Corporate America

Well, it looks like I'm going to get my wish. Between my company and the company with which we're merging, our team has 34 people. It was just announced that they'd be cutting that number down to 10 people.

10 people! At least I can get laid off. At least it looks that way. But that means that 24 people (well, 23. . . I want to get away) will be without jobs. 23 people stressed over how they pay their mortgage, how they buy their food, how they pay their credit cards' minimum monthly payments.

23 people who may have to move, may have to leave their friends and family. 23 people who may start fighting with their spouses as things get tighter. 23 people -- whose employer is displaying pursuit of the dollar over human decency.

Yes, I know that there are redundancies and it wouldn't be fair "to the shareholders" to keep everyone around. This makes sense to me. There may have to be a small amount of layoffs. . . But cutting almost 66% of them? That's my team alone. Across the company, there will be 1000s of cuts.

But you know what is funny? The senior executives -- the ones with 6 figure salaries and 6 figure bonuses. . . Somehow there were no redundancies between them. Somehow they are all remaining in the company.

Even though their responsibilities are being sliced in half. Even though their teams are being cut. Somehow they are remain completely vital to the combined company's future.

Even though cutting just 1 of them would be financially equal to cutting 5 people on the lower levels.

Oh no, we're told. This is just to deliver "financial results" in the "best interests of the shareholders."

Really?
Then why are the people who are making the decisions not cutting any of their buddies? Why are they creating whole new "do nothing" positions for them -- anything to save them? All the while cutting the workers on the lower level (ie, the ones where a layoff would hurt most because they live check to check) so severely.

You know, I do consider myself a capitalist. I think that so long as people remain ethical (and there are many "legal" things that are unethical) that they should be allowed to make as much money as they can. But there is something kind of fundamentally screwy about Wall Street's expectations. Wall Street expects year after year growth. Sometimes these expectations are just not sustainable -- and they push a company to start doing unethical things to fulfill them.

If we were to apply that to your personal life, it would be like making a million dollars a year. Most would be happy making one million in 2004, in 2005, in 2006 and on and on. But on Wall Street, this would be considered a zero percent growth company. This company would be a failure.

Or how about a sports team? It wouldn't be enough to win a championship every year. You'd have to win by more, in less games, go undefeated. . . you have to somehow get better every year.

So even though my company makes gobs of cash, even though it's a money machine. . . it needs to find a way to lower its costs (fire workers, increase workers' health care contribution, stop paying for parking, lower 401K matching rates) while increasing its revenue (by raising prices, raising fees, etc). . . Eventually the human interest part of the equation gets shoved aside in order to "meet the numbers."

I don't think this system has any easy answer, because honestly shareholders do need some kind of growth in order for them to want to invest in the first place -- and without investment, alot of our economy would go into the tank. But I do think that shareholders should change their expectations a little bit, to allow companies to grow naturally and ethically.

But what I'm learning through this whole process is that even the financial aspect is kind of rhetoric. Window dressing. In actuality, the leadership wants to do what they want to do, do favors for each other, pay each other huge sums of money, all the while looking to Wall Street like they are cutting costs. They don't really care about delivering value for the shareholders any more than they care about delivering value for the customers. They care about their money, their power, their buddies.

Oh well, at least I'm getting laid off.