Likely Getting Canned This Week - Keep Me In Your Thoughts!

I was among those hoping for some good news for a change. Good for you, Ex!

 

Now take the wife out for dinner!

 

Ex, Congrats.

I have a question. Because of the way you were treated with the demotion and with the pay cut in the new deal, does it leave you feeling anything negative? You are relieved and it's great and I am sincerely happy for you. You sound like a class act. I am not sure I would have handled the demotion the way you did in the first place. I don't think I have the same responsibilities to think about that you did, and I don't think I make choices the same way (which is good and bad; some of my most impetuous, irresponsible decisions have served me best in the long run and some have been disastrous). It sounds like you were being mature and an adult and did what you had to do for you and your family. You sound solid. I don't think I would have been renewed if I was in your shoes--I probably wouldn't have still been there because my ego might not have been able to take it. My question is, knowing how things went down, will you be keeping your ear to the ground for other jobs now (I know jobs in the industry are being tossed around like manhole covers, but do you have any distaste in your mouth?), even though you gained some stability with the new deal?

As for the posts about not shaking that MEs hand who fired someone, maybe the ME didn't deserve the handshake. But I have had to fire three people and it isn't something I did gleefully or with any personal animosity. The first time I did it was one of the hardest things I have ever faced up to. He was young, got hired to do something he wasn't prepared to do (not by me) and his performance was killing a magazine. I had my choice of pawning the job off to someone higher on the food chain who had experience firing people, or doing it myself. I did it, because I was technically his boss and I had concurred with the feeling that he had to go. My stomach was in tatters and it was one of the shittiest-feeling things I have ever done. But I was honest, tried to be compassionate and I am sure we shook hands. He is younger than me and friends with a group of people in my old company, who I still stay in touch with. Since then, I have been out to drinks with him (and others) a bunch of times and I even had him and someone else I used to work with over to my place for drinks on my roof this past summer. I guess the point is that firing someone is nowhere near as bad as getting fired, obviously. But not everyone doing the hatchet job is necessarily a sadistic fuck who is enjoying it.