““I have no idea where that crazy rumor came from,” she said. “We have recently offered a voluntary buyout option for employees, and just over 100 people voluntarily decided to take it. That’s it. We have nearly 4,000 people at CNN … and around 100 of them exercised the option for a program that was offered. That’s it. Those are the facts.”
The company, I worked for decades did the same and offered an early out. About 150 of the long time best sales people and a few managers took the option, including me.
The same bs came from our HR as above. About a year later an entire sales division of over 240 reps and 20 managers were laid off with minimal benefits.
Then, they got serious about firing people across the board.
Next, in one morning, they closed down 80% of the home office in a brutal walk to a security compound with a Kinko box to hold their personal items. Then, security people escorted the parking lots and their cars and insured they left.
HR was still saying this was just normal.
The last layoff was everyone. All, of the remaining employees had to go to a new central parking lot and leave their cars to ride minivans to trailers assigned to letters of the alphabet like A-k.
In the trailers, they got their termination papers and the Kinko box with their personal items. They signed non disclosure and adios papers.
They were then escorted back to their cars and told to leave via a new one way exit onto city streets.
City police were there on the outside city streets and had put up no parking signs for a few blocks outside of the gates. That forced the newly fired to drive into a not too desirable area of the city.
Few if any parked to talk to each other. Cell phones were a rarity at that time. A few people stayed to talk to others, and those few shared the above and then went home.
Zero warnings came from HR after the first voluntary layoff.
A friend, who was among the last fired, complained that he had no idea what was coming.
I told him, that saying that was like walking in a no walking railroad tunnel with the lights of a locomotive and its noise coming behind him. Then, being surprised that theY got ran over by a train in a train tunnel with trains obviously behind them.
So who is next at CNN?
A friend, who was among the last fired, complained that he had no idea what was coming.