Without a care in the world...

Have you ever known someone who was able to do something with out worry about what people thought of them?

I love to watch Mikhail Baryshnikov dance. Those who don't know him, meaning you are on the younger side, he was a Russian ballet dancer who defected to Canada and later became part of the American Dance Company. He co-stared with Gregory Hines in the movie, "White Nights".

To see him dance the Gregory Hines is to watch beauty and flow in action. They both dance as if no was watching them, or they didn't care what people thought about them watching.

I envy them.

I was thinking about this the other day while I was working out. The exercise room is a large place with lots of machines all in rows, one behind the other. If you are in the back row, you see everyone ahead of you. While I was walking on a treadmill in the front row, I was aware that others might be watching me. I kinda limp on one side and my feet are not straight on the floor when they land, more so if I run. I was thinking about how many people might be watching me.. assuming anyone was.

See, there is the hard point about it. How many people would actually be watching?

I think almost all of us like to watch Movie Stars in action. Millions will tune in to watch the awards show on Sunday. Of most interest is the Red Carpet Walk on the way in. Most stars don't seem to mind being watched. But, that is on film. Those who go on stage and perform are again, people I admire.

There are some people who we really ought to wish were thinking about who was watching and what we think of them. The folks in Washington come to mind for example.

Do you ever wonder who is watching and what they think of what you are doing or am I the only one?

Guilt

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun. ~Thomas Carlyle

I've often wondered if any of the executives from companies where I was unemployed, ever felt guilt about it.

They continue on in life, driving their nice company supplied cars and showing up on time for their standing tee time at the country club paid for by the company. But do they think about the folks who were the subject of a layoff, while they kept their jobs?

I know of one such person who feels not one bit of guilt about the situation. He told me I was unemployed via a voice mail he had a friend of his leave for me. He made sure he was not in the office when I came to collect my things from my office space.. I had helped him start the company a few months before when all he had was an idea and I hired everyone that worked there. I fretted over wanting so hard to be a good manager and someone they wanted to work for. I spent long hours of fretting over not hiring too many people at one time so that we never had to lay anyone off, balanced against making the ones I hired work harder. Only to be told I was of no value any more to the owner.

I'm not proclaiming that I'm some sort of saint as a manager, but I think that one of the reasons I can no longer be one is that I have a concious. I care about each person and fret over how they are doing. Are they liking the work? Is there too much pressure on them, but not too little that they get bored. There is a fine line between between the two and I wanted to walk that line. I felt badly for every person who walked past me during a job fair and over 100 people applied for jobs. I would only hire a few of them. The rest, I would spend time worried that they would not find other work, and hoped we could get the company large enough to hire more of them.

In a job interview last week, I was asked two seperate questions; who were my best and worst bosses in my career.

Lets see..

Best.

My best boss was a guy who, well, his best trait as a boss was that he truly listened. Sometimes, he did things we as employees did not like and told him it was a bad idea, yet, I will tell you that we respected his decisions. And if he was wrong, he admitted that he had been. We knew he had heard us and balanced what we said against the whole picture. I would work very hard for him and we were a team. Together he and I built a department from just he and I to 8 people, and we won many awards from our company for the work out team did.

I worked for him for close to 10 years. In all that time, there was not once I lied to him. I never had to cover up for an error because I knew he would just tell me to fix the problem and he would handle the fallout with me.

Worst:

Tie:

1: The idiot who let me go via voice mail (see above)

2: My first boss. A quick story: At one point while I was employed by him, I had a bad, bad case of food poisioning or something like that and ended up in the hospital. A few days into my time there, I'm still hooked up to an IV and just starting to get on to solid food again that morning. This boss calls me.

"Are you coming in today?", he asks

"No, I'm still here." - Note.. he called the hospital number.

"Well, why can't you come in?"

I explained that I was still hooked up and all that.

"Well, can't they just give you one of those carts that you wheel the IV along with you? I'm falling behind here." or something to that effect, but he wanted me to come in with the IV on a cart. I remember that.

This same boss had a nasty habit of taking every error personlly. You were doing it to him. You were trying to hurt his business.. (he was the owner.) If you messed up on something, the next time, and every time after that that a similar job came in, he would remind you of how you messed up the last time, and to not do it again. Even if it was actually something he did, someone else was blamed.

After that first employer it was very hard for me to go to work at my next job. It was very different. I struggled every day at first because I was afraid it would be the same thing as my first job. An error would mean being called out for it, yelled at, belittled.

It was not very fun. In time, I did learn to trust a new boss and worked well for them, until the next layoff, then start again with a new boss and so on to my current state of unemployment.

If you are a manager or a boss at any level, keep in mind that you are present to your employees for longer than just a few hours a day or while they are your employees for that matter. You affect them for years to come and they may be telling stories about you some day to another prospective employer.

Back to my original question. Do execs every feel badly for doing a layoff?

I tend to think not. I tend to think they only see the bottom line and Quote "Doing what they need to for the shareholders."

Time was, and not perhaps even 20 years ago when a company truly cared for the employees. You all know the phrase "Our employees are our most important resource.". I think at one time that was true. Now, those same resources can be moved out of the company in a matter of minutes and their pay added to the profit side of the company ledger. Or they can be outsourced to come other country where the pay is cheaper and you don't worry about basic things like insurance or other benefits.

People mattered, their skill, their pride in creating a product made right.

Too bad we can't get back to that again.




An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. ~Author Unknown