After months of rumors and speculations, the company I work (or pretend to work) for has finally decided the cafe is over crowded and the wait unbearable for any hungry engineer. Thus they formally announced the most logical solution, a 10% reduction in staff.
Few analysts and industry experts (you know, the kinds who wake up in their leopard skin robes with a pipe in their mouth, a coffee in one hand and the Wall St paper in the other ) say the economy and profit margins was a big factor, but all the employees know it, its those bloody lines.
Since this was a gradual process and every relatively smart engineer (an oxymoron some might say) deduced this fact way before the announcement and almost everyone has come in terms with it. Me, well I wake up in my sleep screaming, realizing I haven't slept yet. Stress aside, i feel every one in these situations must accept reality and develop scripts that will auto delete all your work. Since I'm not that negative and for the fact that I haven't done anything for me to delete, I've decided to utilize this time at work to update my blog.
Speculation is at an all time high, will they let go people with lot of experience (hence with higher salary) or those newly joined (and thus a lesser severance package). Will they let go senior management thereby reducing the layers in management, or will they let go the folks who actually do real work. Will they let go people who update their blogs during company time (A great reason to write anonymously) or those who short sell the company stocks based on insider information. In all this mess I've figured out the only way to laugh about it, figuring out innovative ways a company can layoff its employees. I know I should have written this earlier so companies, at the start of this recession,could have used my methodologies to make the experience a memorable one for everyone. Well this recession is far from over, so here goes the 'Top 10 ways to layoff an employee"
10 - Step forward : The manager makes everyone stand in a straight line. Bouncers from a local pub are behind each employee holding them tight. Once the manager says start, the employees, who in 1 minute, can struggle and take one step forward have their jobs, the remaining are laid off. This way the determined and strong ones are retained and employees who are weak get laid off and at least get a really long hug in the process. If the required number of employees aren't stuck in the bouncers arms, then this process is repeated after a shot of vodka.
9 - Bachelor Style Rose ceremony : This one's simple and dramatic, managers are given a bunch of roses, a few less than the total number of team members. At the end of the ceremony those left out without a rose are laid off.
8 - Relocation : Shift your company to a totally new, unknown location. Leave a hidden treasure sorta map with all employees with clues at various other locations. Those who make it to your new location are smart and worthy enough to work, the rest are laid off. If laying off more than 50% of the staff, then a clue to a foreign location is a must.
7 - Junkyard wars : All employees are taken to a junkyard. All of HR is split as captains. Each captain then selects one employee each (thereby determining the HR's selection process). This person , the manager, then selects his team lead and team members (With help from the captain). The divided teams consisting of HR,engineers, quality engineers managers, team lead etc are asked to make a robot using materials available in the junk yard. The employees use their skill to make robots that compete in a 'till destroyed/immobile' robot war competition. Managers can have meetings with other managers to determine rules for fair play and to exchange resources. The matches are set up randomly and are elimination based. When the desired number of teams are eliminated/laid off, the remaining will form a stronger company. (with stronger HR, better management and excellent engineers)
6 - Layoff by explosion: Hire external consultants to inject bugs in your products which cause them to explode randomly. Give each employee a sample product and the source code. Everyone is given one day to debug the code and to flash the new software onto the product. Everyone meets up the next day and switches on their product. Ones that have isolated and corrected the bug are fine. The rest, well they get laid (off) in peace.
5 - Fire alarm : Switch on the fire alarm. After 5 minutes of it being on, make rounds of the building to look for employees who are so dedicated that the fear of being burnt alive is not enough to get them to stop working. Promote these employees, layoff the rest. If you really have to find gems in your company, pour fuel over few walls and create a real fire.
4 - Layoffs by meetings : Schedule random meetings throughout the month using great keywords. Make sure these meetings are optional and cover an employees calender for the whole month. After receiving 'acceptance' notices, layoff those with the highest number of acceptance, there by showing they have no work.
3 - Farmville photos : Give employees one day and ask them to post photos of their farmville farm on the company intranet website. Those with the best and most developed farm obviously have been playing from much before and most likely during office hours. They need to be eliminated. (p.s I hate farmville and people who play it ). If your company has blocked facebook and employees still manage to get the images of their farm during office hours, they need to be fired for using proxy servers and thereby violating company policies and thus saving you their severance package moolah.
2 - As soon as an employee enters the building, he/she is escorted by security to the manger. The manager delivers the news, and the employee is asked to leave immediately.Their login ids and security badges don't work anymore. Their belongings can be collected under the watchful eye of the security or they are shipped to them.
I know what you are thinking, GW, this is how almost all companies are doing it.. Well, that's called being popular dear friend.
And the best one yet, my favorite way for a company to layoff an employee...
1 - Survivor style tribal council - Notify every employee that there will be a 'tribal council' meeting the next day and that someone will go home. Employees on that day will frantically run around trying to make alliances. They will plot blindsides and look for immunity idols(which are hidden by VP's and can prevent the employee holding one from getting laid off). On the day of the tribal council , employees gather around with their laptops. Each one defends themselves and suggests who goes home, the manager will try to get juicy details from the employees as other teams watch on. Everyone votes, and the person receiving the highest number of votes gets laid off. And the manager presses the power button of their laptop for 5 seconds for the hardware shutdown, cause in this day and age, computing power represents life.
[have a fun way to layoff someone? Or your dream layoff scenario, comment away.]
Few analysts and industry experts (you know, the kinds who wake up in their leopard skin robes with a pipe in their mouth, a coffee in one hand and the Wall St paper in the other ) say the economy and profit margins was a big factor, but all the employees know it, its those bloody lines.
Since this was a gradual process and every relatively smart engineer (an oxymoron some might say) deduced this fact way before the announcement and almost everyone has come in terms with it. Me, well I wake up in my sleep screaming, realizing I haven't slept yet. Stress aside, i feel every one in these situations must accept reality and develop scripts that will auto delete all your work. Since I'm not that negative and for the fact that I haven't done anything for me to delete, I've decided to utilize this time at work to update my blog.
Speculation is at an all time high, will they let go people with lot of experience (hence with higher salary) or those newly joined (and thus a lesser severance package). Will they let go senior management thereby reducing the layers in management, or will they let go the folks who actually do real work. Will they let go people who update their blogs during company time (A great reason to write anonymously) or those who short sell the company stocks based on insider information. In all this mess I've figured out the only way to laugh about it, figuring out innovative ways a company can layoff its employees. I know I should have written this earlier so companies, at the start of this recession,could have used my methodologies to make the experience a memorable one for everyone. Well this recession is far from over, so here goes the 'Top 10 ways to layoff an employee"
10 - Step forward : The manager makes everyone stand in a straight line. Bouncers from a local pub are behind each employee holding them tight. Once the manager says start, the employees, who in 1 minute, can struggle and take one step forward have their jobs, the remaining are laid off. This way the determined and strong ones are retained and employees who are weak get laid off and at least get a really long hug in the process. If the required number of employees aren't stuck in the bouncers arms, then this process is repeated after a shot of vodka.
9 - Bachelor Style Rose ceremony : This one's simple and dramatic, managers are given a bunch of roses, a few less than the total number of team members. At the end of the ceremony those left out without a rose are laid off.
8 - Relocation : Shift your company to a totally new, unknown location. Leave a hidden treasure sorta map with all employees with clues at various other locations. Those who make it to your new location are smart and worthy enough to work, the rest are laid off. If laying off more than 50% of the staff, then a clue to a foreign location is a must.
7 - Junkyard wars : All employees are taken to a junkyard. All of HR is split as captains. Each captain then selects one employee each (thereby determining the HR's selection process). This person , the manager, then selects his team lead and team members (With help from the captain). The divided teams consisting of HR,engineers, quality engineers managers, team lead etc are asked to make a robot using materials available in the junk yard. The employees use their skill to make robots that compete in a 'till destroyed/immobile' robot war competition. Managers can have meetings with other managers to determine rules for fair play and to exchange resources. The matches are set up randomly and are elimination based. When the desired number of teams are eliminated/laid off, the remaining will form a stronger company. (with stronger HR, better management and excellent engineers)
6 - Layoff by explosion: Hire external consultants to inject bugs in your products which cause them to explode randomly. Give each employee a sample product and the source code. Everyone is given one day to debug the code and to flash the new software onto the product. Everyone meets up the next day and switches on their product. Ones that have isolated and corrected the bug are fine. The rest, well they get laid (off) in peace.
5 - Fire alarm : Switch on the fire alarm. After 5 minutes of it being on, make rounds of the building to look for employees who are so dedicated that the fear of being burnt alive is not enough to get them to stop working. Promote these employees, layoff the rest. If you really have to find gems in your company, pour fuel over few walls and create a real fire.
4 - Layoffs by meetings : Schedule random meetings throughout the month using great keywords. Make sure these meetings are optional and cover an employees calender for the whole month. After receiving 'acceptance' notices, layoff those with the highest number of acceptance, there by showing they have no work.
3 - Farmville photos : Give employees one day and ask them to post photos of their farmville farm on the company intranet website. Those with the best and most developed farm obviously have been playing from much before and most likely during office hours. They need to be eliminated. (p.s I hate farmville and people who play it ). If your company has blocked facebook and employees still manage to get the images of their farm during office hours, they need to be fired for using proxy servers and thereby violating company policies and thus saving you their severance package moolah.
2 - As soon as an employee enters the building, he/she is escorted by security to the manger. The manager delivers the news, and the employee is asked to leave immediately.Their login ids and security badges don't work anymore. Their belongings can be collected under the watchful eye of the security or they are shipped to them.
I know what you are thinking, GW, this is how almost all companies are doing it.. Well, that's called being popular dear friend.
And the best one yet, my favorite way for a company to layoff an employee...
1 - Survivor style tribal council - Notify every employee that there will be a 'tribal council' meeting the next day and that someone will go home. Employees on that day will frantically run around trying to make alliances. They will plot blindsides and look for immunity idols(which are hidden by VP's and can prevent the employee holding one from getting laid off). On the day of the tribal council , employees gather around with their laptops. Each one defends themselves and suggests who goes home, the manager will try to get juicy details from the employees as other teams watch on. Everyone votes, and the person receiving the highest number of votes gets laid off. And the manager presses the power button of their laptop for 5 seconds for the hardware shutdown, cause in this day and age, computing power represents life.
[have a fun way to layoff someone? Or your dream layoff scenario, comment away.]
