July 15, 2025
For those who worked with American companies the 1st of July is known as the beginning of the new fiscal year. A date that, increasingly, shifted from “a beginning” of a new business cycle to “an end” for many…people, dreams, hopes.
The best where you can see this is on LinkedIn where in July a lot of unusual posts start to blossom.
The first kind of such posts is a celebratory “Mom look at me!” type, where new positions are announced by the happy “non losers” of the coming period. Non losers and not winners as we would soon see.
Sure, quite often the titles of the jobs make no sense for the average Joe, but who cares as long as there is a job for someone. For the initiated few though, the titles have the utmost importance. As in the ‘80s the CIA was scrambling to read the developments in the USSR policies by simply watching the tribune of the Central Committee at the Party congress and analyzing who sits next to whom, so the experienced corporate veterans can guess the strategic directions for the coming year by simply reading these apparently non senseycal job titles.
The second kind of announcements are sadder but yet more baffling. Usually, you have the company badge of the individual photographed on a corner of his/her desk, or on top of the lap-top, both to be handed over soon to the admin department of the company. The text accompanying the photo is then a litany of thanks, appreciations full of gratitude, almost mystical on occasions, in which the individual is forever grateful that he/she was admitted in the (corporate) cult and fulfilled his wildest life time dreams, and, as a result, developed as a person beyond any imagination, an event exceeded only, if not on par, by her/his own birth. And this happens for all type of employees, whether they have 5 or 25 years of service in the company, whether they have low or high positions in the organigram, or whether they are specialists or generalists. Needless to say that this experience apparently will accompany the person for the rest of the life, in the most positive way, thus creating, without knowing, a major handicap in ever achieving again in the future, or at least come closer to, the happiness of the period that has just ended. The bar was set so high that only unhappiness will follow.
This is, my friends, the Stockholm syndrome in its purest form – the corporate life form. And nobody is spared, including the happy ”non losers” of today that tomorrow may find themselves in the same ”church of eternal gratitude”.
Sure, we all understand that economy has up and downs and occasionally life is rough, jobs being lost, people dreams being shatter, families being shaken and hardship becoming material. But having this ritual repeated over and over again, with almost metronome precision for the same companies, year after year, starts raising some questions. Or so it should.
For a start, treating the employees as mere utilities, regulating their ”consumption” at will, management will that is, expanding and contracting their number with a higher frequency than a quasar sending the signals into space, is far from ideal. It is in fact the symptom of ”move fast and break things” so dear to the IT world. However this time we are not talking about ”things” but about people, their careers, dreams, expectations, whishes, plans and ultimately well being, that any of us is entitled to…including our families. On the P&L and balance sheet front though, the amounts spent on attracting new talents, training and adjusting them to the new company culture, as well as the lay off packages paid to the unlucky ones, are graciously ignored in the name of raw capitalism.
We are thus witnessing one of the monumental management blunders of all times, conservatives would say, or one of the biggest innovations of all times, the hard core progressists may argue. This however does not spare us from noticing the hypocrisy of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) policies, that impose paper straws instead of plastic ones in the offices, make commitments to decrease the carbon footprint of the companies’ activities or advocate for strict environmental rules that will save the world. It is like the „S” from CSR has lost completely its meaning.
Some years ago I was myself involved in such situation when, after a rough restructuring process I was part of as a member of the implementation team, during which the expressions „warm body” (FTEs) and „efficiencies” (lay offs) where solidly abused, I found myself more „efficient” that I ever have dreamt of. Of course, without any connection to my performance, and with a load of regrets from the management that my position was „discontinued”. It crossed my mind, for a split of a second, that bad luck had a significant role in this, only to witness in the years to come that this is the new normal.
Long gone are the times of 2009 when Haruka Nishimatsu, the then CEO of Japan Airlines, took a 60% cut of his pay for helping to minimize the lay offs in the company amid the 2009 crisis.
A lesson that today IT gurus seem to graciously ignore, relying on the apparently endless ”efficiencies” they can always find in their teams, in an attempt to building a corporate social responsible future for their companies. It is only that such efficiency may cost on long run way more than is worth it, the ”warm bodies” of the shareholders potentially becoming the next ”efficiency” to be disposed of.
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One way ticket only! 