WORK PLACE FIRED OR RETRENCHED? IT’S TIME TOCelebrate! In the market place the democracy of the wallet reigns supreme By CPA Wainaina wa Njeri, 1922stiras@yahoo.com 36 MAY - JUNE <strong>2017</strong>
WORK PLACE If you are in the category of those who judge books by their cover, then you may be forgiven for concluding that I am the most terrible sadist that ever lived, for daring to write about job losses as a celebration. You must be wondering: What is there to celebrate about; when a promising career has been cut short abruptly? What is there to celebrate about; when your savings are fast running out with no prospects of a new job in sight? What is there to celebrate about; when you cannot maintain your former lifestyle? What is there to celebrate about; when your friends appear to have taken off after learning of your predicament? What is there to celebrate about; when your spouse and children or fiancé have started showing signs of disrespect? What is there to celebrate about; with the piling unpaid bills and creditors’ calls? Take heart, that you are still alive to read this. If you are in the category of persons who have lost their jobs recently, as a result of organization re-engineering, restructuring, reorganization, business closure, and others, you may still be trying to find your bearing in the new reality. It really does not matter the reasons your former employer used to get rid of you, all that was PR, double speak that is typical of the political class. <strong>The</strong> most important outcome is that you are no longer in somebody’s payroll. <strong>The</strong> monthly economic-in-patient support pipeline has been cut off! As a normal human being, you could still be going through the motions of denial, bitterness with former employer and your bosses for stabbing you at the back, uncertainties of what the future holds for you, loneliness and depression and other concerns. You are not alone. Thousands if not millions of employees and entrepreneurs go through that painful experience every day. <strong>The</strong> very competitive nature of the business environment, coupled with intensified disruptive technological innovations and ever shifting consumer tastes and preferences continue to conspire to make employees ‘endangered species’. Job security as we used to know it, that is, secure tenure, until death or retirement is no more. Wrong questions to ask You may doubt your God/Allah’s tender loving care for letting this misfortune befall his son or daughter. You must be wondering around why He has forsaken thee at the hour of need. Like many before you and many that will follow, you may be asking some silent and at times audible questions like: • Why me? • What is wrong with me? • Why this time? <strong>The</strong>se are not only wrong but also illogical questions to ask. Indulging in them just prolongs your pains and delays your search for a new beginning in the new reality. When you pause the question: Why me? What do you have in mind? Who else would you have selected instead? Isn’t this selfishness of the highest order? When you are serving in your former job, there were millions who were jobless, did you use to ask your God why he had favored you so much? Did you use to ask the same question whenever you were going to the bank to receive your salary? When you ask yourself the question: What is wrong with me? This is the most ludicrous question to ask whenever you find yourself in certain unsatisfactory situations. It is the epitome of confessed self-doubt. When everything is panning out well, do you ever ask yourself the contra question: What is right with me? When you were being interviewed for your former post and you emerged victorious, did you go around wondering, what is right with me? When driving on a highway and you come across a fatal accident, do you start wondering around, what is right with me to be safe? Obviously not! <strong>The</strong> ‘what is wrong with me?’ Is a misguided question that leads to self-hate and destroys self-belief. By planting the seeds of self-doubt, you are unknowingly engaging is acts of self-sabotage that grow into fear of taking any action. When you ask yourself the question: Why this time? <strong>The</strong>re is always the right time for everything. Everything happens at its right time. Flashback to your appointment date, you must have celebrated and tossed for the deserved job offer. You did not argue with the employer to delay the appointment for a moment. During interviews, when candidates are asked about the earliest reporting date, some say, ‘immediately’. When the shoe is on the other foot, the issue of why this time becomes redundant. Getting you on board as a new employee was the right time to ‘plant you as a seed’ in the company. Letting you go is the equivalent of ‘the right time to harvest’. For employers, the clock never stops to run from the time an employee is hired, nor does it stop running when one or several are ‘harvested’ or fired. When the thunderbolt of separation strikes, those left in shock wondering why this time are the ones whose life clocks stopped functioning on recruitment! Life happens in the now. And the now is always the right time to take the appropriate action. Like the birds of the air which know when and how to store food for the winter, smart and proactive employees should master the seasons of their employer’s environment. With discernment, nobody would be found unawares as the employer’s fortunes change. Being fired is normal If you think that the recent rounds of retrenchments in the financial sector as a reaction to the capping of interest rates on loans and deposits are merciless, insensitive, and untimely, just hold your breath, you ain’t seen anything yet! All those quoted companies that are issuing profit warnings and others that are bleeding fewer than billions of losses are also busy shedding thousands of jobs. Coupled with the often quoted statistic to the effect that 90% of micro, small and medium enterprises do not live to see their fifth birthday, you get the feel of corporate bloodletting. ‘Corporate massacres’ of investors’ dreams and career aspirations of millions of workers are as old as capitalism and entrepreneurship. <strong>The</strong> arsenal of mass destruction allegedly amassed by the disgraced Saddam Hussein or the mayhem by the blood thirsty terrorists’ pale in comparison with daily corporate massacres. Customers fire entrepreneurs Every day, thousands of businesses are registered, thousands open shop as others close down. Nobody risks money, time, energy and reputation in starting a business with the intention of failure. Everybody including social investors aspire to have thriving successful enterprises that are sustainable in the long haul. MAY - JUNE <strong>2017</strong> 37
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