The Times in Shreveport, La., wiped out 21 jobs, about 7% of all -- spurring a soul-searching column by Executive Editor Alan English. "What did we do wrong to lay off good people from their jobs before Christmas?" he asks today, referring to those made jobless at his paper, and across the nation.And he concedes that regular folks get hurt the most, writing: "The front lines are the last to know. They get stung from their familiar routine of solving a customer's problem, hammering at a keyboard, tightening a car wheel, bouncing a toddler at day care."
Earlier: Management and employees must heal post-layoff wounds
I just read his "column" and it was essentially worthless.
ReplyDelete"What did we do wrong" really wasn't a question he wanted answered.
It was really a redundent "These times are hard" sort of column. Worthless.
I don't get it. What am I missing? or is it just a shit column?
ReplyDeletegiven the profit margins ... I'm not sure "we" did anything wrong. And why was it necessary to get all of this done on virtually the same day? I mean, retail stores don't all close on a same day when cutting back unless it is a bankruptcy. The idea of doing everything at once doesn't make any real sense -- other than "Wall Street says"...
ReplyDeleteMost folks let go this time of year did nothing wrong. They contributed to the success of the company. They gave their hearts and souls and found joy in their jobs. ... Their names are on plaques on walls.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem. Why weren't the ones who did plenty wrong chosen? Why weren't the ones who didn't contribute much to the company's success chosen?
It would be a lot easier to stomach if people who should have been let go were picked.
Tim A. Chávez: political columnist for 10 years for The Tennessean writes:http://politicalsalsa.blogspot.com/2008/12/read-about-top-editor-with-conscience.html
ReplyDeleteHaving just read the amusing Duffy firing story, I will point out that mainstream journalism has done plenty wrong.
ReplyDeleteFor example, during the past several decades the trend has grown in business to have employees escorted out the door without personally retrieving their belongings. Even with the most kindly and gentle of souls.
Now that a certain obsolescence of business model is sending newspapermen down the path recently trod by the milkman and the iceman, I think it appropriate for many of you to be similarly escorted out of the building.
For all your pompous pretense, you haven't been watching out for the common man. You (collectively) should have shined an uncomfortable and unrelenting light on this practice as it was growing, and made the shining light of public scrutiny unbearable to businesses carrying this out (and schools teaching the practice) decades ago.
That is just one small issue in which so called professional journalists - as a collective whole - failed to live up to their grandiose claims of chivalrous knighthood, It is however an example that I am using now. Because I want each and every one of you to understand on that final day when you are escorted to the door - YOU DESERVE THIS.