From the gallows humor of old-school layoffs to the digital coldness of Zoom firings. A reflection on resilience, fear, and the strange gifts that follow.
Hi Diane: this is a great article: the indignity of RIF; I believe that I have told you that I am writing a book re: the history of U.S. Labor Women and I am including Leonora Barry; I hope we can connect sometime - peace Nancy s
Oof. Layoffs defined my life for many years. I was a stay at home mom and my hubby worked in oil-field related work. Everytime the price of oil went down there was another unplanned holiday - in 15 years of marriage he worked at 9 different places. It was a long downward spiral of job-loss, debt, new hire, job loss, debt, rehire- until COVID layoffs completely did us in. Then we started over from scratch left the oil field and that province behind and I started my own business to supplement the lower wages of hubby's trade being farming related instead of oil field related.
It's a long slow upward crawl to recover but at least the spiral of deeper debt is over.
Such a vivid description of how layoffs impact people and families. We always get a number not the stories. All of this is made worse by private equity buying up businesses, ceo pay, and shareholders. We very much need a quality of life metric.
My father worked for the USDA. He got the RIF in 1982. It was difficult for him. He was in his early 50s. It caused him so much stress. He had two heart attacks and the second one killed him. He died at age 54.
Hi Diane: this is a great article: the indignity of RIF; I believe that I have told you that I am writing a book re: the history of U.S. Labor Women and I am including Leonora Barry; I hope we can connect sometime - peace Nancy s
Happy to help in anyway!! Maybe we can collaborate!!
Oof. Layoffs defined my life for many years. I was a stay at home mom and my hubby worked in oil-field related work. Everytime the price of oil went down there was another unplanned holiday - in 15 years of marriage he worked at 9 different places. It was a long downward spiral of job-loss, debt, new hire, job loss, debt, rehire- until COVID layoffs completely did us in. Then we started over from scratch left the oil field and that province behind and I started my own business to supplement the lower wages of hubby's trade being farming related instead of oil field related.
It's a long slow upward crawl to recover but at least the spiral of deeper debt is over.
Such a vivid description of how layoffs impact people and families. We always get a number not the stories. All of this is made worse by private equity buying up businesses, ceo pay, and shareholders. We very much need a quality of life metric.
My father worked for the USDA. He got the RIF in 1982. It was difficult for him. He was in his early 50s. It caused him so much stress. He had two heart attacks and the second one killed him. He died at age 54.
PS I love listening to you.
Thank you! I’m actually trying to channel talking to you when I am recording — mindful that I am not letting you get a word in!! 😛
leaving my initials BS
And they are some of my fave initials!!!
The indignities of current practices makes me glad I am not 20 years old now. Geesh.
And speaking of RIFs, Steve Herman writes about his own and the rest of VOA today. https://newsguy.substack.com/p/zombie-version-of-voa-slain-again
Thank you for the link. Sadly, it’s always been so. We evolve the means and the language …