It’s rather annoying at times, working on the road as I do. I get great thoughts for posts, for stories, for scripts, but alas, while driving, very little means to convey them at a later moment. I really think it’s about time I get myself at least a dictaphone, if not a PDA (most PDA’s I’ve seen actually have a dictaphone to boot). Nonetheless, I get loads of ideas for blog posts, but yet very little hit cyberspace. And sharing a PC doesn’t help matters much either. But alas, the latter will be handled shortly, as my Mac will soon arrive (this week hopefully).
As such, the topics that come to mind as I try to formulate a blog post seem to be more work related. I feel like my humour will start to meld with Scott Adams shortly (I’m already leafing through Dilbert books lately as well). But as for this week, and for every week I do a work related (and hopefully somewhat humourous) post, which will be Euphemology.
Now fair enough, as far as I can surmise, Euphomelogy does not appear to be an Oxford standardised word. But bringing in an association with euphemism, I can only hope some of you may draw the comparative.
As to this week, I am but inspired by a friend who had given notice, having found a job he had been hoping for and spent the better part of a year applying for. This, sadly, is not his story. Rather, how this point was illustrated, in fact, begins my point. You see, when the subject was broached to the staff, it was handled politely, proactively, honestly, and direct to the point. Something that you would expect of any change of staff, especially one that thrives on a team environment. This news, though, allowed me to ponder back to other places of employment, and how they handled the subject.
When employees quit of their own free will, for whatever variety of reasons, management handles it openly. “[Insert name] will be leaving us as of [this date], and we wish he/she the best.” Where I see the surprise is when the employee leaves against his or her own will. Bluntly, when their employment is suddenly terminated, or they are fired. Management rarely, if ever, actually says the former employee was in fact fired.
They do, however, find many other ways to ‘cute up’ the termination. Downsized was a popular term from the 90’s. I also like “difference of values”, “mutual agreement”, “no longer a fit for us or them”, “promoted to customer”, and my favourite, “accepted an early retirement package” (at the tender age of 29). Nothing like an over abundance of politically correct terminology to declare why people don’t work there anymore.
Is it just me, or do we as soldiers, so to speak, in the employment world have to accept that people get fired from time to time at your place of work? By comparison, imagine you’re a soldier in the Army (or Navy or whichever branch) fighting in a war. One day, your CO comes to you to inform you you’re fellow soldier and close friend “involuntarily ceased respiratory function due to high velocity impact with a small, lead based projectile which was propelled by an explosive mechanism”. Wouldn’t you lose a lot of faith in your CO because he didn’t want to broach the subject of death with you? Not like death happens in a war or anything.
Sadly though, it’s the second conclusion I draw to which I find more disturbing. That the employer wants to “disguise” the actual act of firing, thus keeping their politically friendly image. To this course, I have to say to all the employers out there this simple question. Who the fuck do you think you’re fooling? I, as an employee, have to sign some bloody form saying that in order to quit, I must give at least two weeks in writing. I can’t just up and go one day as a one-off. All this cloak and dagger bullshit is a blatantly obvious neon sign advertising to everyone, that dude or dude-ette got fired, along with further advertising for the ATM, cigarettes, liquor, lottery tickets and the ATM. If they really quit, they’d be upfront. By simple deductive technique, it’s obvious the termination of employment was not voluntary from the employee perspective.
I think the sadder truth is that more and more people buy into this corporate dogmatic load of bollocks every year.
Doesn’t anyone think anymore?
That is all.
