Is there any such thing as a humane layoff?

Today, a lot of people I worked with are being told they’re unemployed. While many of us volunteered for The Plain Dealer’s layoffs, the cuts will go deeper.

The company sent out an email yesterday afternoon telling everyone in the newsroom — managers included — to wait by their phones this morning to find out whether they were laid off or still had a job. Tomorrow and Friday, those who were let go will have off-site appointments to do some paperwork and meet with consultants hired to talk about managing such transitions.

According to comments on Facebook and elsewhere, this is a cruel, cold, heartless way to cut people loose. Since I raised my hand for this, I can’t speak for those who had hoped to escape. Nor do I know what was inside the minds of the executives who planned it this way. But as a manager for many years, I have to wonder whether any procedure would escape criticism.

The crucial choices were to cut jobs, and to decide how many would go. The people who make decisions like that rarely are the ones who deliver the news.  Granted, picking who goes and who stays, that’s probably not coming from the top. But, still, what’s a good way to be cut loose?

Face to face, some say. I want to see my boss tell me my service was valued. Really? Knowing that the boss is saying the same thing to everyone else? Or do you just want the chance to yell? A catharsis can be good, but being the recipient of a dozen cathartic tirades in a row isn’t going to do the mental health of the manager any good. Does that make the bosses cowards? Or does it just mean they’re not so cold-hearted that they could face such raw emotion without flinching?

In the newsroom, some say. Personally, I’d rather get bad news at home, in private, than in front of all my colleagues. But maybe that’s just me. What about the people who are staying, though? If I’m a manager, I know that the newsroom after the ax is going to remain jittery. Having suffered the loss of their colleagues will hurt enough. Do I need to make them watch a procession of departures?

The same day, some say. Don’t make me try to sleep knowing the call will come the next day. A reasonable argument, unless you’re working at a morning newspaper. There’s still a fair number of people who have to work at night to put out the next day’s paper. You can’t send them all home to wait for the call. And, frankly, the email that set the timetable is just the latest warning. The PD newsroom has known for months that this was coming. And other timetables made it clear that it would happen sometime this week. Our sleep has been troubled for a long time.

In the end, people who want to keep working are losing their jobs. That’s the tragedy. Getting the news by phone instead of in person, that’s a detail. The idea that there’s a humane way to take away someone’s livelihood makes me think of the old joke about the guy on vacation who calls his son and asks how their cat is doing.

“Fluffy’s dead,” the son says. “She fell off the garage roof.”

The dad’s incensed. “That’s no way to deliver bad news,” he says. “First, you should tell me Fluffy’s stuck on the roof. Then the next day, you say she fell off, but she’s at the vet. Then you tell me she died. That’s how you break the news” The son apologizes.

“OK,” says the dad, “now, how’s Grandma?”

“She’s stuck on the roof.”