Your Contract is Complete

In the past four years, I have worked at 12 jobs, all of which “ended.”  What does “ended’ mean? 

1.    Show closed

2.    Vacation coverage ended, original employee returned

3.    Contract is complete

4.    Contract is cancelled

5.    Medical leave ended and original employee returned

6.    Job eliminated due to merger

7.    Job eliminated due to budget cuts

8.    Job redefined and eliminated

9.    Company closed

All in all, these phrases boil down to one thing:  You don’t work here anymore.  This has been relayed by the manager, the co-worker, the agent, the company manager, the business manager, the office administrative.  The conversations have sounded like this:

1.    “Thank you for your excellent work.  Your contract is complete.”

2.    “Temping sucks.  Your contract is complete.”

3.    “I don’t have much feedback, but I got a call from your assignment supervisor and your contract is complete.  Come by the agency and we’ll have collected your personal belongings, you can pick them up then.”

4.    “After much consideration, we have restructured and eliminated your position.”

5.    “The show is officially closing in two weeks.  Consider this your official two weeks notice.”

6.    “I hate having to say this, because I really like you.  But your contract is over.”

I attended a National Seminars Training conference recently, and I found a book by Mark Levine and Stephen M. Pollan, who is very clearly an attorney.  It’s called “Work Scripts.”  The authors discuss the communication culture in post 2008.  In Work Scripts , they relate “Terminating an employee used to be considered a milestone for a young manager…because it was so rare.”  Terminations happen far more frequently now than before, and for financial, headcount, and even short term fiscal reasons.  Consequently, managers have to terminate people far more frequently, and are a fact of business.  They go on to say, “It’s a shame because it makes management a less humane process.”

In former years, it was a dramatic occurrence to see an employee emerge from a one-on-one in tears, get a box and pack up their belongings while being supervised, hand over their tag, computer and keys, and escorted out of the office.  At my last job, I witnessed this occurrence to 8 people in two months.  People who had been with the company for as long as 15 years.  And this was in 2013!

The radio constantly reports job growth numbers, then gives the disclaimer that 50-somethings have “given up looking for work.”  Really?  I have seen so very many people leaving a job and starting a new business, even a sole proprietorship or LLC, and begin a consulting business – far more, in fact, than I have seen applying for unemployment. 

They are contractors.  Not contractors like a temporary worker, but small businesses that submit applications and proposals for job requisitions, and sometimes even employ other independent contractors to do the work.  Admittedly, around this area they are almost all Government Contractors, but Contractors nonetheless.

With the Affordable Care Act, everyone will be offered some form of health care, which will drive up the costs doing business for those sole proprietorships dramatically, while big businesses already have that cost in their budget.  So it will be very interesting to see how these small businesses survive.  I sincerely hope they do.

It may be that many small businesses will be sold to bigger businesses, and then the proprietors will retire or join the workforce again, and where will the jobs come from? 

I like working for and with other people.  I hate riding the Metro home on Friday evening, getting a phone call and being told my contract has ended, then being informed someone is going through my desk right this moment,  packing up my personal items for me to retrieve from a the consulting agency on Monday. 

I long for the day when terminations were rare, and when they did occur, they were done so with compassion and respect.

As always, I welcome your input on this subject.