Former Baltimore Sun columnist David Steele wrote an interesting piece for Real Clear Sports.com about the way his paper heartlessly laid him off, as well as several of his co-workers, when they were in the press box covering an Orioles game last week.
My editor greeted me, paused, took a deep breath. “David, I’m sorry you have to be told this way …”
I actually doubled over. It wasn’t a sharp pain, and it wasn’t like I was about to get sick. It was more like a knot in my stomach. I know I said, “Aw, shit,’’ but I don’t know how loud I said it, apparently not loudly enough for my editor to take note of it. The rest is a little fuzzy, something about just now getting the list and the union and not wanting me to hear it from someone else and getting paid through the end of May and severance and human resources and return your possessions to us and thank you for your hard work and professionalism and blah blah blah.
Not that there is any good way to tell someone he’s been laid off, just as there is no good way to fire a manager. But there’s a way not to fire him – ask Willie Randolph. (I’m now in the market for a Willie Randolph Mets jersey to commemorate the occasion.)
Then, there is this to consider: the people ultimately responsible, for the gutting of the paper and the callous treatment of its employees, whether they were in the office at the time or not, are a plane flight away. Clearly, to them “Baltimore Sun’’ is just a line on a balance sheet. Or a bankruptcy claim, in this case. Practically speaking, none of us should even have had low expectations for how this would be handled. “No expectations’’ was probably shooting too high.
Eventually, I packed up to leave (since I now knew I didn’t have to write) and decided to send a goodbye email to the people back at the paper, and grab a couple of numbers for the editors let go earlier, Ray and George. I couldn’t log in. My email password had already been canceled.
So I gathered my things and went down the hall to where the photographers develop and send their shots from the game. Liz was in the back, on her computer, game photos on the screen, talking on her cell … to her editor. She tilted her head toward me. “I just got laid off,’’ she whispered.
“You too?’’ I replied.
It’s a long piece and worth a read, so check it out by clicking here.
As Steele writes, there is no easy way to tell someone they have just been fired, but the cold, heartless manner that the Sun went about it should strike a nerve in all the hard working people in this great country. I know companies have to protect themselves when an employee is fired so that he or she doesn’t seek revenge, but these are human beings that we’re talking about.
Steele logs on to send out a goodbye e-mail and he can’t even log into his account minutes after he’s fired. That’s ruthless and I know that has happened to millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in this economic crisis.
This is a sad story and it’s a shame that a newspaper like the Baltimore Sun didn’t show long-time employees like David Steele the respect they deserve.
