It's Tuesday afternoon. The oppressive weight of the empty desks to my left and right permeates my thoughts. My eyes blur in and out of focus as I stare at the slow and steady blinking of my cursor at the abrupt termination of a partially written sentence. Like a metronome, or maybe the pendulum of some unseen grandfather clock ticking towards deadline, that blink is perhaps the only constant I know in our newsroom.
My editor's voice cuts through the haze of my swirling thoughts. "We have to do your evaluation."
I follow her to a glass-walled office and sit with my back to the newsroom. Somewhere behind me are the empty desks, toppled Rolodexes and blank computer screens. I don't want to look at them, but they fill my mind.My editor slides a manila folder across the table -- my three month evaluation.
I knew it was coming. I'd planned out questions to ask and suggestions to make and crafted feedback carefully to be as constructive as possible, but those thoughts were gone. Replacing them were images of cardboard boxes and empty desks scattered with business cards.
"Well, they decided to keep you."
I looked at the words printed in bold letters in front of me. Something about feature writing and databases and initiative. I think about one of the Life editors I saw crying in the parking lot when I got to work that morning, and the empty desks to my left and right.
On the right was the business editor who liked my photos and once told me how she could hear my voice when she read my feature stories. On the left was the Neighbors editor who would chat about philosophy with me when we both worked late, and gave me tongue-in-cheek advice about how to succeed as a journalist. I'll never forget them.
I sign and date on a line at the bottom of my evaluation. I think of my friends who also signed on the line that day.
"This means you qualify for health insurance now," my editor tells me.
I wonder for how long.
A look in someone's eyes. A cardboard box on an empty desk. A final conversation. Please share your layoff story in two or three paragraphs. Post replies in the comments section, below. Or e-mail via gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.[Image: Another Cube, by San Jose Mercury News designer Martin Gee. It's from his Reduction In Force page on Flickr -- photos of the Silicon Valley paper's newsroom after endless rounds of layoffs]
I received the following in an e-mail yesterday; I'm posting it here as a comment:
ReplyDeleteI know it's of little condolence to the people losing their jobs now, but as someone who had to do the cutting today, I want to say most of us aren't doing it because we have a choice. I was pulled into HR last week, and told exactly which employee I'd be letting go, with no say in the matter. I was told when and what to say. They changed days and times for over a week, not telling me until the last minute. I've been sick to my stomach since I found out. My GM hasn't spoken a word to me. He actually walks the other way when he sees me.
I realize I got the better end of the bargain. I still have a job. (knock on wood), but I never wanted to be this person. I'm not sure any of this is worth it anymore, which is sad, as this is the only job I've ever had.
A second reader sent the following in an e-mail; I'm posting it here, too, as a comment:
ReplyDeleteI saw him as soon as I walked in the office, fittingly dressed in black. We knew it would be him walking around the room, tapping on shoulders and taking people to learn their fate. It wasn't long after I entered in the office that I watched him walk a colleague downstairs.
We referred to him as the Executioner.
Every time he disappeared we knew the drill, there be someone else to hug, another desk to pack and the distribution of tissues while they walked to the door. After being in the room for an hour and knowing I had been seen, I began to feel more comfortable. It seemed I would be safe. The survivors guilt sunk in.
Everyone in the room was upset, rushing to console the victims and questioning in whispers how that choice had been made. There were, of course, the curses of the Executioner.
He hadn't always been the most hated man in the room. There was a time when him walking to your desk meant a enlightening and intriguing discussion about a story. When he would push and encourage reporters to get the story. He spent long hours trying to determine the best way to visually tell a story. He offered words of encouragement and edited copy. He was a leader and a journalist.
He hadn't got into journalism to become the executioner. He hadn't signed up to send parents home jobless or young people searching for direction. His passion wasn't office politics, it was telling good stories and finding the truth. He was telling colleagues goodbye, too.
Except no one was hugging him. No one was patting him on the back. There were no words of comfort. He went through the day alone and hated for a job he hadn't signed up for. I looked him in the eye as I walked out the door. I figured that people few had that day. He was the forgotten victim.
"They decided to keep you."
ReplyDeleteWho's 'they'? The Von Trapp family?
Take the credit for the decision, or admit you had nothing to do with it and give the employee the decision-maker's name. Blaming decisions on 'them' is poor management.
Bless the employee's heart.
ReplyDeleteIn a state of great stress she signed an evaluation that may come back to haunt her some time in the future.
There's a special place in hell for corporate honchos who are putting managers and employees though this ordeal.
There has to be a better way.
@ 1:30: I empathize with your feeling that "there has to be a better way," but I cannot think of any way of doing layoffs that isn't just miserable for everyone.
ReplyDeleteSome corporations bring in outsiders to do the dirty deed, but that seems ungodly cold to me.
I've heard of layoffs announced by email, by phone calls at home, by registered mail. They all sound awful. There just is no sgood way to deliver so much bad news.
I'm glad I got out of management a long time ago.
Regarding San Jose Merc designer Martin Gee:
ReplyDelete"update: i got laid off june 26th while i was on vacation and 2 days before my birthday. i had no warning since i wasn't there for the announcement / volunteer request the day before. no one informed me. this on top of my father's death. worst month of my life. fuck the merc."
why do i get the feeling from this story that newsroom people think they're some kind of martyr... like they're the only people suffering....
ReplyDeleteother departments have been decimated by layoffs time and time again for over a year now... they've run out of places to cut so now they turn to newsrooms, suddenly writers are shocked and act like they were first in line for the guillotine.
I know a guy laid off this week. It was his wedding anniversary.
ReplyDelete4:45 - Sorry that you're misinformed, but my newsroom took a hit with the August layoffs, too. We had newsroom folks offered buyouts before that. And positions have gone unfilled all year as people have departed.
This isn't newsroom against circulation against advertising against online. We're all in this together.
I agree that there are some newsroom people with an snooty, ivory-tower outlook who somehow don't think that content should be affected - "What will be left in the newspaper for people to read?" But there are also some advertising people I know who take two-hour lunches every day and aren't consistent producers. In both cases, they're the exception to the rule.
I lost my best friend on Tuesday, no, she is not deceased but she is gone. Her smile will not light up the room 5 days a week any longer. Her laughter will not bring smiles. The room is dark even when we turn the all the lights on, to heck with saving the company any money now. The people she came into contact with every day will be sadder, because her sparkle will be missed.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday, at the First Gannett Newspaper, something was done that should have never been attempted. They passed over the ones that never leave the building. They passed over the ones that never pick up the phone. They passed over the ones that can't close a sale. They passed over the ones that sleep in parking lots or shop when they should be selling. They passed over the internet surfers. They passed them all over and took the one with the potential, the proven record of making many hundreds of thousands of dollars for "our" company. Why would anyone or company in their right mind send the best out the door?
They say this is an economic issue. If that is the case, why pink slip your best salesperson? As an economic issue that makes no sense. We will lose some Advertisers because we lost her. Will they come back? Probably someday. But we won't have them now, when we need that ad revenue the most. Is that good economics on Gannett's part? Not where I went to school.
It is begining to look not so much as an economics issue as it is more like "How much damage can we do to ourselves and still have a publishing business when all is said and done?"
Frank Tripp once said it's not the paper or the ink or the machines, it's the people. But in Elmira, long before any of this all started we knew it was only a matter of time before it was over. How? Remember when Gannett celebrated 100 years? The First Gannett Newspaper threw a party. We used the employee activites fund to pay for it. We didn't have the usual company picnic that year. And we haven't had one since. The 100 year party? No one came. Oh, people from Elmira did. Advertisers did. Corporate ignored it. Not one suit from outside of Elmira could take the time to celebrate where it all started. Frank Gannett and Frank Tripp must have been spinning in their graves. Wonder what they think now?
The Elmira Star Gazette, The First Gannett Newspaper lost some of the best and brightest in our newsroom and advertising department this week. Many other places did too. I feel for all. Survivors guilt? Maybe, but who among us will be around much longer?
When I went to work at the Star Gazette we had a press and over 240 people. The press sits silent, we no longer have to pay for parking, plenty of room now. Less then 100 people left in the building. But there are a lot of ghosts. So......
Hey, the last one out the door, go ahead and turn out the lights. Frank and Frank will turn them back on. And let thoses suits the Virginia figure out how to pay the final bill.
"Sorry that you're misinformed, but my newsroom took a hit with the August layoffs, too. We had newsroom folks offered buyouts before that. And positions have gone unfilled all year as people have departed."
ReplyDelete-----------------
this is 4:45... i lost friends in the 3rd quarter of 07 to the very first round of layoffs.
hey 5:42.
ReplyDeletecheer up... your work is not your life. and neither was it that way for the people that were let go. The people that loved you yesterday still love you today. You're still alive, you're still breathing. Tomorrow there will be another sunrise. There will be more happy times, there will be more smiles. You're not dead so stop the funeral proceedings.
business is business and things like this need to be done from time to time. If it bothers you that much you're just as free as anyone else to go out there and find a different job that makes you happy.
Some people on here act like when you get laid off you die. I bet that 90% of the people laid off will be better off for it in the long run. They're the lucky ones. They're the ones forced to make their lives better while everyone left behind is stuck in this downward spiral.
There's no sense in moping around. Either suck it up and get on with it, or leave and find a new direction. Work is not everything. Work to live, don't live to work.
If you were friends with one of your co-workers you'll continue to be friends even after they're gone. If not, then you weren't ever really friends to begin with.
God, this place has turned into some kind of livejournal sob-fest emo group hug. There are many, much bigger problems than this in the world. How about our deteriorating environment? overpopulation? people starving to death? constant threat of war and distruction? and here you guys are crying over your keyboards for people that will be going to work at some new building on monday. give me a break.
There is more to life than work, than layoffs, than cubicles, than gannett.... Even in the midst of all this we all have so much to be thankful for, to feel lucky about. Years from now when we're on our death beds... you think this round of layoffs is going to be something we're thinking about? i doubt it... and that just shows how important it really is in the big picture.
I was laid off over a year ago. There was no blog for me to cry to.
ReplyDeleteBe glad you have some support then get moving. Go see your kid play basketball...you rarely had the time before. Call your neighbor over for a beer...when did you ever do that? You were always too busy.
My point? You had work before, you'll have it again. Take a deep breathe and figure out what is really important in life.
So you can't buy that new flat screen for Christmas? Um, too bad...try giving time and love instead.
This economy is hard on every one...you'll need to tighten some belts and make some decisions about how to best spend the money. Then look at what really matters. The people you love. Embrace them. talk to them, and enjoy them.
You lost a job this week. It's a job. It can be replaced. The really good stuff can't.
Did 9:55 & 9:59 read past the first paragraph? While it's about a friend leaving, it is also about a dieing industry. It's about the writing on the wall years ago that the reporters in the ivory towers ignored or we're not allow to report. It's about corporate types taking once proud and valueable assets and running them into the ground. The funeral proceedings started 2.5 years ago and no one came then, so the ones left "sucked it up" and went on. And now what is playing out is one of the longest funerals in the history of mankind.
ReplyDeleteMany bigger problems in this world? I agree. And the bigger problems all have their roots in the small problems no one paid attention to. As usuall off the cuff responces give no thought to history and what it teaches.
Yes a few will go to a new job on Monday. But with 550,000 jobs lost in Nov., (as report by NBC Friday)there won't be many going to work Monday. Flat screens for Christmas? Read the paper, that industry is in trouble too. Another example of a off the cuff response.
Yes the friends will still be friends on Monday, so will family, and life will go on, as we all will. But people that slam the emotions of others in any forum need not apply. I think I'd rather be friends with the writer, than the slammers.
And to 9:55, does not sound to me like it was the writer that lost the job. Which shows your off the cuff response came from not reading very closely. Or the brain did not engage before the fingers started typing. Lets just keep it all airy and light and every thing will be better tomorrow, huh? Yes it will, you betcha.
Are you heading out looking for a job on Monday?
haha, ok, ok ... i'll stay out of the way so everyone here can cry, and commiserate and be sad all day.
ReplyDeleteAll i am trying to say is that there are many worse things in life, but if you choose to dwell on this, be my guest.
and hows this for writing on the wall... one day we will all die... we will no longer be around to complain about things, to post on forums about how big bad business man treated everyone unfairly and fired a bunch of people. when that day comes that you know your last thought is only a few heartbeats away, i wonder if you'll be thinking about how upset you were that your friend got laid off back in 2008.
I often think about what it would be like if a war broke out, bombs fell, and america was destroyed. what if i was left to roam the wilderness with just myself and maybe a few other people. I would have lost everything, but i think about how much I'd still have. Maybe i'd still have my wife, maybe our kids, i'd still have laughter, i'd still have the stars, i'd still have sunsets and the warmth of the summer, i'd still have music, and art... even it it means playing drums with sticks and drawing pictures in the dirt. Even if all material posessions were taken away i'd still have the things that make life great, the things no one can take from you.
I'm not going to waste my time being sad or depressed for such universally trivial things like a job at a newspaper. There are more important things to be doing. you should go read the book 'into the wild' that guy had it right.
ok, so yeah. someone loses their job, their house, they're living on the street. that sucks... but no matter how bad it gets, it could always be worse, so why not try to have a positive attitude towards things? what harm could that possible do?
Wow. That was so well written, I'm grateful that journalist employed. But for how long? It would be a coup if they could stay there for over 20 years like I did.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a journalist, but a dedicated employee who was recklessly axed and will sorely miss my FLAT family while the ink drains from my blood. Just support and no longer relevant.
Good thing I don't beleive that. (grin)
Well, Jim, so much for a spot where people can share layoff stories. A place where those that don't know or care what it feels like, are free to slam the feelings of others.
ReplyDeleteAnd 9:21 we can tell your not a journalist.
But then neither am I, just a dedicated employee that will greatly miss the ones that are gone.
But thanks for trying, Jim.