How to Learn that You're Getting a Pink Slip

You can have someone tap you on your shoulder and ask you to come along with them. ("We have to talk.")

You can be told unofficially, ahead of time, so that when the Angel of Death taps you on the shoulder, you're somewhat prepared.

You can be warned well in advance that something's up because your company makes an announcement that they will be cutting x percent of their employees in the coming quarter.

You can be completely blindsided.

You can get learn by a phone call.

You can learn via voice mail. ("Sorry I missed your call....")

You can learn via e-mail.

You can learn via snail-mail. Or express mail.

You can learn through the rumor mill.

You can learn through an IM from a friend (or, I guess, an enemy).

You can guess - and be right.

You can guess - and be wrong.

You can lose a political battle, and your dismissal is engineered to look like a lay-off, but you're really fired.

You can get caught in the cross-fire of someone else's political battle and become collateral damage.

You can volunteer for separation. (Pick, me, pick me, pick me.)

You can figure it out by watching who's going into what meeting, and who's no longer invited.

Speaking of meetings, you can be called into a company meeting and, at the door, get handed a piece of colored paper. Everyone with a green piece of paper, please take a seat in the meeting room: you're job has been deleted.

You can read about it in the newspaper - or online.

You can see a new org chart without your name on it.

You can see you name on a list of lay-off-ees that your boss asks you to fax somewhere or another.

Or, as happened to my cousin just the other day, you can be called into a meeting for everyone who works in your office, and have the head guy announce that you are one of the two people in that location who are losing their jobs.

My cousin had to fortitude and ego to tell the head guy that it was a really lousy thing to let him know - after 8 years - that he was being cut in front of his colleagues.

The head guy just brushed my cousin off.

People react to losing their job in different ways. And you'll have different reactions as time goes on. (Fortunately, in most cases I know of, humor replaces bitterness and anger over time.)

But no one should be told in front of their colleagues.

Who wants to have everyone looking at you to see if you're surprised, in shock, bittern, angry, overjoyed? Who wants to have their office mates see them cry? Who wants to have their in-the-moment words out there for everyone to hear?

If you're working someplace where the head guy is such an a-hole that he'd behave in this way, you are without a question or doubt better off somewhere else.

The question remains: why would anyone think this was a good idea? That it is fair, reasonable, just, and kind?

It is only one thing: humiliating. And completely unnecessary.

Fortunately, in the wonderful world of the workplace, what goes around does generally come around.

And I'm betting this head guy is going to biting his own dust any day now.

Do you think he wants the head-er guy to come in and let him go in front of everyone in the office? Or in front of his peers at a group meeting?

I thought not.