Our CEO speech when something like this after more than 500 people were let go.
I know that may seem… confusing.
And, frankly… uh… I understand why people might ask…
“Wait… if the company is doing so well… why are we laying off 500 people?”
And… uh… that is a very good question.
The answer is… well… strategic alignment.
I have worked for a lot of managers over the course of my career, but this is by far the most emotionally tone deaf and detached person I have ever encountered.
One coworker took a week off after losing their sister so they could attend her funeral in Washington, D.C. On their first day back, during a team meeting, the manager cheerfully said, "Welcome back! I hope you got to see the cherry blossoms." How heartless can anyone be? Imagine saying that to someone who had just buried a close family member.
Then it happened to me.
I took a couple of days off to attend a funeral. During the next team meeting, this same manager looked at me and asked, "Did you have a good time?"
A good time? At a funeral?
I was so stunned that I froze. I mumbled some vague, forgettable response because I was trying to process what I'd just heard instead of saying what was actually on my mind. How heartless can anyone be? It wasn't just insensitive. It was so bizarre and disconnected from basic human empathy that it left me speechless.
So cringe.
I get a quarterly company survey that basically is sent by a "outside" vendor. It's not private you are sent to a personal identifying URL. About a year ago I made the big mistake by rating my new manager poorly. Horrible manager. Love to publicly humiliate people. All of a sudden I became a target. So from now on I rank everything on the survey in the middle. Neither good nor bad....no truth about anything. They have open ended questions and and I limit it to generic general statements with no more than 3 words. Nothing identifying to my personality.
Company surveys are not to solve internal issues but are to target people that don't buy into the cult which they comically call "cult"ure.
As the title says, what is worse?