Lowering the boom

Ok.. that title may not make a big impact on you if you are not very word savvy, language addicted, voracious reader or a vocabulary fanatic. But somehow, somewhere I bet you will know the underlying meaning of that phrase. Let me give you another try – ever heard of the phrase “receiving the pink slip”?

Aha! So you do know the meaning!

In today’s day and age individuals are not part of a local labor pool anymore. In fact, they are not even part of a national labor pool. Everyone today, is part of an international labor pool. One of my friend’s 12yr old son in the US is getting Math coaching for $2.00/hr by someone online… someone who resides outside of the US. Manufacturing is going to China, customer service is going to India. Just the other day, I dialed a local number to contact my bank. Now this bank, is across the street from my apartment. The contact number was local – with a local area dialing code. When the call was answered on the other end someone by the name of “Stacey” spoke in what sounded like a South-Indian accent! After a little bit of friendly digging, found out that the call was received in India!!

I was astounded, a local phone call across the street goes to India! I have heard stories about this one McDonald’s restaurant drive-thru somewhere in (or near) Indiana, that when a driver orders his/her food at the drive-thru speaker phone, that order is actually taken by someone sitting in Bangalore, India! Who then enters this order into the computer system and the order is made for you within minutes!

Absolutely, Un-Real! Un-Heard of!

After hearing all this, losing a job to an eastern country doesn’t bother me anymore. In fact, now that I am a bit educated about the things involved in business and why a business owner would make such a decision it makes complete sense.

What interests me these days, is the fact that employers don’t call this act as firing people. They have come up with different synonyms for this same thing! Here are a few that are very familiar and some more that are little known but really exist:

Restructuring … Resizing … Downsizing … Reshuffling … Reorganizing … Off shoring … Outsourcing … Rightsizing … Undersizing … Moving East … Letting go … Laying off … Giving the pink slip … Lowering the boom … Getting sh*t canned (yes believe me, it exists!) … Discontinuing … Terminating … Retarding … Removing redundancy … Reducing in force (RIFfed is the popular acronym) … Constructive dismissal … Constructive discharge … Terminating of position … and on and on and on …

Chuck Hastings writes in his book Fubar, that “There probably are more synonyms in the English language for getting fired than there are for any other human activity, except maybe for having sex.”

Acquisitions and mergers are another reason why we are hearing about so many people losing their jobs. When two big companies merge, the board members sit and see which departments/positions are redundant and erase them – both on paper as well as in reality!

So the next time you hear about some company buying another company, or some merger or another acquisition – sure be happy for the people who will make a lot of money from the transaction and the immense business development that will take place due to the alliance. But I sure hope that you spend a minute praying for those folks who lost their jobs in the “restructuring” post acquisition…

Remember there are always two sides to a coin – and they don’t always look alike.