Red Zen Marketing

Listening to NPR yesterday driving to Youngstown had me recognizing just how much the current recession has affected the country: auto makers, dealers, financial institutions, as well as service businesses, small manufacturers, large manufacturers --all seem to be wrestling with a downturn that has pushed unemployment to record levels.

It's time for some levity in the midst of it all.

I ran across the following cartoon a few months ago in the wake of my own layoff from my employer of 15 months. It was accompanies by scores of contributed captions, some of the best of which I've shown below.

I guess all our web surfing will be from home from now on, eh?

I'm going to start a business with my severance. What do you think, real estate broker or car dealership?

Well, since we have Facebook pages, we can always hang out a shingle as social media experts, right?

I'm going to need a box to take home all my Employee of the Month awards...

I was recruited away from Microsoft for this job; I kinda hoped it would last longer than three months.

And more layoff musings:
Companies' leaders sometimes begin to act very strangely when they are taking actions--like letting employees go--that make them feel uncomfortable. No one likes to shatter lives, stall future dreams, be responsible for ending a child's dance or piano lessons, or be the one that precipitated the loss of a family home. Sometimes, memo writers put their foot in their mouth and just make things worse.

Consider this over 1000-word treatise from the eBay PR boss, simultaneously announcing the layoff of 14 members of his "world-class communications team" to allow for hiring of 8 new members (!). Dude, calling your forced churn "simplification" just makes you sound like an insincere oaf. How many previous conference calls had you extolling the virtues of your "world-class communications team" that you are now so ready to dump like soggy corn flakes?  Lesson to leaders: If you use inflated language in meetings/communiques with your team, pumping them up consistently from quarter to quarter thinking you're inspiring, crowing on and on about the great results they're producing, don't be surprised if they consider you to be little more than a stuffed shirt and unfriend you on Facebook. Dude, you had it coming. You know, what the Cluetrain Manifesto has to say about Authenticity applies internally as well.

They did WHAT?
It's amusing the kind of things employees will do when acting under the cover of an inauthentic company umbrella. Stories abound on the Internet of companies asking departing employees to do incredible things:

• "...come in on Saturday to show [supervisor] how you keep things filed, the aid position consistency."
• "...confirming your willingness to meet with your replacement, {name] next Wednesday for 6 hours to perform the required training you received upon accepting the position."
• "...shall be required to refer all client calls received to {sales manager], regardless if they are of a business or personal nature."
• "...pick up your pan from the recent company picnic after hours, so as not to affect office morale..."
• "...return all company shirts (must be dry cleaned) and name tags, as well as all company-identified trophies or awards..."

Do you have an incredible or outrageous layoff story? Share it in the comments.