Tragedy of facing lay-offs

In today's America, life is not at all a smooth flowing melody. In America, you never know what is awaiting you tomorrow. You are not sure whether you would be in your job in the next month or even on the next day, especially in the present recessionary conditions. Here in America, wise people don't jump to buy what is not necessary; they always calculate whether they can maintain what they are buying. One always reckons whether, in case one is laid off, s/he would be able to pay the monthly mortgage of the house bought on loans from a bank. For one who is myopic, for a duffer who cannot foresee about the possible effects of his decision or about what might happen in the future, America is not a place for him to live in. Here, nobody can afford to carry your luggage. You, it is only you---not even your spouse---who has to lug. My heart bled as Mini, my sister-in-law, was narrating last night how employees in a private company in America are laid off. If the company decides to fire you, you are not given a black and white notice in advance. As usual, you enter the office, greet the receptionist as you pass by her desk, buy a coffee and take your seat in the cubicle. While seeping your hot coffee you switch your computer on. But, surprisingly you find that you can't log in your computer; you try once again only to discover that your passwords are denied access into the network. After a while, you find two or three security guys near your desk presenting you a pink slip, asking you to leave the office right away. You are escorted by the security people out of the office. You are not given time even to look back to the office where you have worked for months or maybe for years. You are laid off. You have no job. You go home. You keep mum. Your wife also keeps mum because she could well read your face. Your child asks: "Why are you so early back home, papa?" I asked my sister-in-law: "Why are the employers in private companies so cruel? Even a condemned prisoner is allowed some good time before he is hanged to death. Can't the employer mail a notice to his house address on a Friday advising him not to come to office on Monday next?" My sister answered: "Employers are afraid of unpredictable behaviour of a sacked person. There are instances where laid off employees did serious harms to companies' business interests. Lest they destroy the computer system or divulge to outsiders the secrets of company businesses, the laid-offs are nowadays not given any time or scope to do any subversive activity". There are, of course, American employees who have learnt by heart the phrase "survival of the fittest", the tenet of what became known as "Social Darwinism." They have good ideas about what they do, who they are, and what role they play in their company. They are equipped with extraordinary savoir-faire. They know how to score. They are never under delusions. They are always ready to leave for another job long before they are ever considered as cannon-fodder. They work for the best and are always ready for the worst. They are perfect Americans, indeed. Problem is with the lady who spends most of her day chatting on the phone to friends or doing online shopping using her office computer. Or with the gullible chap in the marketing department who is completely oblivious that the recent merger of his company with another could make his job totally obsolescent. These employees with supine attitude to their careers have Ostrich Syndrome. They are too blind to see a pink slip that was coming, even if the pink slip was eight feet long and glowing in the dark, screaming "you're fired!" As the legend says, "an ostrich will shove its head down in the sand when confronted with something unpleasant"---a phenomenon known as Ostrich Syndrome. On the other hand, smart guys have a very good sense of smell. They can smell omens, good or bad; they can forecast the weather of their companies' business the way cocks, as the story goes, can predict something dangerous just minutes before an earthquake shakes the ground. A smart American hops to another job before a security guy comes near his desk to show him the exit. A telltale sign of the prospect of your losing your job in America is when your boss asks you to train someone else in doing the tasks that used to belong to you. If you are smart, you should get the red signal when you are so advised. If you see a job posting for your company that matches your job description, that is also another sign that you are soon going to lose your job! People in the Human Resources Department (HRD) are very crafty. They won't fire you without having someone waiting in the wings to immediately fill your shoes. HRD hires your replacement before you are fired and get you to teach the newbie how to do your job. Only then, you are fired. Usually the weak are the victims. It is the unfortunate, the last guy employed, the innocuous who is usually sacked first, in a pattern akin to the inventory formula of LIFO: Last In, First Out. The most prominent sign, however, of immediate lay-offs blinks when a company gets busy merging with or acquiring other companies. That is the time one should be prepared for receiving pink slips as the employer would avoid duplications of jobs: two or more employees performing the same function that can easily be done by one employee. Like a divorce, like a serious illness or like the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job is one of the most stressful and disorienting events in an individual's life. You are utterly bereft when you lose your job. Your employer throws you overboard, often with no forewarning. You have now to sit to recompose your resume afresh and wait with your fingers crossed after mailing the same to a number of companies, no matter they need you or not. Every time you open the mailbox, you very much expect a letter from one of those companies offering you an employment. Yes, in a matter of days you will always receive a letter from the company you have applied for a job to. But, in the ongoing recessionary climate, most of the letters from most of the companies very politely will tell you: "We regret to say that at this moment we have no vacancy for the position you have applied for. Nevertheless, we will invariably communicate with you, should there be a vacancy". E-mail : maswood@hotmail.com