Forget Alan Sugar. Or Donald Trump for my American friends. Surely the most humiliating way to be fired is by email.
According to a post on Slashdot, Radio Shack fired 400 people electronically. The email said:
The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.
I hate it when people use bizarre euphemisms for everyday activities. But nothing is more ghastly than bullshit when you’re dealing with people’s lives. In one company I know, the process of being fired is known as “displacement.” The horror.
Technorati Tags: firing, recruitment, euphemisms, The Apprentice
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I think some people would read this and ask, “Was I just fired?”
Boo Radio Shack. It’s just reminded me why I don’t shop there.
I’ve been displaced before, because being made redundant was too ‘insensitive and demeaning’.
I’d need to track down the source, but I also know of one clothing company that has sacked staff by text message.
We get the ‘reduction in force’ or RIF blether.
Or should I have said we get the RIF riff!
A few months ago, I wrote an article about how to deliver bad news. I wish I had known about this Radio Shack story as an illustration of HOW NOT TO DO IT!
(Reminds me of a bad joke from my childhood:
“What model car is that?”
“That there isn’t a model; it’s an ‘orrible example.”)
Here are a few more of the euphemisms I listed in the article:
“Companies undergo downsizing, rightsizing, realignment, or reengineering, and so they perform a headcount adjustment or RIF (reduction in force). Employees learn that their services are no longer required, that they are non-essential, and that they’ve been laid off, made redundant, let go, furloughed, separated, outplaced, eased out, or unassigned. Older workers often find that they’ve been given the golden handshake, early retirement, early out, or buyout.”
I’ll have to add “work force reduction notification” to my list.
[Shameless self-promotion alert!] For what it’s worth, my article is here: http://rmjacobsen.squarespace.com/articles/2006/2/25/delivering-bad-news.html
I heard, “Released back into the Talent Pool”. It makes the employee sound like a Trout.