> > Wow, I'm really sorry, Grishny-bro. I remember when I had been a couple of months at my first corporate office-type job, and one day several people on my team were let go without warning. I was pretty shaken up at the (apparent) coldness of it.
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> One thing that really strikes me in all of this is the comparison/contrast between the first time I was laid off and this time. Before, I worked for a ministry, and you would think that they would be much kindler and gentler about laying someone off. But in actuality, it was done in much the same way. I was called in to a private meeting with a director and a financial guy, and basically told my position was eliminated and I could go home.
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Mi lamenta. It bothers me that even though downsizing is frequently an ugly reality for larger companies, most bosses still opt for the "Golden Boot to the Head" method of laying off employees. You'd think that with all the millions spent on management training, there'd be someone sticking in a course somewhere on how to fire people well, with some class and panache (if it's possible to describe it that way) -- i.e. letting one save face, so there'd be fewer hard feelings in addition to the whole stress of it all.

Do you all consider this to be the shape of how things are usually done in "Corporate America"? That the ex-employers trust their former employees to such small extent that, during the termination meeting to announce the layoffs, everyone gets locked out of their computers... and then a secretary/janitor comes around to put any personal belongings into a cardboard box dumped outside each person's cubicle?

That just stinks.