This American clutching the cardboard box when you get sacked thing?

[Logan Mountstuart]

By all means stop me if you've heard this one before. But is this compulsory behaviour in the US?

I don't think anyone in Europe has ever done this.

[ad hoc]

By all means stop me if you've heard this one before. But is this compulsory behaviour in the US?

I don't think anyone in Europe has ever done this.

I think we discussed it when Musk took over Twitter. But yes, absolutely, it's totally weird

[caja-dglh]

It happens less now that everyone is moving to shared workspaces. It is basically the default approach to gathering books and personal effects within the 15 minutes before you are booted from the office forever.

Iron Mountain has seized on this as a splendid near-zero cost advertising opportunity.

[caja-dglh]

It has happened at Canary Wharf, obviously.

[Gangster Octopus]

I'm sure that it used to be black bin-liners in the City.

[diggedy derek]

Dominic Cummings did it out of the number 10 door.

[treibeis]

It happens in every single North American film I've ever seen. And I've seen all of them.

[Exiled off Main Street]

My wife was given 20 mins notice at her finance software company - and yes, she came home with a photocopy paper box full with her photos frames and other personal effects. It is very common. And not weird.

[elguapo4]

It happens in every single North American film I've ever seen. And I've seen all of them.

And then they either go to the grocery shop, and come home carrying a paper bag with a French bread sticking out of it. Either that, or they sit at home, eating Chinese food out of a square cardboard box.

[Sporting]

My wife was given 20 mins notice at her finance software company - and yes, she came home with a photocopy paper box full with her photos frames and other personal effects. It is very common. And not weird.

Well, it's weird to me. And what's the reasoning behind it? To stop you saying goodbye to workmates (you've already made your contacts)? Prevent you from stealing company info (already done if you could and wanted)? Or to humiliate people?

[WOM]

No, it's so you can have your personal stuff with you right away, with all the rest being packed up by HR in the following days. And yes, they absolutely don't want you carrying on with workmates and crying and saying what a shit place this is. I mean, for obvious reasons.

[WOM]

It's all part of being 'walked out'. I've been walked out...it's quite grim.

On the way out of one agency, I quickly deked into the President's office and shook his hand and thanked him for the opportunity. He seemed genuinely moved and said 'no hard feelings' etc.
I then walked straight up Bay Street to my labour lawyer's office.

[Exiled off Main Street]

My wife was confronted by a security guard standing at her desk who informed her to pack her belongings into an available box. She was not to turn on her computer. She was then escorted to HR where she was given her written notice of termination. Then she was escorted to the front door. She came to work on the bus - so she called me and asked me to come pick her up. This happened to the whole division - 42 people in all. She has been laid off on the same day, 3 times in all.

[ad hoc]

It's vile. Not only have they decided to take away your livelihood, your day to day routine, the connections that you've built up, the work you've been doing and all of that, but they don't even give you the chance to process it, to ease into it, to mourn. No it's just "fuck off, now, and never come back". Inhuman

[DCI Harry Batt]

It is inhuman. But then capitalism is anti-human.

I got driven home once. Partly because I was losing the company car I drove to work, too.

[Sporting]

It's vile. Not only have they decided to take away your livelihood, your day to day routine, the connections that you've built up, the work you've been doing and all of that, but they don't even give you the chance to process it, to ease into it, to mourn. No it's just "fuck off, now, and never come back". Inhuman

Absolutely this. 100%

[San Bernardhinault]

It always looked so weird when I saw it on TV shows and films that I thought it was just dramatic short-hand. There's no way it would actually happen. Employees are adults and they'd work their last 30 days making sure everything was good for a clean handover in a normal redundancy. The cardboard box thing would only happen if someone was sacked for actively destructive behavious, wouldn't it?

That's what I thought. Until reading this thread.

[ursus arctos]

Ask your wife about it.

[treibeis]

At the last-but-one company I worked for, which went tits-up, there was a bloke from the drinks supplier walking through the offices and collecting the empties (eight cents per bottle).

Fair play to him.

[caja-dglh]

And then they either go to the grocery shop, and come home carrying a paper bag with a French bread sticking out of it. Either that, or they sit at home, eating Chinese food out of a square cardboard box.

It is actually a trapezoidal prism.

[ursus arctos]

Beat me to it

[blameless]

I think it's two things:

1. Mass lay-offs tend to be less common in Europe generally due to the different employment laws. It's - thankfully - a lot more difficult to say "hmmm, we only just made our sales targets last quarter, get rid of 20% of the workforce at the end of the week" on this side of the pond, and downright impossible in some countries.

2. In most places in Europe, redundancies tend not to lead to mass shootings shortly thereafter (though there was one in France in the last few years). While not commonplace in the US it's sadly not unknown either, which I believe plays into the "hurry them out of the building pronto" bullshit.

[MsD]

I worked at Big Banks including Lehman's (although not there at The End) so yes, saw many people do the Walk Of Shame thing, accompanied by a security guard. Hasn't happened to me, although fairly recently I had a freelance contract abruptly curtailed and had to collect my belongings from the kitchen; they were in a carrier bag with my name on a post-it note attached. Poignant.

[Sean of the Shed]

Ooh, look how high up the wall caja-dglh can piss.

[MsD]

The banks don't generally want anyone with any knowledge to work out their notice in case they take that knowledge elsewhere. They would rather just pay them the month.