The many disappeared

Saturday 20th June 20

My ex-company is the type where people disappear without warning. There tends to be a proclamation heralded by horn playing cherubs when someone joins. Emails and press releases that extol their previous work, life and achievements are circulated. But very very little when they leave. Sometimes there’s nothing. They vanish first in person, only then to have their place in history confirmed and rubber-stamped by being removed from the companies global address book.

Occasionally a group email maybe circulated stating that ‘person x has left to, ‘explore other opportunities’. If they were fortunate and once thought of highly, the subject of the email may be prefixed with, ‘After x years at the company…..’. But that’s about as far as it goes.

I’m not saying that there’s any need for a detailed descritpion of the hows and whys behind a person leaving, although it would be quite funny to read that ‘Person X has left the compnay as ‘they’ve not done anything for the last four months apart from online shopping and watching cat videos’

But it would have been good to know that Aliens hadn’t dematerialised them at their desk, and if they or ‘management’ had decided that they should leave.

My ex-company had a real problem with admitting any form of weakness. From an employee worrying about being honest and answering a, ‘Do you know……’ question with a, ‘No’, to a Manager lacking decisiveness due to being scared of making the wrong decision. The company have always been wary of showing any signs of being ‘weak’, particularly to employees.

Not being open and honest to why people have left the company is not only a missed opportunity for the company to develop and get better, it also cements the thought that ‘it’s ok to be weak, we just won’t talk about it.’