Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for January 27, 2023

… and to all corporations, a hefty welfare check and good night!

Return the Christmas goose immediately!

And after the layoff, the execs take hefty bonuses!!! I heard that MS execs had some kind of big party too!

Didya ever notice that all those big corporate layoffs happen before the Christmas season and just ahead of the top executive’s bonuses? Gotta balance the books, somehow.

A Capitalism Carol

Bit late here, Bolling.

well… if I have to choose, I will choose the raging and/or the apathetic losers first. That said, nothing says recession more loudly than large corporations laying off employees even while most everyplace I go to has a help wanted sign on the door.

Good thing republicans gave Hound a huge tax break.

Unfortunately it is easier to cut spending than it is to increase revenue.

Sing with me, “O Bottom Line, O Bottom Line… We’re closing several branches”

Once everyone is laid off, who’s going to do the work?

It’s one way to save a bundle of money. Goddam grasping “employees”.

It’s amazing how little the corporate aristocracy differs from hereditary aristocracy or theocracy.

Especially bless the multinational corporations who pay no taxes.

They are the Republican idea of patriotism.

“Quiet quitting” is a misnomer. It’s not that people aren’t doing their jobs. Instead, some people have decided to do what is asked of them instead of what they might be able to do. They’re not motivated to give it their all, but to meet expectations instead. This isn’t a weakness in those workers. It is a weakness in their managers, people who are largely inept at setting expectations, supporting and directing workers to achieve them, and managing the outcomes of that process.

Loyalty to the company went down along with the lousy wages.

Those people have the right to leave if they are lazy, good-for-nothing bums.

Layoff logic tip: You can always say they weren’t fun enough. (Except in France, apparently.)

I’ve worked for two companies that fit this story pretty closely. At the first one, the inept management was sure that their company’s problems were solely due to lazy employees. They were shocked that no matter how hard they whipped, morale and productivity didn’t improve. So they laid off almost all of the workers… then they were more shocked that work stopped and they weren’t able to bill their customers…

The second got the “genius” idea that if they had no employees then their overhead would shrink and that would turn around their fortunes. Their plan was to staff up temporarily for each contract they won, by utilizing temp agencies. They were shocked to find that the temp agency workers were unreliable and low quality, and that they might not even get enough people… and they were even more shocked to find that their company’s reputation suffered…

Both companies managed to go belly-up within a year after implementing their “genius” strategies. I ran into an upper manager from the first company not long ago (and several years after that company went under) – he was still blaming “lazy workforce” for his lost company and the money that he never netted…