Outplacement. Downsizing. Rightsizing. Realignment. Reorganizing.
Call it what you want, it means the same thing to the person being affected: No work, no income.
It’s not what the company wanted. Management wanted great products, productivity, and profitability. It’s not what the employees wanted. They wanted certainty, security, a financial stake in the future.
No work. No income.

She and He have lost their jobs and are at a loss to know how to reconcile their high rise past with the low rent present they just got and didn’t want.
She: “I don’t know why it happened to me. It’s not that I think that I deserved to be spared, but… well, I do think so. I’ve worked hard, harder than others. I came earlier, I stayed later. I did more when others did less. And I did it because I wanted to. So why did I get pink slipped when the person in the next cube didn’t? Why did my friend in production get the ax and her friend, three feet away, didn’t? My friend is the sole support of her mother and her two teenage children. Her friend lives alone with a cat.”
He: “It happens. We’ve been through tough times before and we’ve made it, we’ll make it through this one, too. I’m not worried about it. I’m angry about it. Our owners saw this coming. They could have made adjustments earlier. They didn’t. They turned a blind eye to the trouble and a deaf ear to those of us who warned of the dangers to come. I was one who begged them not to expand, not to take on more debt than they could manage. They must have thought the money would keep rolling in and they wouldn’t have to be accountable. Well, they’re accountable, all right. Accountable to those of us who were with them in the beginning when they failed us in the end.”
She: “You got to hand it to ‘em. They didn’t discriminate in this layoff. Young and old got laid off. People of all color and description were terminated. The ones with money and the ones without, were all handed their hats.”
They: “Enough. Enough. How did we fail you? What obligation did we have to keep you employed when the money was gone? We made you an offer and you accepted. In exchange for your doing your job, we said that we’d pay you. And every time we paid, we kept our side of the bargain. You’re disappointed? Hurt? Angry? So are we. You’re tired, scared, humbled? So are we. You have to start over and so do we. We may have failed ourselves, but we didn’t fail you.
You say that we didn’t listen. We listened to our investors, our bankers, our customers, and yes, we listened to you. We made mistakes. Some by commission. Some by omission. Some through an unfounded belief in our own infallibility. That’s how we learn. It’s how we all learn.
You’re in pain and so are we. We all make choices. We all live with consequences. We have to hope that we make more good ones than bad, but whatever the outcome, as long as we live, we’ll continue to choose.”
She: I saw it coming; I just didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to admit that my days here were numbered. I could have left but I liked my work, my friends, and my routine. I didn’t want it to end and I knew that it would.
He: If I were honest I’d direct my anger and frustration where it belongs; at me. I was fooling myself by thinking that if the higher-ups would listen to me we could avoid disaster. Bottom line, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to give up on my bosses and the one place that I had worked my entire career. I stayed too long and cared too much. I was afraid.
She: I was afraid, too. I was afraid to test myself. I was afraid that I’d fail if I were to go somewhere else.
He: So rather than fail elsewhere, we failed ourselves, here.
She: It’s time to get on with our lives. I’m ready. Are you?