Has it always been like this? Employee treated like criminal after layoff

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

Another thread by undeterred about their experience made me wonder this.

I'm lucky enough not to have been fired or laid off before. But I remember reading all the stories about people being "escorted from the premises" by security after being laid off by failed dot coms, presumably so they wouldn't loot a bunch of laptops and Swingline staplers.

Has it ALWAYS been like this in America? The first I remember hearing this type of story was with the dot com implosion, treating the employee of 5 minutes ago like a potential criminal...

[LittleClarkie]

1. Nearly as long as I can remember

my company has done this, from manager down to peon. I've been here 16 years.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. I think it is the result of an excess of paranoia

on the part of the Catberts of the corporate world. They're afraid that a disgruntled fired or laid off employee will sabotage the computer system or come back with a gun and "go postal." So they treat everybody like criminals.

[Renew Deal]

3. My company does this with people it fears.

It's not uncommon.

[Angry Girl]

4. It's always been like this in hi-tech, at least that I know of....

It's to avoid disgruntled employees screwing with the computer system/data. It gets even worse if a high-level sys admin gets fired, because you have to do all sorts of things to prevent them accessing the the system before they leave (sys admins often create backdoors, which makes life more complicated).

[tk2kewl]

5. i think it's less that the employee is being treated as a criminal

than the employer knowing that they are slimebags and need to be protected from righteous retribution

[derby378]

6. To a certain extent, yes

But it partially depends on the company you work for. It's kinda like working for the FBI, I hear - "You love the Bureau, but the Bureau doesn't love you."

My father retired from Texas Instruments earlier this year, and he had a lot of good friends there, including some of his supervisors. But when Dad's retirement was official, he immediately had to hand in all of his badges and be escorted off the property. It was one of his supervisors who did it; normally, it might have been a security guard.

[annabanana]

7. I have, over the course of my life - ahem - left-

a few places of employment. It was never pleasant, but always civil. I was always on good enough terms with the staff that they'd meet and commiserate at lunchtime. I was never escorted off... but then, I never had custody of a "valuable" rolodex, or enough influence to poison the typing pool on the way out.

It was WAY before dot coms, though (the computers were still huge and housed in chilled rooms)

god I'm old

[tech3149]

8. I never had that problem

but I always left on my own terms. Usually after long-term(7-15yr), but I've seen it happen to others. I've seen the growth of a corporate attitude that looks at employees with mistrust and as a liability, not an asset. That's the main reason I just don't want to go back to work.

[NNN0LHI]

9. The goons at Ford have escorted fired employees out since 1973

They did it before too I would imagine but I wasn't there then.

Don

[Ilsa]

10. I think certain jobs are more prone to this than others.

My husband is in the high tech field, and no one is ever laid off without security watching them pack up and go. Too much software (and money) at stake.

[ElectroPrincess]

11. It's comforting at least ...

that the leaders in our illustrious Democratic Party have Workers' Rights as one of their top priorities. How else can we explain the complete success of all that is "The Bankruptcy Bill?" :puke:

[Trillo]

12. "You're either for us, or against us."

Heh, heh. I'm happy to report that I've only once had an honest employer who actually told the truth and whose word could be trusted. All the others were criminals who hadn't yet been caught lying, cheating, and stealing.

I'm of the generalized mindset that an "honest employer" is simply another one of those oxymoronic phrases.

All of my employee experience was prior to the dot com era. It led me to the conclusion that the only thing I could do if I wanted to live a life of honesty was to be self-employed. Otherwise, I was making more money for a liar than they were paying me, and who wants to support the life of a LIAR? Certainly not me.

[rasputin1952]

13. I worked for a major company in AZ, and was escorted out the door

by my supervisor when I left. The plant manager and I 'had words' and I was packing up my stuff when I was met in the Locker Room by the Supv. He did not check my stuff, and he was extraordinarily friendly. I was leaving of my own accord, not fired, but what i told the plant mgr was going to get me fired anyway.

Here is the hitch in all of this. My Supv told me that the PM was 'scared' of me, and basically all of the people in AZ because everyone 'packed'. This was true where I was...we were out in the desert, and everyone had at least a pistol w/snakeshot in their vehicle. When we were told it was company policy that no weapons were allowed on Company property, including the parking lot, after lunch, the only vehicle in the parking lot was the PM's...:D This is true!

the only thing I wanted to take out of that plant, was my dignity; and my Supv told me my job was open for me, right after the PM got transferred.

I think that the "going Postal" thing got people even more worried about security...:(

[AlphaCat]

14. I thought it started...

...after all those 'go postal' shootings in the various Post Offices around the country. Supervisors etc. didn't want a violent incident to happen when they fired, or even reprimanded, a disgruntled employee.

[Singular73]

15. Yep

Thats when it hit the news.

Thats why people always get layed off on Fridays.

[SunDrop23]

16. When I worked for IBM in the mid-90's...

An entire department was to be laid off, so all of them (110 people +/-) were invited to an offsite meeting, where they got the news. When they got back to the building their access badges had been turned off. They could not enter the building. Instead, security packed their desks up for them and brought their belongs out in cardboard boxes.

[newswolf56]

17. The very nasty Rogue's March approach to fired or laid-off employees...

has always been one of the more revealing characteristic of American Big Business -- proof of the ultimate malice with which we workers are viewed from the boardroom -- but in recent years (as capitalism has become ever more brazen in its savagery and capitalists ever more vicious in their contempt), it has spread throughout the workplace even to the smaller firms. Regardless of the stated rationale, the ultimate personnel-management purpose is total humiliation: as in any other assault by thugs, a final boot in the stomach to inflict maximum fear and intimidation, thereby lessening the likelihood of a quest for redress even if fully justified.

[smirkymonkey]

22. I would think that it would INCREASE the chance of retailiation.

Especially if one was very dependent on their job for financial or self-esteem reason. It seems as though the added humiliation would just drive them over the edge, or at least want to make them get back at someone.

[ellenfl]

18. i think sometimes the people that have you escorted out

think like criminals. you have to remember that a lot of ceos have been caught stealing so i'm sure those criminals expect others to do the same.

the only time i was escorted out, my boss tried to claim i was stealing a roladex . . . the same roladex that i have been carrying from job to job for years. the cooler head that was with her took a quick look at the roladex and quickly shut her up. she was such a b*tch, i was lucky to be rid of her. devastated to be out of a job, tho'.

i think my current bosses have only fired one person in their 30+ years in practice and we made them do that.

ellen fl

[Igel]

19. It's what I did to an employee.

He was the CEO. It was a Sunday. We yanked him to a board meeting to get him in his office. We asked him to leave the meeting, then sacked him in his absence; I scurried off to talk to IT and had his e-mail rigged so he wouldn't know he had no access to the network, and had his passwords and passcard set to expire in an hour.

Another guy and I, the chair/vice-chair of the board, then went to his office. We told him to get away from his computer, and turned it off for him. We confiscated his keys and passcard. He was to return the office equipment on loan to him at 9 am the next morning, at which time an HR officer would monitor him cleaning out his desk. We were friendly and amiable, but he wasn't. He was pissed. We escorted him to his car.

At 9 am next morning, he showed up. All staffers (apart from one HR officer and retail counter clerks) were in a mandatory meeting at which his 'departure' was announced and the interim 'transition team' was introduced and explained. The staffers were to be detained until the HR officer showed up. The HR officer was to ensure that the former CEO had his desk cleaned, the equipment returned, and he was off the premises by 9:45; then the HR officer was to report to the admin meeting. The former CEO was to be told he would be allowed in the building solely to talk to HR, unless requested to be there by the interim CEOs: anybody else would call security. (We had had a manager who went on administrative leave, but persisted on returning to try to start a mutiny.) The HR officer did precisely that.

The CEO was royally pissed. We made an offer that we thought fair (BTW, it was fair: so many months' severance, officially on administrative leave until he could retire, the same insurance coverage in retirement he had when he was employed). He rejected it; he wanted more. He filed suit; he brought charges; he deposed people; he made all kinds of threats; we offered him much less in return. Twelve months later he settled: he got precisely our original offer plus a fax machine--on the other hand, he also had his lawyer's fees, which made it a very, very expensive fax machine.

[Radio_Lady]

20. A pretty ugly story, igil. I've only been on the employee side and

the worst was recently -- earlier this year. An employee of the company was removed in the morning, his email code turned off -- in fact, the whole department's codes were changed. I guess his items were packed up by others and returned to him.

It was all pretty shocking, to say the least. He had been employed there for many years, a divorced father of two.

The "buzz" around the office was that someone accused him of sexual harassment. Weird all around -- I wonder if it was something else, like -- his union responsibilities?

Who knows?

These things never happened to me when I had several jobs in New York City in the 1960s. I think it began to happen after the series of postal employees who turned guns on former employers. And, it coincided with the use of computers -- so much could be compromised with just a keystroke...

Just my input tonight.

[Igel]

21. The odd thing is, I had been on the employee

side a few years before, and it was a truly ugly experience. Escorting me out would at least have said I existed or my job was useful.

I've been on both sides. Both suck.