[Author’s note: The following is a memo I plan to send to my two daughters upon their college graduations, informing them that they are now officially responsible for their own lives – and phone bills.]
MEMO TO: Junior members of Jones Family Enterprises
FROM: Senior Executive Team
Congratulations to the junior members of Jones Family Enterprises [henceforth JFE] on your recent completion of your undergraduate studies. The Senior Executive Team is confident that your long-term economic forecast is bright. We wish we could say the same for your near-term economic outlook. This memo is to inform you of an important decision the executive committee has made regarding your status on the JFE org chart.
After a series of challenging years in which JFE has experienced steadily declining economic growth and spiraling costs, primarily in the area of our educational assistance program, the senior management has decided to implement some immediate cost-cutting measures in order to preserve the organization’s long-term cash reserves. This decision has forced us to make difficult personnel decisions to improve efficiencies and eliminate waste.
Effective immediately, JFE is announcing a 50% reduction in force. As a consequence, we are forced to terminate your roles as fully-funded dependents of this organization and re-classify your status as “non-essential employees.” We considered all other viable options before coming to this decision, including a recommendation by our firm’s Co-CEO, Ms. Jones, to eliminate my position on the executive steering committee. But that recommendation failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote required for passage by the two-person executive steering committee.
Please understand that this decision is not personal. It adheres to the terms of our labor contract policies, in which any layoff must apply to those staff members with the fewest years of service. That would be the two of you. After an in-depth review of financial forecasts, the executive committee has concluded that these steps were necessary to protect the solvency of JFE’s rapidly diminishing retirement pension plan.
As former dependents, several fully funded employee benefits you have been receiving are hereby terminated, including, but not limited to, the following: cell phone bills, auto insurance premiums, clothing allowance, use of the organization’s company cars, and our generous M & E (meals & entertainment) subsidy program during your summer and holiday visits to our headquarters facility near Seattle. After much debate, it was also decided that our organization’s very popular “kids fly home free” travel perk will be discontinued.
The management of JFE is aware that this staffing reduction may come as a disappointment to both of you. We can appreciate that this move could cause short-term economic volatility in your portfolio as you contemplate launching your own start-up ventures. We apologize in advance that our near-term cash flow projections do not permit us to provide you with seed capital as angel investors. Those funds have been previously earmarked for a three-week Caribbean fact-finding study aboard the Norwegian Oasis of the Seas.
We would like to formally acknowledge your many valuable contributions to the growth and success of our family organization over these past 22 years. If you would like the organization to return any of your 357 crayon drawings of rainbows and butterflies or your fourth grade research project, How Baby Kitties Get Borned, just inform us of the address to which you would like us to ship these items. We will be happy to include in our shipment the 27 boxes of shoes, makeup, and hair care products you left in your former sleeping quarters here at the home office. Please let us know if you’d like us to include in this shipment the box of condoms you hid under your mattress.
As former dependents, you will immediately be able to take advantage of JFE’s attractive severance package. We will provide up to five hours of financial planning counseling which will include the following services at no cost to you:
- The ins and outs of balancing a checkbook
- Calculating how much you’ll need to earn to afford a three-bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan
- Learning how to budget – using cost estimates based on reality and not an episode of The Bachelor
- The secrets to writing an employment cover letter using complete words, punctuation, and no emoticons
Our generous severance package also includes an 8 x 10 framed photo of the organization’s founding partners. We will also include a copy of the handy young adult’s survival guide, Twenty-One and Downsized – How to survive on your own now that your free ride is over. Helpful chapters include:
- When your parents say “No, I absolutely will NOT pay for that”, what do they mean?
- Making your own bed – a five-step overview
- Busting the myth that money grows on trees
- Food or Italian designer shoes? – Making the right choice
- Ten reasons why your parents won’t pay for grad school
- Five warning signs your roommate is stealing your food
- Wardrobe makeover: How to switch from shopping at Hollister to Target without your friends finding out
We wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Drop us a note with your contact information once you have found gainful employment.
By the way, we anticipate that you may wish to inquire about our “post-college live at home” internship program. You are welcome to apply for this residency program by visiting our website www.NoFreeLunch.com, completing the application form and sending in the non-refundable $250 processing fee. A member of our senior staff will get back to you with our decision in approximately six to eight months.
We invite you to email any questions you have about this reduction in force to dad@notmyproblemanymore.com. Or you can call us anytime (during normal human waking hours) using your own pre-paid cell phone plan.
Sincerely,
Tim Jones
Co-Chief Executive Officer
That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base.
PS: If you enjoyed this week’s post, let me know by posting a comment, giving it a Like or sharing this post on Facebook.
© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2014
You forgot about a huge corporate pension liability owed to your former staff in the future. I am sure the other member of your executive team will insist on paying the “marriage related cost” benefit that is usually payable to former female employees for up to ten years or more after severance.
A pre-warning to both the affected persons from their Grandmother. I agree with Mr Ralph Volk’s comments. Said pension is valid until age 65, or before when the former staff members have become millionaires. The penion funds allocated to the two starving students will come from the account(s) of the parents. You must realize that the said former staff members of your organization will not be there to eat, sleep, nor waste water by bathing, doing laundry or flushing toilets, therefore reducing your food and water bills considerably.
Included in their severace, all healthcare coverage should also continue as previous.
Those condoms are NOT THEIRS. My grandaughters would never do anything like that. Heaven forbid.
Tim, This is one of your best ones. Very, very clever and funny!!!!!
Brilliant, eloquent, and especially creative, Tim! I am sure the warmth of your ingenuity will sustain you through the cold nights without so much as a Tweet@ from your daughters. My own family, having repurposed my room after I had been away at college for just one year, expected me to go out and make my way in the world before the ink was dry on my college diploma. By the end of the year, I had risen to the rank of private in the U. S. Army, and my parents were freed not only from housing, feeding, clothing, and entertaining me, they had a trained killer in the family, sworn to defend their country, and, by the way, them. Do I hear the word BARGAIN?
Aren’t they entitled to a severance package? They might want to look into legal action.
TO: Senior Executive Team, Jones Family Enterprises
From: Marvin Guerkin – Guerkin, Guerkin and Puttz Attorneys at Law
Dear Mr. Jones, As representatives for the junior managers of JF Enterprises, we are informing you of our intention to file for wrongful dismissal on behalf of our clients and to sue for damages. Our clients wish to remind you that they represent the future of JFE and hold significant leverage in keeping it an ongoing concern. While they have benefited from some investment in training, the need to regularly surpass peer benchmarks in the pursuit of hyper-growth demands long-term partnership support. Furthermore, it has come to their attention, that in recent years, the senior executive staff have failed to take maximum advantage of technical innovations and is suffering from slower decision-making capacity. This has had a negative impact on ROI through no fault of the junior team. In addition, our clients wish to point out that at the current rate of reduced mental efficiency of the senior executive team, in a few short years they will be lucky to work the Mailroom without the use of Depends. Therefore, Mr. Jones, we expect confirmation on the reversal of this untimely notice of staff reduction as well as a goodwill purchase of an Audi E-tron for each member of your future Controlling Directors team!
Marvin Guerkin, LLP, MBA, BA, RBI,THC