doors open? Why can't I log in?" IT had to tap-dance around his calls for an hour or two before HR caught up.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
That's nothing! I was Dear Johned by email back in 1995.
Oddly, I was ok with that.
Thirty years ago Radio Shack fired me while I lay in a hospital bed (motorcycle accident). Seems their HR skills haven't improved much over the years.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
This might seem a little Office Spacey, but if that happened to me, I'd go into work and make them fire me in front of customers.
Here in Belgium an employer, firing an employee, is required by law to notify that employee either by an officially registered letter (at the postal office, costing the employer some 5 extra) or by enlisting an official bailiff. What's US law on this? Just curious, really...
Well, while getting the axe is tough, I really fail to see what difference it makes in how your told.
Most people at one time or another, I guess, have been laid off/downsized/fired at some point in their career. It is something that is never easy to hear, but, really I don't think it would matter to me if it was by email, phone or in person. Actually, I'd almost think it would be easier to get by email...that way you don't have to sit there feeling weird in front of the person telling you your services are no longer needed.
I sure as hell know it is easier to give bad news of other kinds by phone or email rather than in person.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Compete? I haven't seen different deals from anywhere. If you go to BestBuy for a phone, you get the same offer that you can get from a mall kiosk. In fact, the mall kiosk might be the better of the two because they'll throw in a free "something" (miscellaneous crap that you apply to your phone to make it look "cool"). Your best bet is buying the phone from like e-Bay or something (just watch out for scammers).
Layne
First, their original slogan:
"You got questions? We've got answers."
Then, due to lack of actual answer content:
"You got questions? Uh, we've got Batteries."
Now, SpeemCo marketing division presents the new 2007 Radio Shack slogan:
"You've got mail! You're Fired!"
Now, if we can just find a clip of the AOL "you got mail" guy and Donald trump, we could have the beginnings for a techno song... hmmmm I gotta go.
The Digital Sorceress
Game OVER!!!!
In all seriousness, that REALLY sucks ass but it's not surprising considering that businesses have reached the point where they can fuck your dog and you can't say anything about it. So... anyone still think we don't need protection for employees from their employers?
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Wait until Friday? I mean haven't statistics shown that there's less chance of an "incident"?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
I'd made a post earlier that I really didn't see the big deal of being let go by email. I actually thought it would be a bit easier in that you didn't have to sit there and feel uncomfortable in front of a person having to tell you in person. I just didn't get it, but, then I read your post and maybe I do. The part where you liken losing your job of 8 years to having your life 'flushed down the toilet'. Wow...I've just guessed I never associated my work/job with my life or self worth before as it seems you may do. I guess there are a good many of people out there that associate their job with their self worth or image. That's just foreign to me.
Don't get me wrong, I like my job...I'm often passionate about my interest in what I do, that happens to also earn me a living...a good one. But, it is just a job. Where I do it, and who for really isn't the biggest deal in my life. The second I leave work...I completely leave it (unless on call or something). I don't really think about it till I walk back in the door the next day. I don't have any loyalty really towards any company, because I feel in this age, they have none towards me. But, I've felt that for a long time. Currently, I'm in a semi-contract mode...W2 hourly employee for a contract company. Work is good, pay is good, benefits are good. I'm friends with the owner of the company and often have drinks with him. I'm a good employee and contribute to the company. But, if I got the ax tomorrow...and it could happen as that the area I'm in is New Orleans...well, I'd take a little hit on my pride, but, mostly just worry about getting the next gig.
But, losing my job, doesn't really mean I lost something that defines me. I work ONLY to make money...to enable me to buy and do things that make me happy. If I won the lottery tomorrow, trust me..I'd never work again, I'd do nothing but stuff that was fun.
I guess that explains a lot of the posts I read here...I was actually shocked that so many people described the firing process so emotionally...and took it so personally. I didn't realize that the job people hold defines them so much. And I think that is sad.
A job should be nothing more than a means to supporting your lifestyle. Sure...hopefully you can enjoy your work, but, really...does it matter who you do it for? Your job should not be YOU.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm sorry all intercompany mail has been going into my spam folder. I'm just cleaning my gun here, did you want something?
I always wanted to break up with a girl via electronic greeting card:
"moyix has sent you an e-card! Click here to read it!"
*click*
"Yeah, I'm breaking up with you. Enjoy this cute picture of a kitten, though."
A job is basically an exchange of skill and effort for currency. In some cases the measurement of skill and effort is based on hours worked, and those employed in this way are called hourly workers or contractors. In other cases skill and effort is not measured, these permanent employees are given a guaranteed salary. Contrary to what the term permanent implies, in both cases the majority of jobs are actually at will, which means that either the employee or the employer may terminate the relationship at any time, for almost any reason.
It should be noted that it is the employer that invokes at will termination in the vast majority of cases.
If you don't know the person who signs your paycheck, they don't know you. You're just a number on a spreadsheet. Quit now before they realize you're number is too big.
Before you know it, people are going to start e-dumping each other.
Because of this I wont be buying anything from them anytime soon (they are called "The Source" here in Canada). Oh wait...because of their prices I don't buy from them anyways...being so inpersonal with their employees makes you wonder just what kind of level of service they can actually provide to a customer once he's paid for something How hard is it to actually tell someone in person that he/she is being let go? Yes it's not a given but is a much better method than emailing someone.
....What kind of havok spam of this nature could cause.
I can't believe "serious" issues like this get discussed over standard e-mail. E-mail isn't secure, people, and e-mail can be forged.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Believe me, I understand your position. There was a time several years ago where I felt just as you do now. Work was work and that was all it was. I clock in, life turns off and work turns on. Clock out, the same in reverse. What changed was I became an asset to the area I worked in. I created several programs and systems that made life easier for my co-workers and increased our productivity by 85%. I made a decent living and, with the birth of my 2 beautiful children, felt that I was untouchable. But that is where hurt comes in. I was told time and time again how valuable I was to the company, I've rubbed shoulders with all the higher ups (and had even managed to become good friends with the senior vice president of my division), and when the talks of layoffs began, I was reassured 5 times that my job would not be affected. So the emotion and pain that came with my separation was justified. I became my job and my job became my life. Having it taken away is a horrible feeling. Sure, I will find another job. Sure, I'll make money. But the security of being with an employer for years, the comfort in being loyal and having the company reciprocate, and the ease-of-mind in knowing I have a paycheck is now gone. The trust of any company has been seriously tainted, and I will probably be scarred for the rest of my life because of this. Sure, its not debilitating, but it will haunt me. Now I know just how expendable I truly am in the corporate world.
Because if I got laid off in person I would be escorted off site and handed my keys in. With an e-mail like that I'd likely take the inventory with me. Seing that the whole store was likely closed no-one else is being paid to care.
(while I kid I do know someone who was fired over the phone because the DM was a chicken shit. $10-15K in high end camera gear dissapeared overnight).
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
You yanks, always a bit behind on the technology curve.
In the UK, we fire people by text message these days.
URL:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060804/wl_uk_a fp/britaintelecomjobs>
echo $SIGNATURE
"A job should be nothing more than a means to supporting your lifestyle. Sure...hopefully you can enjoy your work, but, really...does it matter who you do it for? Your job should not be YOU."
You don't have kids eh?
The moment you have a family depending on you the "just a job" bit takes on a whole new meaning. We're a family of 4 on a single income in north/central california. I barely make enough with the cost of living. If I lost my job then I would be hard pressed to continue to put my spouse through school, she would likely have to drop out and enter the workforce early.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
"The Man has requested a read receipt, would you like to send that now?"
Ha Ha, fax!? That's hilari...er..uh...cremated? Is one of those sentences a punchline?
It sounds like some beancounter figured out that cell phones were more profitable per unit than anything else they were selling, so they decided to focus all efforts on being a cellphone store. What they didn't study was the sustainability of that market amidst all the competition. As the parent poster said, they had no vision for the future at all. Just look at most of their stores; they're a time warp. The beancounters will manage them straight into liquidation as the cellphone margins continue to decrease.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually tried suing RS for this type of impersonal firing, on the grounds of emotional damages alone.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Hey, I hear ya. I guess I used to feel that way. But, it dawned on me quite a few years ago, that the age of employment for life, reciprocal loyalty between employer and employee....is gone, and has been gone for longer than most people think. With the rare exceptions, the bottom line today is $$, nothing more, nothing less. It is all business out there, and you have to think in that line, because that is they way the companies do it. These reasons are what made me look seriously into contracting. I incorporated myself...get the tax breaks that go with it...and am more free than before. Sure, it takes a bit more work on your part for finances, but, you are on more of an equal footing with companies...business to business. You don' t get lulled into thinking the old way like you described. You work a job, you leave, it is all business.
Now, nothing says you can't still take the same pride in your work, you can still enjoy it..make friends, etc, but, don't get stuck. You don't even have a chance to get hurt that way. You mentioned having a couple of 'anchors' now (kids), well, that is gonna make it a little tougher, but, do look into the life. You can make great $$'s, but, you often do have to be a bit more willing to travel to where the work is. Unfortunately, with the job situation out there, you may need to adapt to this...it would at least keep you from moving the whole family around all the time. But, I think in this day in age, you cannot begin to think of any direct employment as a steady job where you are 'valued'.
If you're gonna have the same job security of a contractor, you might as well get the same money for it....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Easier to give bad news, but [though ultimately pointless] it is still somewhat more palatable to recieve them in person.
It creates a sense of decency/regret, if anything a faux 'shoulder to cry on.'
Not that us cheerful robots need shoulders or cry or anything...
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
I think it would destroy my soul to work there.
While I sympathize with you...I'd have to suggest that you all didn't plan very well for those kids, did you? You should have money put back to fall back on...I call it my "fuck you" money. Why did you not work and save a bit to fall back on before having kids? With proper planning, you could have the money saved to put the wife through school, etc. Why are you living in CA? You could move somewhere else where your income would buy you more...
I'm not trying to be callous, but, people do get themselves into fixes...and they have to deal with it. If you have kids, you need to plan for them, and make sacrifices for them if you have them. Maybe your wife will have to drop out of school for awhile, sad, but, hey, if you'd not had kids till after she was out, you might not be in that fix. There are things you could do...but, you gotta research what's out there, and make the effort.
My comments earlier really were made more in the direction of people being emotionally tied to their jobs....not so much financially tied to their jobs. But, with the kid thing, yep, it is tough....but, people should do planning before having them. I mean, you check your finances and budget before buying a new car don't you? You save for a house don't you? Why should you not do the same thing for kids, those are bare min. 18+ year investments!!! It is like credit card debt...if you get into it without thinking...you gotta do what it takes to make it up and get out of it.
You may indeed have to consider moving to where you can afford more, and indeed your wife may have to drop out of school till you catch up. Tough, but, it can be done. Either way, I'd not ever consider my employment at a company anything more than temporary, you can be let go at the drop of a hat.
Good Luck to you!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I haven't been at my current job (my first out of college) for very long, but I still think being fired would be hard. I wouldn't go jump off a bridge because of it, but I would be a little upset. Such a large chunk of the average working person's life is spent on the job that I don't see how it's possible not to be be at least somewhat defined by the job. Also, at least in my situation, I've formed relationships with the people I work with. Sure, they're not deep relationships, but they're still a meaningful part of my life that I enjoy. Being told that I was no longer allowed to come back to work and hang out with these people would make me sad. That said, I don't think being told in person that I was being let go would be any easier than getting an email about it. I'd be upset either way.
I've heard stories where they having something like a fire drill or a company meeting, to get people away from their desks. While outside, the IT departement is busy revoking access. Then they call out the people who get fired/laid off and escort them to their desks to get their belongings.
When a man lies he murders a part of the world.
Hmm...I find the opposite to be true. I've always bought my phones at Best Buy or CompUSA. I wait till they have a cell I want on sale. Heck this last time, they had a screw up at CompUSA, and I got a brand new Samsung Blade phone (in JAN) when they were first coming out,and got it for about $50. My new plan was much better than my old one...and I'm happy.
The real deal was the phone for $100 after discounts and rebates. I never saw that good a deal at the SprintPCS stores online, or kiosk.
I find that if you check the Sunday ads for BB or CU or CC even...if you wait, you can find your phone often for a much better deal than directly from the company.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This isn't that new. In the early '90s, i (along with 90% of the rest of our office) got laid off by telegram over New Years. Seems they had made their decision late and needed it done before the end of the year for tax reasons. With Western Union gone, i guess Radio Shack felt the need to improvise.
A company I used to work for had a tradition of handling layoffs (about 5 of them by the time they sold the business) on Fridays. After the first couple of layoffs, we discovered that the MIS guy (Roger) was coming in late on the preceding Thursday and backing up the HDs of the soon-to-be-unemployed. One of my coworkers wrote something that would display the time of the last bootup (this was in the days before Windows, so simply examining the security event log wasn't an option). He'd installed his program on a Thursday and was amused/horrified on Friday when he discovered that his machine had been turned on late the night before. I called me over to confirm that his program was working properly. It was. He confronted Roger about it. Roger looked surprised, but had to deny any knowledge of it. My friend was laid off that afternoon, but was cheered up by the success of his detective work and the fact that at least he had a few hours warning.
The terminology "made redundant" doesn't exists in the US (and sounds a bit silly to us)- it's only being "fired" or "laid off". It doesn't have the same connotation that it does in the UK. I lived in the UK for a couple years, and took a while for me to get used to this...
At my college job, we had to turn in some forms to get a schedule for the fall semester. I started at the beginning of summer semester. I turned in my forms and never got a schedule. I kept asking about it. I knew there might be some problems because I wasn't work-study and thus not free for the university. About a week before the fall semester started I ran into a coworker at a party. He says, "nice working with you," then walks away. As we were both trashed I couldn't tell if that was past tense or not. Two days later I received an email from a bot informing me that I had been removed from the employee listserve. The manager never even contacted me. A couple weeks later I went in for my last pay check and she acted as though it was perfectly normal to let a script fire someone. So Radio Shack employees should be grateful that a human fired them, even if it was through email.
It makes a big difference to hear it in person, I think.
When I was laid off by Unisys back in 1992 after working for them for almost five years, it helped cushion the blow to see how hard my manager (who is the one who told me) was taking it all. He was told from above to let three of our four-person programming team go that same day - our side of the Airline Center ended up laying off 20% of the staff all told - and it really shook him up, even though we all knew for months that it was coming.
When I was laid off by Northwest Airlines in January 2002 after eight years, hearing the news from my director also helped, since he was obviously not happy that the layoff was occurring, and again that helped a little to cushion the blow (and I needed it that time, since that was a layoff I *didn't* see coming since I'd survived the mass layoffs after September 11th. We thought they were done).
An e-mail message telling you you've been let go is impersonal as hell. I'd really be angry about something like that. Hearing it in person shows a little bit of class on the part of the organization, at least IMO.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Which is more soul destroying? Being told by email that you are fired; or admitting to yourself you don't have the nuts to tell someone in person that you are terminating their job?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I have an evil idea: what if someone very craftily forged similar e-mail firings to the heartless managers who thought up this idea?
That might be fun, eh?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
If I wrote the email, it would go something like this:
Dear Sucker, You're fired.... Nanny nanny boo boo.
And I'd send it using Mikro$oft Lookout, from an address called fired@insertthecompanysdomainnamehere.com, and guess what? I'd probably click one wrong button and send the email to ALL of the company's 40,000 employees. Guess who will be saying nanny nanny boo boo to who.
I wish I could mod you up to +10 Truthful
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
I have only been laid off once. Every other time I either quit with two weeks notice, or reached the end of a fixed-length contract. I didn't see it coming, but the boss did tell me in person and did explain why -- I was a very good worker, but business wasn't doing well. The most recent hire had to go, and that was me. Of course a month or two later my boss got fired for mismanaging, cooking the books, etc. by the owner of the business, and they could afford more workers.
Anyway, I think the personal approach is best. If I ever got laid off and it wasn't my immediate supervisor, team lead, etc, telling me face to face, I'd be pissed. I can't say I'd be Mr. Milton and burn down the building, but I would definitely discourage friends from working there.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Even Lamer... schedule the email firings to be mailed in an hour. Then leave early.
Even Better... delete the email and keep coming to work. Claim you never received the message and that it must have gotten caught in the spam filter.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
Some of us aren't like that. I chose to work for Northwest Airlines, for example, because I had a few years of previous exposure to the airline industry and I wanted to work as a programmer FOR A MAJOR AIRLINE. Period. And while I worked there, I wasn't just a programmer, applications, one each. I was an applications programmer in the heart of their flight operations group. If my code failed, the airline didn't fly. Literally. And it felt good to feel like the stuff I was doing was a critical part of the actual operation.
Northwest was a company I felt very strongly about. I loved working there, and I'm still proud to know that I have something like 100,000 lines of code still running in their WorldFlight production system and handling a large percentage of their ACARS and surface weather traffic, as well as doing various other things. But it hurt me quite a bit personally when I was laid off because I'd invested over a decade of time (between contractor time and employee time) in that system, and I was really proud to be part of that particular group.
It hurt to leave, but I'm glad I was there. I do like where I am now, and I'm proud of what I do, but it's not the same.
I want to create software that actually MEANS something. I like working on projects that will have a real impact on some aspect of the company, and I sometimes put a lot of time and emotional energy into the designs I create.
Coding is a means to an end, certainly, but for me it's also an end in itself. The problem solving and design aspects are satisfying IN THEMSELVES for me, and I'm actually quite proud of some of the things that I've been able to accomplish so far in my short 18-year career as a programmer.
When I was at NWA, I would still be working there even if I had won the lottery. Why? Because that was a working and technical environment that I very much enjoyed being a part of, and solving problems in that context was a fun activity in its own right. I *WANTED* to go to work every day.
I believe that programming is art at a certain level, and I believe there is nothing wrong with an artist feeling some form of emotion over the works he creates.
If you don't get the kind of satisfaction that I do after coming up with a particularly elegant fix for a problem or a particularly efficient design, then I feel sorry for you because I think you are missing out on one of the really neat things about being a programmer. Our profession is to weave webs of logic and structure out of nothing! I think the whole virtual world of computing is an amazing thing, even magical in a way.
I agree that your job should not be you, but I don't have a problem with people who are willing to put some of their heart and soul into their work. It's one of the things which differentiates good software from great software, I think. For some people, passion is important. I was just going through the motions here, I'd be ready to find a different career. Instead, I'm doing what I love: writing software. I hope I'm able to do it for another 18 years, and hopefully until I retire...Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
It is a lot more emotional for those who don't have the skillset or contact network to find new work. For the confident employee that knows he has what it takes to be successful, it is a time of opportunity, not crisis.
I was recently laid off by a great employer and they told us face to face. I lied the job and I was really more sad about not seeing the people I worked with than anything else. We got a face to face meeting and If i have the chance I would work for them again. Now if I had been laid off via txt or email I wouldn't work for them or continue to tell people how great there products are. Theres a lot to be said for having the guts to tell someone face-to-face they are laid off and it goes a long way to help the person feel better about them self and there old job.
~ Diagonally Parked in a Parallel Universe ~
"As an aside, I was one of the first people to use SMS messaging for my cell phone, rather than voice mail (ie an operator takes your call and transcribes it)"
You can do that?? please share! I hate voicemail and would love to get this feature for my cell!
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
Equally sad is you define happiness by having money to buy and do things...
Why do one or the other?
Send out the fake to everyone. When the correction gets sent out, send that to everyone, including the actually fired people.
Instant mass confusion.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
That's a little non-sequitor. Was it a breakup letter or a suicide note?
Fnord.
Why? Are people's emotions that fragile these days? Has PC made them so flimsy that a grown adult can't handle these things? Granted, getting an email out of the blue firing you would be a shock, but so would being called into an office and fired out of the blue. If there was any hint these cuts were coming, I don't see the problem. It's no different than a "pink slip."
Had I been fired by a company form letter (which I normally filter to my delete folders anyway) it would have been much more embarassing when I showed up for my next shift not even having read the letter. . .
Well, you'd be OK until they "fix the glitch".
Yeah, but why do loyal hourly employees only get up to 16 weeks? Are people who've worked in management for 12 years actually more than twice as important as hourly people who worked there for 25? (Note that's on top of the difference in salary they'll be paid for those weeks.)
And WTF is with 'one to three weeks' per year? That seems somewhat vague.
I'm also vaguely confused as to how hourly employees get 'weeks' of pay. Shouldn't they get hours of pay? I mean, what if they said 'Okay, you get six weeks of pay, and we've scheduled you to work...two hours each week'. They're obviously not doing that, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
My DM usually just kills off your character and tears up the character sheet in front of you.
You save for a house don't you? Why should you not do the same thing for kids, those are bare min. 18+ year investments!!! It is like credit card debt...if you get into it without thinking...you gotta do what it takes to make it up and get out of it.
A few minor issues with this:
1. If people "invested" in their kids only so long as it was financially sensible we would be extinct as a species - rarely do kids pay back their parents on a financial level (unless you're in a 3rd-world kids-live-with-parents system).
2. Recently my wife and I broke down and bought a moderately-priced video camera (we're talking $300 here). Technically it might not be the best time for us to spend discretionarily, but if we waited until we have $100k in the bank the kids would be grown up, and then what would be the point? The same applies in many cases - most people with kids do not have a ton of spare cash until they are old - a time when they least need the cash. Going into debt allows people to spend money while they are young. In some sense it makes sense to target savings/debt so that you are in the maximum amount of debt possible at death.
3. Kids are a non-refundable investment. If somebody overspends on a car, they can at least get 80% of it back by turning around and selling it - or they can just stop making payments and the lender takes care of the details. You can't just return your kids to the store if your life takes a turn for the worse job-wise.
I do agree with you that people do need to plan for kids, but having 6-12 months of salary just sitting in the back "just in case" is a difficult savings goal. Many couples will not have the ability to save that much until a fairly late age, and starting late with having kids introduces a whole bunch of other issues that aren't great for families.
Don't get me wrong - I see your point and actually used to be an advocate of it myself. I am probably on the fence even today. However, despite having finances in pretty good order I found it difficult to raise kids - especially on a single income. There are all kinds of expenses that can come up, and the more you have the more you tend to spend on them.
Does anyone know of any other countries where such childish, sensless, brutal, inhumane and counterproductive employee termination techniques are used? My former (U.S. based) company used voice mail on recent firees (They couldn't fire me, I quit way ahead of time! ;-). The U.S. division of my current company uses immediate firing within the U.S. but employees outside of the U.S. are generally given time to get things in order, finish what they were working on, use company resources in the job hunt and talk to collegues to help ease the transition. This technique works! I've never heard of a case of an employee going postal or sabatoging the company here.
So is it U.S. employees, U.S. managers or U.S. HR people who are being childish?
are you one of those guys who look lost all the time? what kind of question is that? i framed the time (88-91) and you suddenly are in 2006... hellloooooo... mc sumdumass... i NEVER said there was any reason... where the #@%!#%@# did you get that idea... I was responding to the person talking about them getting minimum wage mc dumass... RTFA and please, follow the bouncing ball and try not to read these out loud... its only confusing the other kids in class.. GAWD
sig goes here!
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
One of my friends dumped his girlfriend of over two years last week - by fax, no less. This gets to the heart of the problem. There are certain things that our culture dictates are done in person, if at all possible. Firing and Breaking up with someone are two of them. For whatever reason, it's expected that this is done, so something like an email or fax is hurtful to those involved because it's akin to saying "you're not important enough to do this in person"...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I'm pretty sure there's just no good way to get told you've lost your job. But I know there are a lot of bad ways. Impersonal and treated like a cog? Yep, this is one of them.
I'm reminded of the scene in Fifth Element when the old Chinese guy reads our hero's message:
(from IMDB)
Mr. Kim: You got a message.
Korben Dallas: Yeah
Mr. Kim: You're not gonna open it? It might be important.
Korben Dallas: Yeah, like the last two I got were important. The first one was from my wife, telling me she was leaving. The second was from my lawyer, telling me he was leaving... with my wife.
Mr. Kim: Ah, that's bad luck. Grandfather say it not rain everyday. This is good news, guaranteed. I bet your lunch.
Korben Dallas: Okay, you're on.
Mr. Kim: Come on...
[Reads]
Mr. Kim: You are fired! Oh.
-gam
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."
at which point I'd just have to burn the place down.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
"A job should be nothing more than a means to supporting your lifestyle. Sure...hopefully you can enjoy your work, but, really...does it matter who you do it for? Your job should not be YOU."
This is a completely personal opinion. A lot of us follow the philosophy that if you're going to be working for 1/3 of your day, you should be doing something you love. Something that gives purpose and value to that 1/3 of your day. (For me, it's education).
When you lose what you love, what is giving actual purpose in your life, you lose your soul. You feel empty. You can lose a million or lose a hundred but if you lose what you put value in, then you have nothing.
Even worse, when you get such a impersonal lay off notice, you are devalued. If you got this email, then the powers that be did not see your work, your life, your intelligence, nor the well-being of your family worth the 45 minutes of pay it would have taken to tell you in person.
I hope that someday soon the people who made the decision to use email to lay people off feel not just regret, but shame, TRUE shame, for what they did.
Sorry, but I find this unacceptable and un-American. I am not going to do business with Radioshack anymore. Sure you may say that by not doing business with them I am in fact making conditions worse for employees, because less revenue means less demand for labor, but that is bunk. My dollars will go to a more ethical corporation.
PayPal $$ if you sign up for free offers (eBay, cred cards, e
"You've got questions, we've got cellphones."
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
You could always try firing the employee by a text message instead as this company recently did.
Conquest's 3rd Law: Every organisation behaves as if it is run by secret agents of its opponents.
BTW, I'm temped to think maybe you are one of those cluless guys even after i suggested you wasn't because the time frame you cited was before thier sales asociates started carrying thier IQs in a handbag. I was making a point on how thier sales staff suck now.
I said there was a reason. I left it to you to figure it out after explaining a situation of a person verry ignorant of the products they are selling.
And I was commenting on you working at radio shack and how they suck now. Now that we have our motives out of the way, I can say i'm starting to see a conection.
Hmmm.... 'nuff said? Sorry i confused you. I wasn't trying, really! i just figured you would understand. Now I know i was wrong... Meybe i will spell it out in better terms next time? Good day.
That seems to be the standard way of firing somebody from a job such as you describe. Don't fire them, just reduce their hours down to 0, or 1 shift a week. They will eventually leave. It's not like most people would stick around. Unless it specifically says in your contract you will get x hours, then they don't have to give them to you. I think the problem is, is that workers rights and unions often make it way to hard for the company to fire you, so they get around it by making you want to quit.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Errr... yes. The inferred joke was that she didn't take it too well, and killed him. Perhaps a little too subtle for the Slashdot crowd.
He did actually break up with her by fax though.
Meybe you should proof-read your posts... your sig is right on par.. some dumb ass... what a dolt
sig goes here!
If you were in Canada, they gave you zero hours so you'd quit.
If you quit, they don't have to pay severance. If they fire you or lay you off, they have to pay severance.
The "zero hour" tactic is very, very common in retail and food services industries.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
They should have fired the person whos in charge of firing people last...
I have a friend who was working in Europe when they decided that they were closing up a section of the big IT company he was working for. He was on contract and happened to avoid the cut, but he witnessed another employee walk into a common area and detach a large LCD screen from the wall (others were taking CRT monitors, laptops, etc).
That's sort of 'collecting severance' I suppose. The funny bit is that the manager, also axed, walked in and caught the guy detaching the big LCD TV from the wall. (Maybe it was plasma... doesn't matter). Anyway, instead of kicking his @$$ and sticking security on him for a quick lesson in the use of the PR-24, he *HELPED* the employee dismount the screen and transport it out to his vehicle.
It seems the (former) manager had a lot of sympathy for his (former) employees that day and wasn't particularly interested (any longer) in the interests of the company, especially since it was shipping off a whole whack of work to the Pacific Rim.
I'm not saying this sort of behaviour is right, but the way some business decisions get made and implemented, you find it hard at times to have much sympathy for the company.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I'm right with you here.
Radio Shack used to be a place where the hobbyist/student/geek-in-training could go to get stuff that no other local retailer offered. Back in school (70's) the campus store got a ton of business from the EE's and even from us students in the Art and Communications schools building small audio/video projects.
Now my local store is trying to be Best Buy but with 1/20th the floor space, 1/20th the selection and prices that are 15% higher. Did not some MBA over at the Shack's Ft. Worth headquarters have the temerity to point this out to the PHB's?
* * * * *
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
--Dave Barry
that's why managers/executive that can fake that sincere regret thing get the big bucks.
-pyrrho
This is in Australia. ;) Though, ask your provider. There will most likely be an additional charge (isn't there always?)
I didn't quit though, they just stopped scheduling me and didn't pay me severance. I don't mind though, I wouldn't take their money after that anyway.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
"You've got questions, we've got blank stares."
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Just claim you never got the e-mail. Show up for work on Monday like nothing happened. Simple, really.
TODO: Insert witty sig
Isn't it amazing how you couldn't even understand a post by sumdumass?
Proof reading is for people who care. As you might be able to tell, I don't. But as long as your trying to be among the spelling and grammar nazi elite, you might wanna correct some of your posts.
BTW, as long as we are corecting each other, sumdumass is a user name. Sometimes it is refered to as a moniker. The sig is the thing you place at the end of your post. Most forums have some thing that lets you store the sig and automaticly apply it to a post. You should know this already because your sig say "sig goes here!". In email, the sig is something that attempts to verify the message was sent by a certain person but i think that meaning of the word might get a little complicated for your skill level.
Well, i hope you are having a good time not understanding things and attempting to correct mistakes you made in previous posts. whats that????? i think your mom is calling you know. Better go check.
When the meeting ended I walked out, didn't bother with the chatty groups in the way, trashed my cube (with the excuse of recovering my personal property and also covering up that I was downloading all code I'd worked on), loaded the car and left. At least I got to meet my wife for lunch.
Given that this was over two years ago now and I'm still bitter about it, I guess it affected me more than I'd think.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
Are you a Radio Shack employee? Don't like what they're doing? Then leave and tell them why you're leaving! Copy your manager and their manager and give them a month notice (or whatever time you figure you need to make up the salary).
This site is filled with Dice ads telling you to "Get the respect you deserve", but the truth is that you won't receive that respect unless you're willing to play your cards. At the ultimate that means leaving the company. When it comes up at your next interview, explain that you did not appreciate the treatment of "other" employees and leave it at that. If they balk at that, then they're probably no better.
The truth is, we "cogs" are mostly revenue streams. When we do a good job we make money for the company and take our cut. If we're too scared to leave, then we let the company decide our cut. It seems forgotten that we have the ultimate leverage here, when we leave, so does the revenue stream.
There is a line where our revenue stream does not generate enough profits, it is our job to know that line and push towards it. It is the company's job to push the other way to maximize profits and keep us happy at the same time. It's a simple game (with infinite complexity).
Complaining about poor practices does nothing but make loud noises. After reading this post, I would avoid working at Radio Shack like it was the plague. If you're on this boat, then do the same and tell the story to all of your friends and hope that they do the same. The Shack laid off hundreds of people, but unless hundreds more leave in disgust, then nobody there will care that we /.ers wagged our bony fingers.
My mom was a sales rep for BMS and also for their sister-company Clairol for many years during the 90's.
One day she got a voice mail that she had to call into a conference call the following Thursday at 10am.
Guess what? All x-thousand other sales reps that were also on the conference call were informed that their positions were all being eliminated in one single motion.
Nice, eh?
Libertas in infinitum
ANYWAY, on a related note:
I guess it's now:
"You've got questions? Send us an email instead. Better yet, don't bother asking us."
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Now LexisNexus looks at the big picture (as does Citicorp, or group or WTF they go by now). They call everyone away into a public area or conference area and tell them at the same time that everyone's being laid off --- but it's an incomplete sentence they use. If complete, they would say everyone's being laid off and their jobs are being offshored....
yur speelling iz mutch bettr
sig goes here!
Yeah, I did read that on a /. signature, but I didn't know whose. Since I used your intellectual property, I'll give you all the karma I earned.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Not unprecedented, but really rude... Hey, last April I was laid off from Charles Schwab's IT dept. via a phone call. My boss's boss's boss was too much of a coward to wait until I was in the office to do it face to face. Not everyone got this treatment. I was special - well at least the chain of command was special :=))
Don't worry about me, though. I received a hefty severance package and now have my own business.
All the best,
Rob
thts cuz i used spells checkr.
anyways, I wasn't trying to be bitter towards you untill your reply.....don't take the first message that way. The rest...:) sure, whatever, mkay?
it tiz all copasetic dawg...
sig goes here!
Dead serious.
Much worse than e-mail.
They got it easy. Though it still sucks. Who's gonna provide me with the crappy service now that I've always received when I've gone to Radio Shack?
It's a girl!
To start with your analogy with WalMart, yes, getting a persona treatment from the greeter still says something. It says that WalMart realizes that they need customers. Not you personally, of course, but that at least as a category you matter.
Even in retail, yes, I'll have to say that I prefer to shop at places where I'm treated nicely. E.g., I get my games at a local EB-Games where the employees are nice, know me, and on the pragmatic side they know by now what I play and they can give me a meaningful recommendation.
Oh, I'm sure that I'm not personally important in their lives, or anything. The fluff does make for a more pleasant shopping experience anyway, and I can afford to spend a measly couple of extra bucks (compared to Amazon) for a litte quality-of-life fluff.
That goes for employers too. I'd rather work for someone who, at least generically, as a _category_, understands at least what my kind of employee is doing and why their bottomline depends on people like me. E.g., understands why the programs we wrote are actually reflected in millions of dollars they save. I'll be more inclined to do a little overtime, or maybe come on a weekend, when I know that someone at least notices the result.
E.g., the guys I work for now have been known to have a party when we finished a program on time (apparently other departments rarely do), or stuff like that. I know that the big boss who decided that isn't going to remember my name personally, but it still is nice to see that he realizes that some good work went in there, and, basically, why is he paying people like me.
By comparison, RS made it very clear what it thinks of its employees value. There are shades and shades of being a cog, and being an unappreciated one isn't particularly motivating.
More importantly, companies and even corporations are made ultimately of _people_. Yes, maybe the corporation as a whole doesn't care about anyone, but people are supposed to. Ultimately it's the _people_ there who motivate or demotivate us, not the faceless company.
Even if I didn't care about the company's feelings, taken as an abstract entity, I might be motivated by the _people_ I interact with. E.g., knowing that my boss is a nice guy and by and large one of us, is motivating in and by itself. Even if I don't think that the company as a whole will care, if I know that that one guy does care, and maybe I'm helping him a little with it, I'll be willing to work a little harder.
By comparison, the boss who acts like he's an impersonal cog in an impersonal machine, won't help anyone's morale and won't make anyone want to help his. If he's just content to keep his own chair warm and not care about anyone, in return noone will care about him or about doing a good job for him.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
>To start with your analogy with WalMart, yes, getting a persona treatment from the greeter still says something. It says that WalMart realizes that they need customers.
No, what it says is they need somone to watch the front door to make sure people don't try shoplifting by going out the entrance.
Oh and it also says there are people in the world who get warm fuzzies from meaningless gestures.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Radio Shack - you've got questions, we just want your phone number
We do live in the information age/21st century and I am not at all surprised that this happened the way it did. And from what I heard on the news, Radio Shack Employees were told in advance that layoffs were coming in electronic format. What were they expecting?
http://www.myspace.com/BigAlBassMan
IMHO, IANAL, TINLA, etc...
There is, however, a difference in withholding on a lump-sum payment. The payroll computer sees you're getting $20,000 in a paycheck and assumes that you make $400,000 per year and withholds at a higher tax bracket. That is why it withholds so much.
You should have noticed a much-larger-than-usual refund on your taxes for that year as a result of the over-withholding.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Why is that sad? If it makes me happy?
How would you better define happiness?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........