MEDIA

Betty - The second shoe drops

Betty now joins Fisher, the main character in another Globe and Mail, Canadian comic strip, who was fired by his advertising company -- due to ‘downsizing’ -- just a few weeks ago.

July’s first week of Betty completes an arc on ‘corporate reorganization’ begun weeks ago as it finally touches Betty herself. Betty’s new superior (brought in by the new CEO) is her best friend Alex.  Alex now calls Betty to her office and tells her her job is no longer needed and she is being ‘let go’.  The next 3 episodes show Betty holding all her personal belongings in a box, with a female security guard at her side.  When Betty makes a joking comment, suddenly 3 guards now stand beside her.  Another Betty comment and she is escorted from the building with a conga line of at least 20 muscular guards following her.

While the comic strip is clearly making fun of ‘exit escorting’, it touches a raw nerve.

The old fashioned Pink Slip (firing notice) -- left in one’s mail or on one’s desk -- may have been abrupt and impersonal, but the ‘new normal’ is even more upsetting and humiliating.

Getting 5 seconds to clean out one’s belongings after years of service, and being escorted out by security guards is emotionally traumatic and publically embarrassing!

Blame the computer and cell phone for this.  Upset employees can ‘sabotage’ a company and destroy records with a few clicks. Vital information could be transferred to a memory stick, etc. and

be passed on to competitors – or regulating government agencies.

 For the sake of corporate ‘security’, instant removal is the key, with computer access passwords and corporate cell phones disabled -- either during the firing meeting or seconds before.                                                       

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The worst story I know of is regarding an upper executive returning from an international meeting at which he represented his company.  On landing, he found his cell phone would not activate properly and when he reached his head office building, he was barred from entering the premises by security guards.

He had been with the company for over 25 years and was a personal friend of the owner and corporate boss.

So much for years of loyal service and friendship.

In this new world, the best one can hope for is in the film Up in the Air, where experts are introduced to do the firing, break the news in a ‘supportive fashion’, and offer encouragement and follow up advice on job hunting, etc.

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Betty and Fisher have joined the hundreds of thousands of white collar workers who have been ‘let go’ or ‘fired’ (as Betty calls it) during the current, ongoing Great Recession.

Q: Will Betty mope like Fisher is now doing? 

Q: Will she – or he – find another job soon – to help support their      families?

Stays tuned to these comic strips, and keep your fingers crossed.