A colleague who has been in Corporate Land says there is a protocol in place at established firms. It makes the unsavory process of chopping a human from his/her livelihood and life-ambition more regulated, efficient, and thus somewhat “kinder” to the subject. You fire on Fridays, and have security escort the workers out. “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well/It were done quickly” says Macbeth,a guy who knew a thing about cutting people. Administrators in our corner of a caring profession executed their notices at the last possible hour, beyond the time they had told people they would have it done. And so there was blunt force trauma, too, to the psyches of these brave young professionals who somehow keep showing up ready to do their best.
There is a technology to human resource management, and the one used here seems to me primitive.
I suppose that one positive this horrific wounding has brought our department is a certain sense of community, of “us against the world,” and a collective urge to speak out our grief and outrage. At the end of the day, we feel angered not only at the way these young professionals were severed from their careers, but at what it says to us about the short-sighted interests of the American people, most of whom can no longer afford to fully fund schools. When a vibrant and promising young department is cut off as it buds, what’s hurt is more than morale and livelihoods. What’s hurt is the future–our progeny.
The Wikiness 
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