Friday, May 11, 2007

Concepts

I was just reading the second of two articles about the problems that my company is having.

What amazes me particularly is that now that I've read them, I feel that I have a better sense of whats going on in that company than I have gotten from anything generated within it. The fellow who wrote them is someone I've always regarded as a sensationalist, looking for the cheap shots and the tawdry. That may be true -- but he came out with a clear, coherent article that details problems in a major corporation, and actions that they're taking to address them. Nothing of the sort has been visible within the company, and, where he quotes a response from the company to his first article, its simply bland niceties and legalisms. For example --

"We said when we released 1Q results we would be putting in place a series of actions to address cost issues in our U.S. strategic outsourcing business. We have undertaken efforts toward that, and recently implemented a focused resource reduction in the U.S. While any such reduction is difficult for those employees affected, these actions are well within the scope of our ongoing workforce rebalancing efforts."

If your 'ongoing efforts' are designed to include firing people, then of course the actions are within the scope. That doesn't explain why its necessary,other than the casual mention of 'cost issues'. By contrast, the fellow's article says that the company is losing money, and that they are drastically trimming the place where they're losing the most. Thats painful, but it's believable.

Why can't companies say that?

2 comments:

Angie said...

I'm sorry to hear about your job--I get behind on reading blogs and look what I miss. :) I hope all is truly well for you. :)

Cerulean Bill said...

Why, thank you, Angie. I appreciate it. I'm mostly okay -- good financial shape, a little rocky emotionally. I've heard much worse about people laid off at other companies -- these guys aren't being paragons of compassion or communication by any means, but they could be much worse.