Face the F-word but never trivialise it
Have you ever been fired? In the UK this is something we don't like to talk about. We don't even use the F-word, preferring to dress up an enforced departure with all kinds of euphemisms.
At executive level people often leave quietly after striking a behind-the-scenes deal to prevent any messiness. A hostile departure can be perceived to have reputational repercussions for both the employer and the dismissed employee, creating a mutual incentive to suppress any emotions or sense of bitterness.
But are such arrangements healthy? Or do they merely pander to old-fashioned British reserve? A frank exchange of the kind frequently heard when a soccer manager goes would at least leave everyone knowing where they stand.
Americans have never worried too much about sensitivities when an employee has to go. In fact the more candid approach of a US-style dismissal appears to be breeding a sense of mutual respect and camaraderie, rather than failure, among those who have been shown the door.
In a new book, We Got Fired And It's The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us*, Harvey Mackay, an entrepreneur-turned-author who seems to have a knack for tapping in to the zeitgeist of corporate America, has collected a series of anecdotes from people who have never looked back after losing their jobs.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, he writes, in a three-year period up to 2001, some 4m US workers were dismissed from jobs they had held for at least three years. Movement between jobs is increasing so rapidly that US government statisticians, he says, predict that people leaving US universities today are likely to work for as many as 10 or 12 different employers in future with up to three or four career changes.
“If you are under 30, it is almost certain that one, and probably several, of these job and career changes will not be of your own choosing,” he writes. “The question is not if you're going to be fired, the question is how you will handle it.”
The American way, it seems, is to take dismissal on the chin, to learn from the experience, to draw strength from adversity, and to move on. This is not a book about wallowing in self-pity.
But it is difficult to display much sympathy for many of the people in Mr Mackay's book, which is populated almost exclusively with rich professionals living out the American dream. Since part of that dream, historically, has demanded some kind of personal struggle, the suggestion seems to be that a US career without the odd rejection would be as vacuous as a whodunnit without a victim.
Looking at his eccentric list, it is difficult to describe people such as Robert Redford, Billie Jean King and Muhammad Ali as career victims. All had some experience of rejection at some stage in their life but nothing that could compare with facing redundancy after a lifetime working diligently for the same employer.
We need to put their “suffering” in perspective also. The most humiliating experience of Lee Iacocca when he lost his job at Ford in 1978 was to be offered a cup of vending machine coffee. As Ford's president he had been used to service from white-coated waiters who were on call all day until, in his final days, he was moved from his sumptuous office to a small cubicle in a warehouse .
Even here, it doesn't appear that he had to go to the machine for his coffee. Yet he says: “This final humiliation was much worse than being fired.”Mr Iacocca had worked for a tyrannical boss, Henry Ford II, who had been envious of his president's success. On one occasion Ford had ordered the dismissal of one executive for wearing trousers that Ford considered to be too snug.
The Iacocca episode, now more than a quarter of century ago, demonstrates how attitudes to dismissal have changed. It is doubtful today whether any boss could get away with behaving as badly as Ford or that any subordinate would feel so crushed.
In fact, if dismissal itself has yet to become a badge of honour, it does seem to be regarded with a sense of glibness these days. There is a fashion for public rejection in the popular media. The television show Big Brother, in which viewers vote participants out of the house week by week, has led to the adoption of similar “vote off” formats on talent shows. The Weakest Link quiz game relies for its success on the willingness of those taking part to vote off their fellow contestants.
In the US, a similar idea has led Donald Trump, the property billionaire, to top television ratings with a series called The Apprentice in which 16 contestants, selected from more than 200,000, compete over 15 weeks for a $250,000 prize and the presidency of a Trump corporate division. Each week Mr Trump says: “You're fired” to an unsuccessful contestant.
Why do American television audiences find this so attractive? Do they take comfort in the discomfort of others? As
Mr Trump confirms, the discomfort is real. “Whenever you terminate someone, the end result is always the same. They always hate you,” he says. “The one common element in firing: whether you do it viciously or nicely, that person will always hate you.”
No matter how well even
Mr Mackay's most famous subjects try to conceal it, a sudden departure is painful. A common factor is the way that corporate leaders rationalise the experience. In their own minds, they are rarely fired for incompetence or poor work.
Some, such as Judy Benaroche Johnson, president and chief executive of Rx World Meetings, will admit that they did not fit in a particular job, but they tend to concentrate on their successes. It is easy for them to do so, because they have all gone on to enjoy greater career success elsewhere.
Mr Mackay's folksy stories do not deal with the thousands of people whose careers do not recover from dismissal. His aim, as a writer of “inspirational” books is to offer hope. There is nothing wrong with that. A society where one in two marriages ends in divorce, where the lack of mutual trust in the closest relationship of all can be defined by a pre-nuptial agreement, might welcome the kind of discussion that views the employment contract as a flimsy arrangement.
This is a shame. In a world where change is celebrated, where one bad result or one poor piece of work can be magnified into a calamity, we seem to have lost our sense of proportion and balance. Even the best cannot be winners all of the time.
We Got Fired! And It's The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us, by Harvey Mackay, is published by Ballantine Books. Price $23.95
正视并重视解雇
你曾遭解雇吗？在英国，人们不愿谈论这一话题。我们甚至都不用“解雇”这个字眼，而用各种委婉说法来修饰被强制离开这一事实。
为避免发生棘手情况，主管级人物通常都是在达成一项幕后交易后悄悄离去。如果离职时有敌意情绪，这对雇主和遭解职的员工都会有名誉上的影响，因而双方都会压抑各种情绪或怨恨。
但此类安排是否正常？或者只是迎合了老派英国式含蓄？人们经常听说，一名足球经理离开时会有一些公开交易，这至少会让每个人了解个中情况。
当雇员得走人时，美国人对这些敏感问题从不过分担心。事实上，美国式解雇更为开诚布公，似乎会使遭解雇者心生尊重感和亲切感，而不会有失败感。
由企业家变为作家的哈维?麦凯(Harvey Mackay)似乎很擅长捕捉美国公司的时代精神，在其新书《我们遭到解雇，这再好不过了》(We Got Fired And It’s The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us)中，他收集了一些人的一系列趣闻轶事，这些人在失去工作后从没有停滞不前。
他写道，根据美国劳动统计局的数据，在截止2001年为止的三年中，美国有400万人遭到解雇，而他们在这些岗位上至少工作了3年。在他看来，转换工作变得如此频繁，以至于美国政府统计学家预测：当今的美国大学毕业生很可能会受雇于10到12个雇主，并且会进行3到4次职业转变。
“如果你不足30岁，几乎可以肯定的是，在这些转变的工作及职业中，至少有一个不是出于自我选择。”他写道：“问题不在于你是否会遭到解雇，而是你该如何应对它。”
美国方式似乎是忍受痛苦遭遇、吸取经验教训、从逆境中获得力量、迈出新的步伐。该书告诫人们不要在自哀自怜中消沉。
但是，对于麦凯书中的许多人，读者很难心生同情。这些人大多是实践着“美国梦”的富有的专业人士。从历史上看，要实现美国梦，人们必须进行个人奋斗，因而该书似乎暗示：若不经历些挫折，美国职业发展便会是空泛之谈，就像一本犯罪小说没有受害者。
看看书中异乎寻常的名单：罗伯特?雷德福(Robert Redford)、比莉珍金(Billie Jean King)和穆罕默德?阿里(Muhammad Ali)，人们很难将他们与职业受害者联系起来。的确，他们都曾在生命某一阶段经历过挫折，但是，有些人为同一雇主兢兢业业工作了一辈子，忽然遭裁员，与之相比，上述名人的经历不值一提。
我们也需要正视这些人的“遭遇”。1978年，当李?艾科卡(Lee Iacocca)遭福特公司解雇时，最羞辱的经历是他所得到的是一杯售货机咖啡。作为福特公司总裁，他此前享受的是白衣侍从随叫随到的服务，但在离开公司前的最后一些日子，他从豪华办公室移到仓库里的一个小隔间。
即使这样，他似乎也不必去售货机取咖啡。不过他说：“这种羞辱比解雇更糟糕。”艾科卡为专横的亨利?福特 “二世”工作，后者嫉妒他的成功。有一次，福特认为一位主管所穿裤子过于紧身，因而下令将其开除。
艾科卡事件距今已有25年之久，对解雇的态度也已发生了许多变化。如今，是否还会有老板像福特一样专横跋扈、是否还会有下属受到如此羞辱，这不太可能。
事实上，即使解雇本身并不是荣誉象征，但如今人们确实对此有些若无其事。公众媒体有一种使参与者当众受挫的时尚。在名为“老大哥”(Big Brother)的电视节目中，观众每周投票淘汰参与者，一些才艺表演节目也仿效采取类似“投票淘汰”方式。“最弱一环”(The Weakest Link)答题游戏的成功，取决于参与者是否愿意投票淘汰竞争对手。
在美国，类似观念使地产大亨唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)主持的“学徒”(Apprentice)节目收视率名列前茅。该节目从20万人中挑选出16名竞争者，他们在历时15周的时间内争夺25万美元奖金，以及特朗普公司分部总裁一职。特朗普每周都会对失败者宣布：“你被淘汰了。”
为什么美国电视观众会为此着迷？他们的快感是建立在别人不快之上的吗？特朗普证实，不快是实实在在的。“每次淘汰一个人，结果总是相同的。他们会一直痛恨你。”他说：“开除人有一个共同点：无论是恶意为之还是善意为之，当事者都会一直痛恨你。”
忽然离职是件痛苦的事，尽管麦凯书中名人竭力掩饰这一点。这些公司首脑的共同之处在于如何对此经历做出合理解释。在其看来，遭到解雇很少是因为不胜任或工作表现不佳。
Rx世界会议(Rx World Meetings)总裁兼首席执行官朱迪?贝纳罗什?约翰逊(Judy Benaroche Johnson)等一些人承认自己不适合某项工作，但他们总是将注意力集中在自己所取得的成绩上面。这对他们而言是件易事，因为他们都走出了挫折，并在别处取得更大的职业成就。
然而，有数以千计的人并不能从解雇经历中东山再起，麦凯书中所述的不是他们的故事。作为“励志”书作者，他的目的在于为读者带来希望。这本没有什么问题。在当今社会，每两个婚姻中便有一个以离婚收场，即使最亲密的婚姻双方也缺乏相互信任，这从婚前协议可见一斑。这样的社会可能会欢迎将雇佣合同视为草率协议的论调。
这是一种耻辱。在当今世界，人们庆贺变化，一个不良结果或不佳表现会被夸大成灾难，身在其中的我们也似乎失去了分寸感和平衡感。即使是最出色者也不能总是胜利者。
《我们遭到解雇，这再好不过了》(We Got Fired And It’s The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us)，哈维?麦凯著，巴兰亭图书公司(Ballantine Books)出版，定价$23.95。
