Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for January 23, 2021

I’ve been offlayed twice in my career solely so the company that bought my company could show a profit before they tried to flip it. The first time, the buying company went under and there’s still a small cadre of people working for some kind of paper enterprise doing maintenance on old OLD code. I’m very glad I’m not one of them, and it could have happened. The other time, I was let go ahead of the sale and the buyer ended up backing out of the deal. Again, that turned out to be a very good thing: The company had a lucrative contract that supported their attempts to make a living doing other things too, and that contract ended up going to someone else anyway. Software isn’t a particularly safe business…

I’ve never really agreed with bonuses. Everyone ( at least in management ) gets a bonus in their area of expertise. Sales gets a bonus based on sales, whether or not those sales are profitable. Accounting gets a bonus based on how well they can manipulate the books. The big guy gets a bonus based on how much BS he can spread.

Working their fingers to the bonus.

Except the top guy wouldn’t fire him, he’d leave it to HR, shortly before they got downsized, too.

’it’s not me, it’s you…’

People complain about politicians, but it’s corporations that kill us on far more levels. And they, more than anything else, corrupt politicians.

The end(s) justify the means (no matter who gets hurt in the process)? This type of selfish/self-centered/self-important-ness is how too many seem to justify their actions/behavior.

Two Knockouts…two different styles Either way you’re down for the count

The real meaning of “trickle down” economics.

Recently a well-known digital equipment mfg fired over 2000 employees – one of the largest boots in their history – by email. At the next quarterly meeting management bragged about having their best quarter ever. The bitter irony of the current mindset. Dump the people who put them at the top, give themselves hearty pats on the back and big bonuses, then stare in wonder as the next 2 quarters take a dive. Then, when the company folds, make sure they’re on the dust pan squad_ to sweep up some of the fallout.

I’ve never liked that euphemism, “It’s not personal.” Of course it’s personal! The person being affected is personally affected. It really means, “Yes, I’m guilty of hurting you, but I’ll pretend that I’m not.”

Yup, living this in real time, as of a few weeks from now…

My company flat out told us they were laying off folks to satisfy stock holders need for dividends.

" Your job has been eliminated to to hit our quarterly projections (so I can get my bonus)."

Translation: “I want your food.”

Little has changed.

My first layoff came with my first civilian job. I worked in an office in the Pacific Northwest for a company headquartered in Southern California. We did all the work and when it came time to renew the contract with our customer, I had to convince our programmers to help right the proposal. If you’ve ever worked with software types, you know how much they love writing documentation – NOT.

We won the contract, the bosses got their bonuses and our programmers got pink slips with the explanation, “Our programmers in California need the coverage.”

I got kicked out of the defense industry and wound up in the then fledgling cellular industry with a company that eventually got bought out by AT&T. I had stock options at between $17 and $21 dollars a share which I sold as AT&T stock for $54 a share.

Getting laid off isn’t always a bad thing.

Closing out my first 4 months as a dept head I got a Dec bonus. I told my boss that I didn’t deserve this because my area was off for the year. He said it all balances out, because there would be years where my dept did great, but I wouldn’t get a bonus. He was right.

I worked in a mill that had something call “Budget Management Program”. The head of the departments got a parentage of what was left over of the budget and the end of each budget period. It looked great on paper but ran everything into the ground. They would not spend one penny more of the budget than they had to because it cut into their kickback pay. I was a ‘fixer’. It was my job to keep the machines running. Getting parts was a battle. The mill is now closed and been tore down. The program is one thing that help kill the mill.

Bonus, pronounced bone us, which is what you do to spread all the profit to a select few and watch the company go under.

Proof that life has never been fair and never will be, unless someone finds a way to change the nature of Man.

In civilization classes I’d sometimes have an essay question requiring, “Define civilization.” Most textbooks I used didn’t attempt to define it, the author never explained what was meant. Three distinct approaches. Multiple possible answers for two approaches. Third approach is that it’s bogus to label one society ‘civilized’ and another ‘uncivilized’, and is simply a rationalization for the ‘civilized’ to kill the ‘uncivilized’ and steal their land and resources.

Wiley seems to use the third approach. While I wanted more words in an essay I’ll allow that a picture is worth a thousand words and give him an ‘A’.

There was a US company that sold off one of their appliance lines – a steady money maker – because it made for a huge quarterly profit. The execs looked like business geniuses in the short term, but that line has since been making money for someone else.

reality is a Blessing

Whenever anyone says “it isn’t personal”, they mean they are going to hurt you but they don’t want you to hurt them back in the future. The answer is “Yeah, it is.”

For two years before the privately-owned company I worked for was bought out, there were things going on that we workers didn’t understand. Yes, sales and profits were down, but since our business was cyclical that seemed normal. First, the Employee Stock plan was devalued drastically. After that was done, they eliminated the ESOP and company retirement altogether, replacing them with a 401k plan. Then people were laid off, and others were ‘reassigned’ to lower positions at lower pay, as they ‘reorganized’ the various departments, and restructured the company. Upper management explained it all as being necessary for the company going forward. It was not until the official announcement that the company was being sold that we put two and two together. Behind the scenes the buyer had ordered the new valuation in order to lower the purchase price. The buyer also had a formula which dictated the number of employees at various levels, given the sales & profit numbers. They had also directed the reorganization to align more closely to their corporate structure. Our owner/president had no interest in running the business started by his grandfather, and continued by his (now deceased) father. He just wanted to get as much as he could for the company, and to be sure the company officers were taken care of. The rest of us just had to deal with it.

Timing – as we found that Wells Fargo had a $3 billion profit this past quarter…and still decided to fire 6400 employees.

“It’s not personal” is the BIG lie! For me, at least, it meant that I was in someone’s way as they climbed the corporate ladder. The correct response, of course, is…“You’re just another rented dog. Show him the door.” This was used by the owner of the company to that individual…and I did, show him the door! Guess what MY last words to him were…

“In the United States, a benefit corporation (or in several jurisdictions including Delaware, a public-benefit corporation or PBC) is a type of for-profit corporate entity, authorized by 35 U.S. states and the District of Columbia1 that includes positive impact on society, workers, the community and the environment in addition to profit as its legally defined goals, in that the definition of “best interest of the corporation” is specified to include those impacts. Traditional C Corporation law does not specify the definition of “best interest of the corporation” which has led to profit motivations being used as the main driver for best interests."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation

I thought I saw the figures in the first panel in some famous statue. Was it “Stillbirth of Altruism”? :)

I got bonuses twice for reasons I never understood.

A co-worker once said, “Engineers are just migrant laborers.”

We aren’t quite as “Civilized” as a lot of people like to think.

The regional manager disappeared for several months. The company was converting to Windows and IP networking. He used all of the training funds on himself to get a new job.

And Purchasing gets bonuses for no inventory for manufacturing.

You’re fired. Can’t remember now who used that phrase. I think it was some former politician of little importance.

In the end the IRS doesn’t care what you call it.

I’ll bet their stock price shot up also (at least for the next few days so he can cash out).

Often these terminations occur slightly before retirement. So all retirement benefits are lost, as well.

Welcome to IBM and AT&T (Panel 2)

Willey, you do realize that in the real world, not some looney leftist panty wadding hyperventilating world that a person that useless and nonproductive would have been let go long before your little scenario occurred? Yah, but likely you do not.

Bonuses are yet another way to reward the Best Butt Kisser in the room.

And encourage Butt Kissing Competitions, too.

What’s not personal about being hungry and needing food, or, indeed being fired (or made redundant)?