Office Quandries
Peter Rachleff
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PUNCHING OUT page 1 of 3 | |||||
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Weekly Answers to Office Quandries |
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Professor Peter Rachleff |
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 My nationwide company has been bought out by another nationwide
company. There will probably be duplication of departments and all of the workers are afraid of losing jobs. We want to stick around in case there will be jobs for us in the new company and so that we can get severance pay if we do get fired. Most of us have worked for the current company for many years and expect to get a decent severance package -- it's usually two weeks for every year at the company -- should it come down to that. Our managers keep saying we shouldn't worry about getting laid off, that we should be optimistic about the new company. Our managers have little "insider" information, however, and in fact have often been wrong when they've predicted what the company will do. Any suggestions on how to come out ahead in this situation?
Midwest
Your experience is part of a new chapter in American history, the "merger mania" of the late 1990s. |
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Should I congratulate you for joining a major economic trend? In the
1980s and early 1990s, the big story was straight-out downsizing. A
couple of pretty useful books were written about it, and you might find
them useful in making some sense out of your situation: Bartlett and
Steele's America: What Went Wrong? and America: Who Stole the
Dream?. You should also check out the New York Times' collection,
The Downsizing of America. For remedies, spiced with humor, take
a look at Michael Moore's Downsize This! and his great new movie,
The Big One.