9/15 We had to lay someone off at work because of the shrinking budget.
Some people would like to take him to lunch. Some of us think it
would be weird to go out with someone being (essentially) fired.
What do you think? Would a card/gift be more appropriate? Should
we do anything at all? We've worked with this guy for 2-3 years.
\_ Take the guy out for a meal. What's so awkward about it? It's not
like you made the decision to can him.
\_ Agreed. If you like him, give him a nice send-off.
\_ Well, I didn't make the decision but I was party to it.
\_ "laid off" = "we couldn't afford you, no hard feelings
please", "fired" = "you suck, we don't want you, go away".
Make sure you know which it is; I would find it extremelyy
odd to take someone whose firing I was involved in to lunch
unless I knew him personally. Otherwise it seems very
disingenuous. If it's a real layoff, you might also want
to consider passing his resume around and other nice
things. -John
\_ Well, as you know, when there's a layoff there's
always the choice of *who* to layoff. It's not the
same as being fired, but there's the undertone of
"We chose to let *you* go." I personally might feel
odd going to lunch with coworkers if I was laid off.
I did offer to help him get another job. If anyone
needs a sysadmin, junior s/w engineer, or WWW developer
with a BS in CS from Caltech and about 3 years
experience let me know. I'm in LA, but I know his
girlfriend is in the Bay Area, so he might consider
moving. Oh, he is also a RHCE. --dim
\_ Something more important to consider: that shrinking budget. When
is *your* turn? Think about where you'd like to be taken to lunch
when your turn comes. Also, a single layoff for budget reasons
sounds really weird. What's really going on? How big is your
place? Are you a C*O or founder? If not, polish up your resume if
he was really cut for budget reasons. As far as lunch or no lunch,
it doesn't matter if he was fired or laid off. A particular job is
not the be-all end-all of life. If you like the guy take him to
lunch. If you hate him, don't. Remember, in theory, someone who
got laid-off will be re-hired when times get better. I've seen it
actually happen a _small_ number of times.
\_ Well, I asked him if we could take him to lunch and he said
"Yes". As for the rest of the story, who said it was a
single layoff?
\_ enjoy lunch. No one said but if you re-read the OP it is
easy to come to that conclusion from context. How many out
of how many total? |
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