Transcript
We are business pants. Today on a very special holiday edition. I think giving edition of business pants, cooperate theater. We look at. Layoffs. Employee layoffs or a big topic. In the business news these days especially at a big tech companies like Amazon Twitter Metta Etc. But we are not just covering layoffs today, my friends, we are covering layoffs. During Thanksgiving. That's right. The business pets. Corporate theater players have created two holidays sketches for you to enjoy this evening. The first is a hilarious. Look at how exactly of determine severance. And the second. Well. The second piece. Is a bit of a Pioneer for us at business pants, corporate theater, our second piece. Is our first ever dramatic, rendering a very intimate phone call. Of a recently laid off worker to his father right before the Thanksgiving. Holiday. What a great evening of entertainment? Do you have installed for you tonight? So, kick back. Put on your slippers. Executive disgust the upcoming Severance packages. For newly laid off employees. Right. Before Thanksgiving And then the baker said to the priest, forgive me, Father for, I have cinnamon performance committee back on track as chair of the committee and CEO. I guess I shouldn't be telling cheesy jokes. Forgive me, please. So uh what's next on the agenda? Let's see the immediate layoffs. Oh right, the layoffs. Well, that dampen the mood a bit, didn't it? Okay, okay, so how many are being let go again? Oh, the board has agreed to 5,500 layoffs. That's a nice round number indeed. It was originally 7,500, but we thought that would really give us quite a lot of bad press, no matter how good our reasons were for the layoffs. This survives number could still do that though. I'm sure we'll have some but it'll blow over. We're not the only company having layoffs so it's a great time to do it so we won't be singled out for criticism. Besides the last few quarters haven't been up to our usual standards and our activist investors are demanding action in 5500 layoffs. My friends that's action. If I may enter checked having the layoffs within days of the Thanksgiving holiday, make calls an added uproar, it couldn't be helped, but it did give me an idea on how to lessen the blow. I was flipping through the Bible, the other You. Okay, you got me. You got me. I was flipping through the channels and came across a horrid. Little Southern preacher. Talking about. Jesus feeding the 5,000 and I had one of those religious. What do you call them up Epiphany? Why can't we do that? Except for us would be the feeding of the 5500. I'm not following well after we lay them off. Why don't we send them home with a? But the Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving dinner. How, how would we do that? Send them home with a box full of Thanksgiving, Fixins, as they say, a couple potatoes, a few carrots, a pumpkin pie and a turkey, of course. Oh, and some gravy, they like gravy, right? I'm not even sure what that is. So we put all that in a box. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. I don't like it. Either Johnson, you explain. Well, some companies call them care packages and they give them to their staff, every holiday season, they consist of some canned vegetables, a package of dinner rolls a frozen pie and a turkey packed away in a cardboard box. How on Earth do they fit an entire turkey? Carcass in a cardboard box with can vegetables? Well, it's not really a turkey carcass per se. There's no head or feed or feathers, it's frozen like, you find in a grocery store. I'm so confused right now. And did you just say that some companies do this every year, so they're not just associated with light. No, no, no, they do it simply to spread some holiday. Each year, amongst the staff. This is fascinating. I mean, outrageous, but fascinating. So how does that sound then? But Thanksgiving fishes. And Loaves for the unfortunate masses 5500 care packages. That's a lot of cardboard boxes God. That's a lot of turkeys, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You may be right too bad. We can't do some of that Jesus magic and make the turkeys multiplied. Johnson, do you have any cost estimates on these meals? Well, yeah. So let's see. We're estimating. That each care package would cost us roughly 35 dollars each. So multiply that by 5,500 and you get 192,500. Well, whoa, whoa, that is almost half of my Thanksgiving bonus. Is your holders on gonna like that one bit? could just give Them a turkey without the extras. Let's see. It's approximately twenty dollars for a 10-pound turkey, so that would be about 110,000 dollars. How about this? Do the turkeys. Come any smaller? Like, I don't know, two to five pounds. No, I'm afraid not, but but that is a savings of 80,000 dollars. I mean we wouldn't need the boxes either, I don't know. It seems like quite a substantial going away. Gift along with whatever robust severance package. We're giving them. Well that's just it. We're not giving them a robust package anymore. Well let me explain last month. We very quietly changed our internal policies. To make it easier for managers to terminate employees for performance issues, without HR involvement. If you remember, our human resources, team was heavily involved behind the scenes, in the process of putting employees on Pips or performance Improvement plans, that frankly, never ever resulted in better employees. It was only a bureaucratic facade created to make us look like we actually cared about improving performance. Well, we've eliminated the Pips and given managers the ability to terminate staff with little HR oversight, HR is supremely overworked as it is. So this will streamline the whole layoff process saving so much time and paperwork. And by giving managers a higher degree of autonomy, we can more easily shut our ranks when needed and appease, our shareholders, as you know, that's always been a goal of mine. The only caveat is that HR requires? We have our managers sign a document. Indicating that under this new system. They would treat employees fairly etc. Etc. Blah, blah blah. So we've changed our severance package policies too. Yes, we thought this would be an excellent time to also make alterations regarding Severance. So sort of a rabbit punch after they've already been stunned by the performance changes. Exactly. We decided to give just eight weeks of severance, instead of our previous 16 weeks. Also, 10 yard employees who have been with us for over a decade or more. We'll receive the exact same package as those who have been here for much less time. This also applies to those in the so-called protective classes just think of the money will save with these changes, okay, you know, of course, that mainly, to some legal challenges for those that feel they were wrongly terminated, especially those in the protective classes. Such ridiculous terms agreed. But, any extra money, we will need to pay out in legal settlements, so we'll still amount to less than And what we normally paid out to them anyway it's definitely a win-win for us. Not them. Oh tell them the boilerplate phrase we created as a reason for these internal changes. Oh yeah, sure. Okay, our sales performance process drives accountability, unfortunately that can lead to some leaving the business and we support them through their transition. That's good. So, you know, you can now see how the Thanksgiving dinner. Care package. Could be a nice affordable cheering on the top per se prize. I think the whole dinner thing is a bit much but I'm on board with Just Turkey. Yeah. Could we give them just like a brass or a leg instead of the whole bird? Possibly. But then, we have to ask them which one they want that two-time consuming? Well, also, they may be too concentrated about losing their jobs to care about what part of the turkey they want. So how about we give breasts to the tenured lot and legs to the rest? That's not bad. What about the vegetarians or vegans? In the group one, we give them. God, damn it. Forgot about them. I guarantee you Jesus didn't have to worry about that bullshit. So, Fuck them, fuck them. I'm sure as hell, not giving away tofurky or whatever that fake poultry Abominations called if they don't want a piece of real turkey, then they could nothing. They can always give them to someone else, maybe the homeless, maybe some of them will be among the homeless after next week. So, they shouldn't be turning down the free food should, okay, it's settled. Then we just give the legs and breasts, with no, canned, goods rolls pies or boxes. We could even just wrap those up and foil or newspaper, still, that's gonna be awfully time-consuming. We'd have to pay some poor suckers. A lot of overtime preparing. Those may I suggest having the managers do that, they're obviously on salary. So an overtime. Pay is expected brilliant. There's something wonderfully symmetrical about that too. The ones that terminate their employment are the same ones that offer them nutritional sustainment. Beautiful. That's the true meaning of Thanksgiving right there. This is almost makes me want to be there when the announcements are made in the food is giving but I will be halfway to Sun Tropez by then. Hmm. I wonder if we could have cameras set up so we could watch the festivities from our various locations. Oh, that would be lovely. Just to see the looks on their faces. I would certainly get us in the holiday spirit. Excellent. I'll get it to set up cameras and inform the managers to get things moving right away. Okay, what is next on the agenda? Let's see, we were going to have a short discussion about the mid-December layoffs. The board has recommended 7,500 for them. Oh, maybe we can give them an assortment of sugar cookies at their announcement, who doesn't love holiday sugar cookies. Oh, maybe with some hot cocoa with love to watch that on Christmas Eve. Oh yes. Could we? Schedule the layoffs for Christmas. Fuzzy with that. Save some holiday cheer for the next meeting, shall we? It's humbling to help so many people like we do. We are so blessed. Oh, second that. All right. John Johnson. And anything else we need to discuss there was a request to increase in overall, enhance employee health care benefits. Fuck, that double fuck that fucking bulshit they just don't know. When to stop, do they give them so much and they still want more? You know what? Screw this turkey giveaway idea. They get nothing now. Eight weeks of severance is plenty. We're not a goddamn soup kitchen too well. I guess Jesus. We are not, make sure to tell the shareholders. I just saved them 110,000 dollars, they will greatly appreciate that. I think we've done some really good work here today. Oh, we still watch the church party. How fun would that be along with? It, you're a gene that sounds like a Cracker Jack watch. Let's do it. Hey, okay. Well I'll make the arrangements. Well, we are officially done everyone if we don't see each other before the break, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Yeah, happy. Thanks. Oh, and a couple of things to take away from all this one. Fuck a piffany. Yeah, that's just another word for pipe dreams and second, even if we did, give these ungrateful Schmucks, the proverbial fishes and Loaves. They don't only ask for God, damn tartar sauce. Am I right? Yes. Before we get to our last piece, let me once again. Thank our fabulous, businessman's corporate theater players, first our special guest star this week was Joe Cal, maybe you remember him, waving maniacally Leonardo, Dicaprio, and Shutter Island. We do. Well, so thank our regular cast, Courtney, Cook, Phil Haack. Ashley. We Salute You. and, Thanksgiving layoffs, extraordinary. And on a touching piece from the delightful Mark McGee. A laid off workers, telephone call to his father, before the Thanksgiving holiday. The business pants, corporate theaters, very first slice of serious drama with corporates whipped cream. Of course. Thank you. Hey Dad, it's me. Tom, how's your week been good? No, no, I'm good too. Oh, sure, I'm still coming next week for Thanksgiving and what? A NCIS Marathon all Thanksgiving day can't wait. I don't know why you love that show so much Dad. It's pretty terrible. Listen. I I have some news to share and I I know I'll see you next week, but I wanted to tell you without everyone else around. So No, I'm fine. I'm feeling fine. But well. I was laid off today. No, I haven't until the end of the week but but I'm okay, no, no, don't be because I'm good, I'm good with it. I mean, Well, truthfully, it hasn't sunk in yet but but but please don't worry, it'll be fine. 16 years. This past April know they let my whole department go. Yeah, all 56 of us and we were the only Department about 2,000 people on all Right before the holidays. They gave us the standard cost. Effectiveness bulshit. But we aren't getting Severance. So no, it's fine. But I do have additional savings. Put aside in case something like this happened to it. Well, there were rumors last year that this could happen. So don't know. No, no. I didn't mention it because I didn't want you to worry. I know Dad. I know you did I guess I didn't think it would actually happen. Well, well yeah, they were just rumors. I know, I know you were right. I I should have started looking for something else back then, but I know, I know you're just worried but you don't need to be Yeah, this morning, the CEO himself made the announcement. He actually seemed upset by it. All no, no, no. That, but he did seem moved. I'm not defending him. I'm just saying. Well, the way. Yeah, there was this one employee that called him a soulless bastard. No, no, I didn't say anything. it's not my style dad, I wouldn't have mattered anyway. It just wouldn't have mattered, I guess some more stunned and angry at this point. Was the severance is fine. It'll be good for a while and Know, it seems the company changed the severance policy last month. And of course, they didn't tell us about it till today. No, don't concern yourself with that Dad. It's not eight weeks, we got eight weeks. And one month of healthcare. Know you're remembering right. It used to be two weeks of salary paid per year worked. 16 years. I said that earlier. I've been there. 16 years. Okay, Dad. I don't want to talk about that right now. Okay, what I what I want you to know is that I'm fine financially and was still be able to help you out. I don't want you to worry about all that. I know, I know you're not concerned about that, but nothing's going to change regarding that, okay? No, no, no. You you see that's what I mean. I I don't want you to get rid of your cable or Internet, you, you use and enjoy both of those, there's no need to get rid of those. It's Not Gonna Save any money Dad, please. Alright. So, you mean to tell me that you're going to be able to make it without Facebook right now. I didn't think so. I appreciate you offering, but There's really no need. No, I'm not planning to move. I really couldn't find it. Cheaper apartment here in the city anyway. No, I know I'm 55 dad but I'm not ready to move into a senior community yet and this is roommate. I mean He's still value your Independence, right? No, no, no, no. They're, there's no need for for that now but I do thank you for asking. Mom. Yes, you're right. She she would be very worried about all this. I'm glad she's not. No, that's not right. I mean I know you do. I miss her too every day? She would definitely insist I move in with the both of you. I'll hurt chickens together like she used to say but she was so very strong in times like this. She was such a worrier but she was all. So our Rock. And I'm just so sorry for this. I debated about even telling you but you would have known something was wrong. You always do. God damn it. Dad. I'm 55 years old. I did not see this happening at my age. I feel so ashamed, so embarrassed. I know, I I meant this call to assure you that there's nothing to worry about but I'm scared dad. I am worried. I know I am my mother's son. I know. And you know what? I am angry. I'm so mad. This company has had record profits during the last few years. There's no reason for these layoffs, you're just a piece of shareholders that want more dividends, or Executives that they want bigger payouts. 16 years, dad, 16 years for what? For eight weeks of severance. Fuck all of them. No, mom wouldn't like me saying that you know. I barely took vacation time there, I was always at the office. I know, you know that. I should have listened to you. I've got nothing to show for no life outside work. I am nothing. I'm so stupid. No, you're not chopped liver data. I know, I have you. I couldn't make it without you. I mean Ron is a good brother but I never see him anymore, he's going to family and Yeah, I probably should. All the time now. No, I already started looking put some feelers out. This is one good thing. The job market is pretty good even for a mid-50s retail executive. I know it'll work out, Dad, I know it will and I'm sorry for losing it, but The last thing I want you to do is worry about all this. I should what? Count my blessings. Sure that won't take long. I'm sorry. I know you're serious. Yeah. You're right, it does help. And there are people much more soft than myself. All the people that have families and mortgages and this has got to be a strain on them. I'm glad I don't have a partner or kids at this point. What you do? Have grandchildren, just not by me. Well that ship is sale. Dad getting a young girl partner note. Okay this is getting weird dead. But you're right. I'm still very blessed. I need to focus on that. You're my rock, dad. Just know that. Okay, don't forget that. Yes. Thanksgiving will be great. No, I'm not looking forward to the NCIS Marathon dad, because it's a bad show. Why do you still like it so much? Oh, it is no Law and Order dead. How dare you You crossed the line. There old man. No, I'm serious. That's about all the time we have for this weeks episode. I would once again like to thank our fabulous. Business pants, corporate theater company and all the folks back at the home office. Jesse Ari, Matt. Doing their precious nerdy research there at free flow. We are bored, super metrics and we would be back tomorrow without this silly voice. I promise And please go ahead. Share this podcast with Your pal.