Something (Someone) to Celebrate

Since I spend a lot of time here complaining, it's great to have an opportunity to celebrate something, or rather, someone.

Yesterday I had the chance to listen to NPR's On Point (which I nearly always find fascinating, but rarely have the opportunity to hear), and a story on "hard choices on jobs and wages".

Among the callers to the show was "Rick from Lexington" (MA, I believe), who explained that he had been a vice president for research & development at a publicly-traded company until about 18 months ago.

Why was he laid off? Because senior management had asked him to lay off his entire staff (he was not originally supposed to be laid off himself).

Because he believed strongly that shuttering his department was the wrong business decision, he argued bravely to be included in the r&d layoff, and eventually was.

Asked by host Tom Ashbrook whether the short-term cost-cutting move that the company espoused had succeeded, Rick's answer was, "No."

He provided more detail in the comments section of the show's webpage: "The rest of the story is actually very ironic. The purpose for laying off the R&D program was to redirect the cash to development of a shorter-term project. Although the project was of significantly lower quality, its proximity to the market, and therefore short term profit, won out over the longer term investments in the R&D programs I led. Within a few months, the shorter term project encountered a predictable and devastating setback, the company’s stock plummeted, it was de-listed from the stock market, the CEO was fired and the Wall Street analysts who covered the company proclaimed that the former R&D programs, which were by then irretrievably lost (sold to another company with all hands lost), were the only things of value in the company. There’s a lesson, and perhaps some comfort, in there somewhere."

Rick knew, and I'd like to celebrate, that there are some things worth getting laid off for.