New Year?… By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture | @MDWorld
Whitney – until recently – ran a rock music venue on the beach in L.A.. She has an MBA and regretted it once.
Things were good until I got the text. I had sent out my ‘Happy New Year’ message to my various circles, including to the people I used to work with at the Club. Life is different now, but I don’t want to lose them.
One reply message came back that made me lose sleep. I had written something about smooth sailing in the New Year. What came back was the news that everyone had been told that they are being laid off at the end of January. The message said that I must have known it, and that I never cared about them.
I hadn’t known it.
I have been very careful regarding making any contact with anyone from the club. I haven’t wanted the new guys to assume that anyone there now has divided loyalties with the old guard. New leadership is commonly territorial, especially if they are failing.
I had told the new guys that their learning curve was going to be brutal and not to underestimate the brutal personal effect of nocturnal show hours combined with daytime operational hours. I told them that they will reap what they sow almost immediately – usually on the floor during a show in really good or really bad ways – and that treating people honorably was a smart financial move even if their hearts weren’t in it. My job had been split amongst 4 new guys who came in with the sale, and I taught them everything I could to help them succeed…and through success be able to take care of the employees and music people that I as leaving behind. But something kept them from listening or learning or caring. So now they are failing.
Like an online date, everything about them looked great on paper.
The people I’ve talked to have said that no golden parachutes have been offered so far. No severance packages. No job placement services. And because hours have been cut back so dramatically in the past 15 weeks, it’s unclear who will even be eligible for unemployment insurance.
I just saw “Les Misérables” and keep thinking about the question that shaped the life of Jean Valjean:
What can I do?
With him, he had unwittingly played a part in the destruction of Fantine when he didn’t intervene in the accusations that led to her losing her job. In his mind, and hers, it didn’t matter that he had been ignorant to what had transpired. When he discovered her circumstances, he dedicated himself to helping her. When her ultimate salvation proved to be impossible, he dedicated himself to caring for Cosette, giving Fantine peace and comfort before her death.
Perhaps because of me, maybe people stayed around longer than was wise because I pitched the new guys too hard. I honestly thought that they could succeed. Others had come around. These were the only ones who had the money, the resumes, the vision, and the strength.
I thought.
Now the seed will be scattered. They have new talents to offer because of this last peculiar entry on their resumes, the one that catches everyone’s attention and creates groupies. But that is no guarantee that they will land well somewhere and take root again.
I can provide reference letters and proofread resumes and spread the word and offer kind words and reminders about how extraordinary they are. But I struggle with understanding where the difference lies between the importance of having faith, and instead being foolish for championing a lost cause. Do captains stay on shipwrecks because they might be able to execute a last ditch maneuver that will keep the boat afloat, or is it because they should go under for their failure.
Maybe I need to know the answer. But for now, I just want to hear back from someone that I called. Someone who used to think that I cared, and used to trust me.
Quote of the Blog from Winston Churchill: “If you are going through Hell, keep going.”
Image from “The Garden of Earthly Delights” triptych, details from “Hell” panel, by Hieronymus Bosch.
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January 4th, 2013 at 6:35 pm
They’re in shock. Understandable. If they really know you and know who you are, when the shock wears off they’ll redirect their emotions to the appropriate places.
New management always changes the tires. Always. One of the problems with corporate America; they think the stuff they learn in management class is more important than the people who have to actually deliver the goods.
January 5th, 2013 at 12:53 pm
I agree with Mr. Gold. I could track myself through the 5 stages of grief when I lost my job and during the anger stage it was directed at many who didn’t deserve it. Anyone who has known you for awhile will eventually realize you weren’t being cruel with your New Year’s communications.
These days, golden parachutes only exist for management and severance packages and job placement services exist in a fantasy world along with no cronyism, no ageism, and Hobbits. I lost two jobs when the prospective employer contacted my former employer and were told my original hire date was 5 years later than I put on my resume, making me a liar in their eyes. I hope your former co-workers’ latest entry on their resumes will be honored if/when those calls happen for them.
During my “time off” I read all of Michael Connelly’s Hieronymus Bosch detective series and eventually looked up the paintings of his namesake. Weird and cool.
January 5th, 2013 at 1:03 pm
Those paintings were fascinating, but his spark plugs were even better.
January 5th, 2013 at 11:58 pm
Moriarty -
WHAT?!?! HOBBITS AREN’T REAL?!?!
January 6th, 2013 at 12:05 am
Golden Boy -
I confess to being a sexual stereotype when it comes to auto mechanical stuff.
I assume that some company named Bosch makes something for the engine thingy?
Unless you are talking about some patented hair replacement technology? This is, after all, L.A….
January 6th, 2013 at 9:52 am
I’m hardly a wheel-nut (for me, it’s style over substance and they haven’t made a decent looking car in a half-century) although I did work as a partsman for 10 weeks when I was 17. Bosch is a major auto-parts company, making batteries, spark-plugs, windshield wipers, brakes, etc. They also make power tools and home appliances.
However, Bosch plays a role in my personal mythology. About 30 years ago I was doing an appearance on the Svengooli teevee show — the Mystery Science Theater type show that’s been around since the 1960s, still on the air on ME-TV despite host Rich Koz’s, like, fourth heart attack (Rich is one of the funniest guys in the solar system; he got his start writing Chickenman for Dick Orkin). Anyway, we were taping at WFLD-TV’s studio in Chicago — that space is now a House of Blues — and I saw these three oddly small cameras, each with their side panels open. “?”, I asked. Rich said “Oh, those are Bosch’s prototype cameras. They overheat the minute you plug them in and we have to keep the side-panels open to cool ‘em off. I don’t think Bosch planned on making the world’s first gull-winged cameras.”
So every time my gaze went past the lights towards the cameras, I started to giggle. And then every time I looked at Rich in make-up (http://svengoolie.com/), I started to giggle. Over a dozen years as a broadcaster, and I totally lost it that day. In response, Rich kept on plugging Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! comic (which I edited) — this on what was, at the time, purportedly a children’s show.
January 6th, 2013 at 1:18 pm
My car is a diesel so I haven’t seen a spark plug in years.
There was a Hobbit at our house for awhile but he grew so much that we had to just start calling him a kid. I guess he had too many second breakfasts.