I think the OP’s sentiment is being a better human and in an ideal world, I like and agree on the thought. I try to practice it in my management duties as well.
But I’ll be the devil’s advocate and present the harsh reality:
How is firing, in the USA, not the actual normal to begin with?
As a late Gen X / early millennial, I’ve experienced these economic downturns three times: the fallout of 2001 dotcom bubble, 2008 Great Financial Crisis (GFC), and this Covid shock era. The lessons learned each time, is the corporations try to survive at all costs, and casting many individuals out to fend for themselves is the base case.
As a college senior in Computer Science in 2002-2003, my many classmates had jobs lined up in Oct 2002, ready for graduation and work summer 2003. The tech company stocks were flying high, but all of a sudden, in a month, all those companies had cut entire departments. Hearing the news, a lot of friends that thought they had “secured” a job, called those companies and almost all of them were in limbo - those cut departments didn’t even return the calls to say “sorry, entire dept. was cut, start looking again”.
My parents generation was used to the “gold watch retirement philosophy”, stick w/one company for 50 years and they will take care of you. That reality shattered for them during the 2008 GFC. They had worked for 20 years at the same company, but faced with layoffs and cuts, they no longer really knew how to interview and learn new skills. As a result, my dad “retired” at 55, always looking but never finding that next job. Luckily, they were in early tech (AT&T), and mom found contracting roles to service the legacy tech they worked on during full employment. The lesson here was that - don’t let those skills and interview skills rot. Being at one place for 20years and specializing can seem like “security”, but actually was a curse after the shock.
And here we are now, after ~14 years of relative stability, time to flex those survival instincts, don’t rest on the past comforts.
But I’ll be the devil’s advocate and present the harsh reality:
As a late Gen X / early millennial, I’ve experienced these economic downturns three times: the fallout of 2001 dotcom bubble, 2008 Great Financial Crisis (GFC), and this Covid shock era. The lessons learned each time, is the corporations try to survive at all costs, and casting many individuals out to fend for themselves is the base case.As a college senior in Computer Science in 2002-2003, my many classmates had jobs lined up in Oct 2002, ready for graduation and work summer 2003. The tech company stocks were flying high, but all of a sudden, in a month, all those companies had cut entire departments. Hearing the news, a lot of friends that thought they had “secured” a job, called those companies and almost all of them were in limbo - those cut departments didn’t even return the calls to say “sorry, entire dept. was cut, start looking again”.
My parents generation was used to the “gold watch retirement philosophy”, stick w/one company for 50 years and they will take care of you. That reality shattered for them during the 2008 GFC. They had worked for 20 years at the same company, but faced with layoffs and cuts, they no longer really knew how to interview and learn new skills. As a result, my dad “retired” at 55, always looking but never finding that next job. Luckily, they were in early tech (AT&T), and mom found contracting roles to service the legacy tech they worked on during full employment. The lesson here was that - don’t let those skills and interview skills rot. Being at one place for 20years and specializing can seem like “security”, but actually was a curse after the shock.
And here we are now, after ~14 years of relative stability, time to flex those survival instincts, don’t rest on the past comforts.