My letter to a veteran journalist friend who was laid off

[GeoK]

Perhaps I shouldn't be posting this, but the hell with it. Layoffs are coming and newspapers are really feeling it. Perhaps some of you can relate to this. My good friend, aged 58, worked for this company for 33 years - got the axe yesterday. He was my mentor and a pillar of journalism to this newspaper. I wrote him a letter how I felt about his leaving and I wanted to share it with you.

Names have been changed to protect their identity.

My dear friend,

This Saturday morning is starkly different. Here I am, desperately seeking motivation to finish my Sunday assignment. I'm gonna have to really dig deep to get this one done.

I feel like something in me has just died.

The trickery they played while gathering us up – like sheep to slaughter – in the conference room while slipping you out the back door is deplorable in every sense. Stolen was the opportunity to say goodbye or to offer any condolence eats away at my moral fiber. It reduced you to "implement statues" and puts others on notice – warning veteran journalist they're expendable for profits of the company.

Jim saw it all go down. I prodded him for details. His whispered description portrayed the council of "fast-food" human resource management to its cornerstone of vocation. Their contempt measured by their bottom line has released the flood gates of ethic disparity. Your coworkers took a big hit yesterday. Even those who don't like you felt it. The defining silence of your pen marks a paradigm shift of loyalty to their employer. The emperor has no clothes and valued employees go to the lowest bidder. No one felt like working yesterday. I saw huddled groups deflecting to secret corners conversing in tones of fraught – grasping for explanation and direction. They were like deer in the headlights of a Mac truck scrambling for footing on an icy highway.

There was nothing good about Friday. A red flag went up when Bill took off earlier in the day - foretelling the turmoil that lied ahead. No amount of consolation could thwart the tsunami of indifference and contempt awash in the newsroom. The outlook was dismal and coworkers scramble to shore up their resumes. I'm stuck in this quagmire of disparity. The golden age of journalism is gone. The music has died.

I heard Bob yell out not to give him a raise this year. Perhaps he was hoping it would stave off a pink slip down the road. Jack was in his office – door closed – speaking to a steady stream of employees, assigning them a host of new goals for the year. Debbie was in the hallway quietly interjecting the "new deal" to her subordinates. Sally went in survival mode making copies of passwords for content on Web sites and calming her Gen Y herd. Reporters were clustered searching for the latest spin in the wake of this disaster nervously anticipating reports on the local TV channel about your demise. No one was jovial. We've been snatched in a swirling, sucking, eddy of despair.

I heard Harry was also canned. An epilog of his time here I discovered. He was hired out of a southern state about a year and a half ago - and now his family has no income with a mortgage, no insurance and expecting a new baby. His anger took a toll on the wall downstairs by the new conference room. A visual blemish to those who walk by. I hope they leave it there as a memorial to those who see it's true meaning of self worth. I took pictures of it.

I sit here wondering how many limbs you can cut off a tree before it dies. Then it struck me. If it has a disease, it'll die anyway. And so goes the analogies. I'm fast running out of friends in the newsroom. You know that I'm mostly a loner. I don't mix well with after-hour intramurals like the coworker who sits next to me. I grow weary of this constant pressure to reinvent ones self. I can see the journey becoming rougher each year. Isolation may soon find me in the grips of a "fast-food" human resource exodus.

I'm looking forward to the "rebellious" early retirement party. I've caught wind of the "letter" and hope it stands as a statement to indignities procreating in the newsroom. My fear is it won't do much but propagate more worthless leadership meetings blathering about how good the company is. What a crock o' shit. I hope your severance was decent. Sam didn't garner much when he left. If you can legitimately retire, then that's great, but being forced on you, just sucks ass. What a bitter feeling that must be.

Take care of yourself. I'll miss you dearly at work. Lunch is always on the agenda for you.

[bluerum]

1. Welcome, to the real world.