22nd February 2012 / Posted in: Human Resources, Reduncancy, Unemployment
I know a guy who is incredibly, incredibly bright - a first class honours degree and PhD from Cambridge sort of bright. He’s not like some very bright academics I’ve come across who aren’t on my planet - he’s great fun, easy to talk to, has a terrific sense of humour, is a great conversationist and someone I love to meet up with. He’s incredibly successful in business too, has all sorts of investments, written books, an amazing house and garden, terrific wife and two lovely daughters.
Recently he was going though the redundancy process. He’d described the people he worked with as highly stressed and mad as a box of frogs. My initial thought was that he would be glad to get out. His employers really demonstrated their madness by making him work his 6 months notice - partly because they couldn’t find a frog mad enough to hop into their box and replace him!
Not all successful people are prudent and have a life outside work. My friend is. Many people with very senior, demanding jobs don’t have absorbing interests outside work. He does. As I write this I'm beginning to think that if he was single he’d be a great catch!
A month or so before he was due to leave we delivered some training together. I was shocked at the sight of my friend. Rather than being de-mob happy or looking like the weight was soon to be lifted off his shoulders he looked crushed and depressed. I can hear you thinking, what’s his problem? No financial worries, great home life, lots of hobbies, great prospects - where's the problem?
I was reflecting on our day working together when it hit me. Inside he’s no different from the rest of us - he’s just a normal, vulnerable human being. He was reacting in the way most lesser mortals do and taking his redundancy personally. He’d have been happy to leave of his own accord to move onto pastures new but his employer decided to make cut backs, the decision was out of his hands, and it hurt.
Just because he’s ‘well insulated’ against the financial effects of redundancy, can almost certainly find work easily, and has lots of interests and a lovely family to fill his time we’d be wrong to judge a book by its cover.
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