10 signs you’ll soon be jobless

A shocking job market update: plus news of changes on this page

A SECOND WAVE of economic bad news is arriving in several places, according to people in finance.

“But instead of sacking people, my boss is adjusting our contracts,” grumbled a reader in an email from New York.

I had no sympathy for him. Adjusting their contracts?

Pah! In Asian firms, we get sacked all the time, sometimes several times a day.

There are no negotiations. A Singaporean reader told me a true story about a firm which sacked hundreds of people by setting off the fire alarm, ushering them outside, and then disabling their staff cards.

And those are the NICE bosses. Others just use masked death squads in Ninja outfits to ensure staff disappear quietly. (You can now hire these at outplacement firms in Asian cities.)

I’ve been sacked loads of times. However, now that I am mature and well-adjusted, I get booted out slightly less often than I did when I was irresponsible and naïve in the dim and distant past (ie, last month).

There’s a reason for this. These days I know EXACTLY which situations will get me sacked.

To help people who may be in the same situation, here are 10 signs you'll soon be unemployed.

1. You return from a week's vacation to find that you had scheduled THIS week as vacation, not last week.

2. The email in which you wittily described your boss as “Hitler without the redeeming features” was accidentally cc'd to “All Staff”.

3. That cute new employee you unsuccessfully hit on turns out to be head of the Lesbian Lawyers Alliance AND the chairman's daughter.

4. You wake up naked under the boardroom table just as the door opens and the directors file in.

5. Arriving at your destination on a business trip, you check your papers and discover that you have gone to the wrong continent.

6. The milk you “borrowed” from the company fridge in the R and D department wasn't milk and no one will tell you what it was.

7. The bad driver to whom you gave the one finger sign on your way to the office turns out to be the new director of human resources.

8. You take a "sick" day because you were up most of the night watching a TV sports final and the following morning the boss says, "So, I hear you had a late night?"

9. An off-color joke you forwarded to “All staff” contained a Trojan super-virus which shut down company computers worldwide.

10. After your project team gets the company listed on the stock market, you realize that your data had the decimal point in the wrong place.

And that was just my first month!

After that, I made some SERIOUS mistakes.

*
But here’s the good news: Don’t worry. After the first three or four times, being sacked doesn’t hurt at all.

This is how it happens. The human resources guy just comes into your office with THAT LOOK in his eye, and you just say, “Okay, whatever, I’ll start packing my stuff.” (Sometimes I hadn’t finished unpacking it from the previous move.)

But timing is everything. It can be a huge advantage to know exactly when you will receive the white envelope containing your marching orders. In the next posting, I’ll tell you how to tell when have achieved the terminal state of employment known as Dead Man Working.

*

In the meantime, readers and commentators, I need your help.

The printed press version of this column will restart in newspapers and magazines in a week or so, probably on August 31 or September 1.

There will be some changes.

All the good things that work on this site will stay the same. But the dull bits will be fixed, I hope.

We’ll have more stuff from contributors, so there’ll be more of you and less of me.

We’ll work much harder at being funny, so it will be more consistent.

We’ll get the press to cut the lead times so we can be more topical.

We’ll have a mixture of long and short items for variety.

We’ll gradually blend in more video etc for people who can’t read more than a few words at a time (a lot of stockbrokers read this).

Anyway, to get started, please look out for funny real-life anecdotes in your part of the world and send them in, either by putting them straight onto the site via the comment function or emailing them to me.

Mr Jam and his gang’s “weirdness watch” on Planet Earth is surely destined for big things.

Comments

[TS]

11. You don't know the exact date your column will be restarted.

[Nury]

touche!

Okay, you got me, TS.

[Angela]

12. You are sensitive to 'you'll soon be unemployed' jokes.

[fardel]

13
You return early from vacation to find your female assistant at your desk, on your boss's lap

[fardel]

Hi Nury
Wow,
some fresh ,clean air from Europe ( combined with wine and cheese ) did you a lot of good.
It gave you lot of ideas, I see.
Posting pictures on your site would be great !
(As you should know by now ,I am a papparazzo with connections)
I would like to make money ( lot of it ) by selling to the medjas my latest scoop : AWPG in a fly-swallowing ride ,in a Reva in Paris.

[Anon]

Talk about "funny real-life anecdotes"
This appeared in the local papers today, Singaporean cabbie Chua was "fined $2,600 by the District Court for being naked in a private place and using criminal force to annoy his neighbour."

The private place is his own apartment and criminal force is throwing hot water at his neighbor because she "and her husband confronted Chua about his naked state."

So in this country you cannot even be naked inside your own home, it is a crime. And your neighbor is moral and righteous to peek inside your apartment and feel offended. (But why don't they just look away?) These are probably the same people who are disgusted by the sight of cow dung in the middle of the street but would get a closer look and smell anyways.

And you wonder why our birth rate is lower than GWB's IQ?

Ironic that our government is giving monetary incentives, etc. for people to procreate but the same government also punishes its citizen for being naked in his own home. They forgot one little detail in their campaign, you have to be naked to procreate. Or at least it normally starts that way :)

Now you know now why we are top downloader of hand-held porn. Mobile phone is probably the only place we can still have some privacy.

I better migrate before they catch me and fine me for walking naked in my own apartment.

Or I can put a sign on my door and window, warning: look away! Resident shall not be held responsible if neighbor's moral (shudders) sensibilities are offended.

[sej]

I get worried about my job, when all of a sudden, the boss starts telling you "Love your work"... it's a bit like he's building you up a bit, so when he lets you down, it won't seem quite so bad...

Angela, trust me, you certainly wouldn't want to even imagine me walking around naked in my apartment let alone actually seeing me. I'm the sort of guy who breaks mirrors and lenses and that sort of thing, even fully clothed!

[fardel]

I am sure that everything started because the neighbor just found out why his wife was spending so much time at her balcony peeping at her neighbor's window.
Can I get the address ( yours , not his) to "Google earth" your place?

[Shuen]

Anon: has anyone ever thought to ask the arresting cops or the judge if they bathe clothed? If not, aren't they committing a crime themselves?

[Tareque]

Getting sacked can sometimes be a blessing in disguise...it may actually create a better oppurtunity .... you may watch the movie "Last chance Harvey"

[Sam]

LOL

[farah]

the better opportunity of being jobless can be in 2 ways. one you become a couch potato with a bulging belly coz you've been spending so much time eating. or it can be that you spend all your time working out and looking good to become an aspiring model... which will eventually be another earning source aka job. in a way when the door closes lots of other windows open (that is if they're not rusted!)

[TS]

I second fardel, it would be nice to be able to post pictures here and even using text effects like bold, italics and strike-troughs.

Some sites implement them as permission to use html code in the comments and others use more friendly buttons for the html challenged folk.

Posting YouTube videos and the like would be great too.

[Chamin]

14. Your boss sends a two-line email after his meeting with the big boss, saying "we have a very important matter to discuss at 19:30, everyone please be present!"

(actual email before layoff at one of my workplaces)

[Jason]

15. You have time during the day to read Nury's columns and post comments.

[fardel]

"when the door closes lots of other windows open (that is if they're no"
Beware:windows are like stories:they have two sides.
They should be used to get in , not to jump out ( especially when your office is on the top floor)

[Karuna]

the last job interview I attended was on 7th Sept 2001 with an American multinational. The interview went well. Was promised that the appointment order would be send the following week !!!!
........ the following week was 911. Even the person who interviewed me was not sure if his job would be there.

Life had its own plan. I am now a business man.

This is the beauty of life. It is so mysterious and never to be taken for granted.
The best we could do, is sit back and enjoy the show.

[fardlel]

I would say enjoy the ride, instead of the show, because , when you are in business , there is little time to relax
It is most likely like a roller-coaster, especially in Aviation
But yes it is worth enjoying.

[fardel]

Hey guys & girls
Is everybody on vacation,? on the beach? sacked?
I check thee columns a few times a day and night to boost my entrepreneur's morale.
It is very quiet ... too quiet.
It looks like the boosters run out of fuel.
So let me pull out a joke form my business.
Then I hope that you could come up with one from your job/business/ neighborhood.
Of course it must have happened:
Here I go

Tower: 'EA 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7'
EE 702: 'Tower, this is EA 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway.'
Tower: Copy EA 702 Thank you
Tower: 'CO 635, cleared for takeoff behind EA 702,
Did you copy that report from EA 702?'
CO 635: yes, we did... we've already notified our caterers.'

[TS]

Employee: "Boss, the garbage men are here!"

Boss: "Tell them we don't need anything today."

[godiva]

what airline does CO635 belong to? LOL but it may not be a joke.

[Angela]

Many years ago my little sister asked me to help proof read/edit the articles submitted for her school paper.

I was in the midst of reading a short write-up about the new Chairman of the Science Department when I encountered this: "Despite his busy schedule, Mr. Gomez still finds time on the weekends to play with his organ."

I suggested to change "organ" to "electronic keyboard" :)

[farah]

Angela that's is quite good. Once i ran across a research report where the agency had written that a human has 5 organs (i am sure he meant 5 senses). and throughout the report any body parts be it hand, leg, finger whatever was written as organ.

[Leo]

Nice to hear your column is going to be resurrected, but the bad news is that I am now nowhere to get to those access points where I can get the Standard.

By the way, I just got a job started, hopefully I am not getting those signs up already while I'm typing this.

PS: I hope you won't mind if I am using some of your splendid columns as my teaching materials.

[fardel]

I am wondering what you can teach , out of these funny columns: politricks , maybe....?

[Uli]

Losing his job proved to be a blessing for my husband although it first didn't look like that. He was unemployed for 6 months, then got himself invited for a job interview during which a special post was created just for him. After five months he got a promotion to a leading position...

[sej]

I **HATE** the concept of "managing out".

I have absolutely *NO*, I repeat *NO*, respect for anyone who "manages" someone out of an organisation.

If you want to get rid of someome, tell them straight up, "I don't want you here any more, pack your bags".

Instead I had this, in hindsight, gutless, boss who rather than simply sack or retrench you, would rather try and make you feel really unwelcome, but wouldn't come out and tell you to your face.

I remember there was this one incident on the way to my leaving. We had this standup argument in the middle of the (open plan) office. The funny bit is, to his chagrin I'm sure, it seems to have somehow gone down in company folklore - over six years later, people have come and gone, most of whom I have never met, BUT they apparently all know about it.