Layoff rumours

Please stop emailing them to me. Yes, I’ve heard all of them. You’d have to be deaf not to.

The only reason there have been none is because there are people in offices turning the situation around at every angle, trying to figure a way out of the inevitable.

Now, if you work with an old person or Fred Mattocks, here’s what I want you to do:

Go over there and wake them up. They may be alarmed, as no one has asked them to do anything in quite some time. Tell them they have a message on the electric analytical engine. If they fumble for their bifocals, tell them there is no need, as it is helpfully written in large type that is easy to see:

HELLO.
HOW ARE YOU?
WE’VE HAD SOME GOOD TIMES HERE AT THE C-B-C.
BUT NOW IT’S TIME TO GO HOME.
SO JUST TAKE THE GODDAMNED PACKAGE.
SINCERELY,
OUIMET

8 Comments

  • jenkew says:

    It makes me laugh and laugh and laugh that CBC is spelled the C-B-C (script way) on this post.

    :)

  • Anonymous says:

    I don’t automatically dismiss the ideas of people who happen to have been around for a while. Yes, SOME of them are here past their due date but most still have lots to contribute. And there are plenty who’ve still got mortgages, and families, and need their income.

    On the other hand I’m sooooo tired of younger, newer hires with attitudes, who refuse to follow protocol on principle, create more work and more problems for the rest of us, and think that just because they’re young that they’re the only ones with creativity and spark.

    I’m not old and I’m not a young buck. I’m one of the “worker bee” types whose job it is to get programs on the air. I would love it if the system allowed for a steady influx of new people, who would contribute to a reinvigorated CBC while still respecting those who already work here.

    Most of the new hires I encounter want a job for life at CBC. I wonder if they realize that middle age comes all too quickly to everyone… and when they get there, if they do happen to still work at CBC (and if it still exists), they too will have some arrogant young jerk trying to shove them out the door.

  • Anonymous says:

    Ouimet, well-intentioned as you appear to be, your correlating age with productivity and insight about the future of CBC is seriously off base. Too many youthful programmers think that ipods, podcasting, etc. are going to push out traditional radio/TV and in the past 10-12 years this kind of thinking has affected senior management’s perspective and gotten the CBC out of the game. Rather than have to deal with today’s problems they put these real challenges off to some neverland and futuretime.

  • Ouimet says:

    “This post is typical of the hypocrisy that is the mainstay of the illustrious, self-righteous CBC management style. Why deal with real issues and real problems when you can use mean-spirited sarcasm to belittle co-workers?”

    I’ll admit, I thought this one was a bit nasty. But I also thought it was funny. I decided to go with my gut and run it.

    As far as real issues and real problems go, you might want to ask some of the newer hires, who maybe would like to get married, or have children, or get mortgages, how they feel about getting laid off? I think it’s a real issue to have some of these sleepy, high-paid, retirement age somnabulists around when there are young people who would do the job better for a lot less.

    I guess that’s just my self-righteous CBC management style showing.

    “And when they are done with you, when they have finished using, abusing and misusing you, they will do what they have done to all those idealists who came before you; They will escort you out of the building and tell you to go Fuchs yourself.”

    Maybe you’re right.

    But you can bet I’ll go out swinging.

  • Anonymous says:

    I blame it on all the appointments. Every manner of politically expedient appointment rules the day, never a judement based on genuine qualifications.

    And these appointments ALWAYS seem to be made in closed door boardroom meetings with the least informed.

  • Anonymous says:

    This post is typical of the hypocrisy that is the mainstay of the illustrious, self-righteous CBC management style. Why deal with real issues and real problems when you can use mean-spirited sarcasm to belittle co-workers?

    It is an easy and cheap way out.

    Well, here’s a news flash for you, young buck. You are a CBC chump just like the rest of us. Your youth and spunk will both pass and you will be left, like the rest of us, wondering why in god’s name no one would listen to good ideas that might-well have saved the moribund CBC.

    And when they are done with you, when they have finished using, abusing and misusing you, they will do what they have done to all those idealists who came before you; They will escort you out of the building and tell you to go Fuchs yourself.

    And when that time comes, perhaps you will take a moment to reflect on the fact that it is a policy that you not only condoned, but blindly and quite publicly supported.

  • Anonymous says:

    Package?
    We don get no stinkin’ Package!

  • Anonymous says:

    I wouldn’t need a billboard to get me to go. Even an oblique, craftily couched allusion to a package, and you wouldn’t see me for the dust…

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