Remember that job that put me on the street for no good reason?
They did it to a friend of mine today.
As I said, welcome to the club. Most of us who are hiring managers in the field think MORE highly of people who have been exiled from that dump. That generally means they have real talent.
I find the timing curious, as the new publisher is up here in conference-land with me this week … and not there to protest or question it.
I’m hoping this is their last hurrah. Because I respect the hell out of the new guy. And shit is gonna change.
In the meantime, I need help. But I have the position occupied by someone who tries hard but isn’t a perfect fit. But as I’ve seen throughout the years, many organizational leaders (and perhaps I can count the shrew who let my friend go today) have a soft spot for those who have no business being in the jobs they are in.
Then you get someone like me or any of my friends (and you know I don’t hang out with losers) and we’re the ones who get put on the street for not reading an Ayn Rand novel fast enough, or not finding time in a 70-hour workweek to do a performance review, or making a high-level decision that doesn’t pan out.
Basically, the more talented you are, the more anxiety you should have that your current rent payment may be your last.
I got the call right after I attended a really good workshop on social demographics and investing trends. Interestingly enough.
I love the speaker. I will follow him anywhere. I’m on his mailing list. I would love to hire him to be a columnist. You know. If I had salary money to spare.
In any event, the speaker was saying how Americans are working fewer hours per week. That pre-World War II, most men worked Saturdays. Now with two incomes in the house, “Fridays are the new Saturdays” and you can’t find someone to answer the phone after 2 p.m.
Who the fuck ARE these people who are averaging 22-hour workweeks?
Another attendee said really? Her kids are working 60-hour weeks on the low end A) because staffs are small and B) employers will run your ass out of town if they can get cheaper labor that will outwork you.
DING DING DING.
The good news, if there is any, is that robots will be doing our jobs eventually anyway. So there is hope that I can see a workweek below 70 hours in my lifetime!
I should probably start writing this sort of stuff as financial guidance rather than stream-of-consciousness bullshit. Because I’ve been analyzing the jobs data today and I seriously don’t know how anybody is bullish on the economy.
At least, when not one of us in my group of friends — again, the overachievers — can say with 100% certainty that performance and dedication are the top factors in continued employment.
I mean, is it possible my friend deserved to be canned? Sure. Why not. I’ll allow for it. I don’t believe it for one second. Not when I suffered the same fate and still to this day assume that the idiot minions have a better shot at being promoted and running the company than someone who actually deserves to.
I have so much boiling rage right now. This ripped open the wound I barely stitched together after it happened to me.
Granted, that company has about a 110% turnover rate, so my friend will find — like I did — that nobody gives an actual shit what the reason for the termination was when we all know BITCHES BE CRAY in that company.
But when you’re the only one putting food on the table, and your livelihood depends on people who be cray, it really sucks.
It reminds me of my experience, too, in that I worked hard. And long. And often. And to what end?
I wish my friend well. I wish I could help. And I wish I never ever find myself in that position again. Because even though you KNOW bitches be cray, that doesn’t stop you from wondering — even if just for a moment — whether those nutty fuckers might actually have been right to do what they did to you.
And then when you return to your senses, you wonder in what kind of a fair world those cray bitches don’t get burned at the stake so they can’t destroy another human being again.