On 02 January of this year, doing my now semi-regular check of the status of the company that created the layoff called Hammerfall 2.0 (which indirectly lead to New Home 2.0), I came across the following notice:
"Thank you for visiting the website for <Former Employer> ("Company"), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company formerly based in New Home. The Company is no longer operating. Any questions may be submitted to <FormerEmployer@Fomer.com>.
Previous SEC filings for the company may be found at <The place you find such things>.
Correspondence can also be sent to <Former Employer>, Small Office Complex, Somewhere, United States."
That is it. A company history of something like 15 years - 6.5 years of my own life - hundreds of millions of dollars - all gone except for a web page and assets to be liquidated.
The hours we spent there. The amount of work. The sacrifices of sleep and emotion. The things that had to be done - right then - because they were the most important thing in the world, because our bosses told us so.
All gone.
I try and tell the young ones of this, that a company will ask everything of you and will let you go at the drop of a hat, that while doing good work is important and you should always avail yourself of every opportunity you can, never give the company everything. Because sometime - it happens to most of us anymore - all of your efforts and emotions and sweat will disappear without a trace.
Sic transit gloria mundi - Thus passes the glory of this world.
Memento mori
ReplyDeleteThe concept of “remembering death” is expressed throughout ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates states that the sole purpose of practicing philosophy “is to practice for dying and death.” Rather than being a morbid directive, the statement espouses mastering one’s fear of death by recognizing the body’s mortal reality and pursuing knowledge, which nurtures the immortal soul.
The Stoics taught the virtue of keeping death at the forefront of one’s thoughts as a reminder that nothing is permanent. In his letters Seneca advocated living every day “as a complete life” and advised, “Let us compose our thoughts as if we’ve reached the end. Let us postpone nothing. Let’s settle our accounts with life every day.” In the Encheiridion, Epictetus wrote, “If you are kissing your child or wife, say that it is a human being whom you are kissing, for when the wife or child dies, you will not be disturbed.” According to the Stoics, by meditating on death’s inevitability, one can live more fully in the present moment.
Even business fall prey to mortality.
Too often we are framed by what we do for a living.
Live each day to completely finish it.
Michael - The Penguin edition "The Last Days of Socrates" which includes Euthyphro, The Apology of Socrates, Crito, and Phaedo, remains one of my favorites. And you never get an argument about quoting Seneca or Epictetus here.
DeleteSadly though, this business did not only fall prey to mortality. I fell prey to a series of poor decisions complicated by senior management forgetting their most basic of tasks - make a product that gets to market - and served all kinds of other masters.
Yahor maybe $ $$
ReplyDeleteHit the wrong key this morning during editing though the above comment illustrates my mental alertness now.....:) Read somewhere on the InterNets yesterday that business bankruptcies were approaching those of 2008-2010.
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - Heh heh. Happens to the best of us.
DeleteThe one "current news site" I follow is dailyjobcuts.com. While it is always hard to really say how much a job site that only focuses on job cuts reflects the real world, the announcements are regular and somewhat concerning as to their number and breadth.
A number of things - mostly spending by both sides of the Aisle - is catching up with us.
I would go so far as to say that, by itself, such a site is not reflective when taken alone, just as any would not be when narrowed down to a fairly specific field or subject. But it can provide useful information to accent a larger picture that is more concerned with the macro than the micro, if one knows where or what that narrow slice reveals with what it does (or does not) tell.
DeleteThe elimination of cheap, nearly free money compared to real inflation rates has shown how many businesses were swimming naked as Buffet so dryly mentioned a few times.
DeleteMichael oddly anon today?
P_P - I treat it as you suggest; not inherently indicative but certainly a source of information.
DeleteI can tell you that, at least my industry, not every "downsizing" gets reported - and there has been a lot of that lately.
Anon (II) - Perhaps the elimination of real money combined with the fact that so many places do not make "things", just "ideas" or "services"? It is hard to make a profit when you are selling an idea that never seems to make it into production.
DeleteAmen Brother. I gave my 20's and half of my 30's to Globocorps. The stock price took a dive and the model said cut heads and they cut heads even though our business unit was a money printer. This among the so-called "elites". I didn't get rich. I didn't have a family. I did't build anything for myself outside of the reputation and relationships of the globocorp hive.
ReplyDeleteWhen I opted to never go back, I became a non-person to those relationships as my utility went to nil once they all figured out I would not be providing them business, connections, network value, etc.
I started a couple of businesses on my own and with partners. I put 4 years of start up work and R&D in to one only to end up in the same culture of psychopaths, narcissists, and vampire opportunists. I walked away with nothing. I could have litigated. But that briar patch is also "theirs".
All we have in the end are those we love and those who love us. Build a wide variety of skills that are useful - mostly to your own hearth and home, and you will find ways to trade that for value. Build relationships in meatspace with others who share this tack and who live their principles. A lot gets said, very little gets done.
Finally, orient your heart to work. There is no "hack", something for nothing, arbitrage, financial scheme, crypto, or "passive income" path to the contentment of life. We all have our lot and our toil. Find the simple joy of work - and marvel in our time that for all intents is still one of great ease and abundance, but prepare for austerity. All that materialism is meaningless. Do not get trapped gripping that rice when the club comes around.
Anon - Thanks for your comment.
DeleteIt is interesting how quickly we "fall off the earth" when suddenly we are no longer in that race, or even if we make clear that we are only going to be giving 40 hours or so a week. In the best of cases, there is a disinterested understanding. At worst, there is a removal from any and all chances of "moving forward".
In a similar vein to "what I have in my possession I own", having the skills that you can put to work is in a variety of places is the same. Invest in your mind (essentially yourself), said Benjamin Franklin, and no-one can take that from you.
Anon-above- This has to be one of the best comments on the web about work and life and skills.
DeleteCorvid - It is definitely a keeper.
Delete"never give the company everything" is about the best advice one can give to a newly employed person. I only do that for family.
ReplyDeleteEd, agreed - although it is always hard to strike a bit of a balance with new people in their careers especially: they really want to "do their best" and start off with bang. It is certainly admirable and I appreciate their enthusiasm. I just try to remind them that there is no incentive for the company to scale back their demands; they will always want more, not less.
DeleteYessir. In the olden times of my youth the system solved for that kind of open-ended work ethic. I worked in globo-finance, which is arguably the most destructive industry (to use that word generously) to our young people and thus our own futures.
DeleteThey recruited for the type of young people who would give them everything. In fairness, there was some transparency in this. Both parties could strike some sort of equilibrium. Though indeed the house always wins in the end.
The difference now, some 30 years after I started, is that every industry has adopted the culture and strategy of wall street. Silicon Valley is the same. The high hopes put into STEM as a viable escape from this vampire economy were short-lived.
All employers now ask for everything. Every job is bottomless pit of demands, quals, certs, and conditions. The goal posts move with the tides.
In finance there were a thousand resumes for your job at any point, all of them the "best". So you put your head down and pulled the cart.
Now that is every job. We compete with the whole world too. Because our people decided the USA is but an Economic Zone.
Far too many of our smart and hard-working young hear that siren call and far too many of our elders have sold the social trajectory that accompanies the empire of credentials and materialism as The Way.
The system at large has been capturing all of our best traits and yoking them to the financialized, commoditized homogenized plantation of globocapital's endgame of the liquidating collateral of fungible producers and consumers for a long time. Honor, duty, long time preference, loyalty, hard work, honesty etc.
That conscientiousness that has you staying late again because you believe in getting it done right and you care about your subordinates, coworkers, clients. etc. That is what the system requires: your life. It's the only real fuel that keeps the whole plate spinning.
I don't blame the young for their nihilism and disenfranchisement. But we need to give them a way forward. We are stewards of our people, not of commerce. The order of that vector needs to be re-established.
On the threshold of every Employer: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Treat it as the descent that it is and go bravely and with a free heart but do not be intoxicated by the smell of "success" or the siren songs of those maidens who would love you - if only you could only go one more level up (down)...Own yourself, or they will.
Anon - I do not wonder that part of the adoption of the mindset that you describe simply comes from the fact that the financial industry, through its funding, starts to sink its roots and ways of business into the very nature of "business" itself.
DeleteIt reminds me a bit of the part in Atlas Shrugged where it becomes clear that the system only continues to work because a small minority refuse to let it fail. The minute they do, the whole thing quickly falls apart.
Yes that is part of it. The financialization of everything has fundamentally altered the “culture” of business. We see that in the extreme myopia of fiscal strategy over long-term viability, the public and private financial markets with their short term preference is the tail that wags all the dogs. The number of extremely valuable enterprises that either do not make our lives better or make anything at all or make things that serve the narrative and not the people.
DeleteOn the other side is the spiritual death of a people. The buttress against the moral decay, dark triad personality traits that all institutions solve for and reward, and the temptation and corrupting forces of social status, money, and power.
The consumerism that has been trying to fill this spiritual void only serves to further trap us in this system.
On a simple level we can look to what kids aspire to be in life. The number one “job”? Social media Influencer. So much for fireman, astronaut, doctor, or tradesman.
We are solving toward Utopia. Aka “nowhere”. In which our children are reaching toward the nothingness. This alone should keep us up at night working to build another way through.
Cheers. Thanks for indulging some long comments from the anonosphere!
Anon. - "On a simple level we can look to what kids aspire to be in life. The number one “job”? Social media Influencer. So much for fireman, astronaut, doctor, or tradesman." This is not the first time I have seen this idea. And it is just as alarming as it sounds.
DeleteThanks for all of your very well thought comments. Feel free to indulge as you are able - I certainly benefited from your perspective!
I got mine young. After working on USDA cotton samples all winter (ginning, acid delinting, weighing, bagging, cataloging), we planted in the spring. Enough seeds for about 10 feet of row per sample. About 6 acres total. Cotton was 4 inches high when a hailstorm wiped it all out. I stood in the mud, looking at the destruction and a thought was injected into my head, "You must be about the Father's business."
ReplyDeleteI lost that bit by bit until the sickness. Then, it hit me again. Only now, I'm a few loaves and fishes. But in His hands....
STxAR - Something like you describe would indeed be the sort of moment that emblazoned itself on one's mind.
DeleteAnd yes, I firmly believe we keep "coming back" to the same lesson until we are ready to learn it and move on. God is patient that way.
I always get something from you and/or the comments and today's are especially rich. I scratched "All we have in the end are those we love and those who love us" in my journal immediately, and some of these other thoughts are well worth reflection. Oddly, I have a strong sense that "Yahor maybe $ $$" would make a great name for a book or a novel, although for now it escapes me what kind of book it would be.
ReplyDeletePirates. Definitely pirates.
DeleteGo on, slur that out to yourself in a half-drunken pirate accent. It fits.
Warren, I am continually blessed by some of the best commentariat on the InterWeb so the fact that you were able to get so many thoughts from them is no surprise to me.
DeleteYou are right - "Yahor maybe $ $$" is a great title.
P_P - You are right; the pirate accent works perfectly.
DeleteWhat a sad legacy for a company. And such an excellent reminder to carefully consider the question you asked before, "What should I be spending my life on?"
ReplyDeleteLeigh, it really is. And what actually makes me a little mad is that so many pushed so much of their lives into making things work, only to have it pulled out from under them.
DeleteIt is indeed a good reminder. That seems to keep coming up of late.
Hopelessly behind, and not even going to pretend to try to catch up, I stopped in my scrolling to read this profound post. Two thoughts rise to the surface of my mind.
ReplyDelete1) Our adult sons continually remind us there is no such thing as loyalty to a company anymore. And no job is secure. And their futures are questionable. I want to bolster them with optimism, but it seems a lost cause. I will say, though, they seem to value experiences more than we did. I sort of admire that.
2) My father and mother began two businesses when we were a young family. The first (a plumbing business) was sold along with its name; the other business (investing in properties and being landlords) was liquidated after my father's death. Twenty-four years after Dad passed, the plumbing business, which still bears his name is going strong. And every home he and Mom bought and fixed up during the second half of the last century is still standing, providing shelter. Most of them are probably 100 years old (or older) by now. I very much admire that.
Becki, I tend to agree with your sons. I am very fortunate in my current employer; I have no illusions that I would be employed there if suddenly I was seen as a cost not generating revenue.
DeleteThank you for sharing the story about your parents. That is a great testimony to your parents and what they built.
Becki, I tend to agree with your sons. I am very fortunate in my current employer; I have no illusions that I would be employed there if suddenly I was seen as a cost not generating revenue.
DeleteThank you for sharing the story about your parents. That is a great testimony to your parents and what they built.