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Recession Lexicon: Pre-Fired
We have plenty of synonyms for losing one’s job: laid off, fired, canned, made redundant, eliminated, dismissed, pink-slipped, discharged, and my personal favorite from a friend: “squirted out of the company.”
But new times demand new words, to describe concepts and situations we’ve never encountered before—like losing your job before you’ve even started it.
Last week I got pre-fired.
Around mid-morning Wednesday, I accepted a senior editor position with Domino magazine. It was a great gig at a great book—complete with a talented, energetic, sane boss; nice colleagues; and even a slightly higher salary than I’d made at my last job. The editor-in-chief was brimming with ideas. I was psyched. In my head, I loosened up my budget. I could start sending out the laundry again, pay for a personal trainer, replace my totaled car.
Two hours later, Domino folded.
The speed with which everything went down—less time than it took the Titanic to sink, incidentally—was shocking. But I’m not the first to be pre-fired in this economy. Last spring, J.P. Morgan withdrew dozens of Bear Stearns job offers when it acquired the company. And these days, there are probably many smaller, less dramatic examples out there.
Have you been pre-fired? Tell us in a comment or send us an email.
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4 comments for “Recession Lexicon: Pre-Fired”
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I was a VISTA Volunteer in San Diego after college. (VISTA was the domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps, aimed at providing assistance to low-income communities in the U.S.) During our six-week training period, some volunteers were fired (in one outrageous case, simply for not hiding his contempt for the bureaucratic b.s. of the program). Except that they weren’t f ired; they were either terminated or, in even more Orwellian language, they were de-selected.
But I must admit I’d never heard of pre-firing till today. I could attempt a terrible joke about the possibility of preunemployment benefits, but of course this undoubtedly isn’t all that funny to Sara Clemence or any reader who’s been pre-fired. I wish all of you well, I wish all of us well, at this difficult time.
There’s a good reason you’ve never heard of it–we just coined the phrase last week! Humor is especially important in times like these.
Sara: It’s not exactly the same, but when Wells Fargo took over Wachovia last fall when the latter was on life support the offer didn’t include retaining the services of 175 Wachovia employees who, according to Wells Fargo, didn’t meet the company’s employment criteria. Their one and only transgression? They were all former Wells Fargo stockbrokers or money managers who’d quit to work for Wachovia. So in a way you could say they were pre-fired.
I’d been sorry to hear about Domino folding because I’m a faithful reader – now I’m even sorrier!
Michelle Rafter
I always liked Stanley Bings’ phrase “decruited”. As in “Last October, I was decruited by my companys’ cheese-movers.” but that is a tale for another day.
Alden