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Ford Company Layoffs – White Collar Employees First!

Ford announced its restructuring plan today – obviously it is much easier to fire people as a solution to every problem that ails the automotive maker, at least to the top management in Dearborn.

My heart goes to out to the people working in Wixom and the ones about to get en masse pink slips in the coming weeks. Irrespective of whether they wear a blue overall to work with a UAW card in their pockets or a white shirt with a blue tie – in the end they all have families at home, kids in schools and colleges and bills to pay.

In short, whatever their political or union affiliations may be – they look like you and me.

It is time for at least some of us to realize that the era of big business, as we knew it is over. Gone are the days when you would expect and actually get a long term, secure, stable pay with health benefits for years and years of your working life.

This is a different world. It has changed a lot in the last couple of years and the bad news is that the good old days are not coming back. There is no way in hell that any big company in America is going to restore what they have systematically taken away from their workers since the 1980’s.

So what can you do? What can we do?

1. Change the way you think about where you work completely. Understand that your present employer has a “business” relationship with you. They did not give birth to you, they are not married to you and for sure they are not coming to escort you to a nursing home.

Stop relying on your employer for your future. If they did cared about you – Wall Street has taken care of any soft mushy feelings that might have had long time ago. If you have any doubts about this, read Fortune and Forbes for 4 issues straight for your reality check.

2. Learn to become entrepreneurial – start a small business, learn how to do it, invest in real estate while you still have time, good credit and the luxury of a stable pay check.

I am continuously harping on my friends who are in the automotive industry to think if they can leverage their skills on some sort of a part time side business. Most of them are perfectly okay to wait for the day when they would have no option but to do so. The smart ones are listening and thinking. What are you doing?

3. Ask yourself what are your plans to “learn” in 2006? What do you intend to download in your head this year that you did not in 2005? I have a curriculum typed in my laptop for 2006 – month by month. That is how good become better and the better become best.

4. There is this whole myth about people succeeding in business who are fast talkers, natural born dealmakers, and charismatic leaders. It is a whole bag of bull. Nobody is born a successful businessperson. The same way nobody is born a UAW member or a computer engineer at Ford. We make a choice.

Majority of the successful business owners that I know in metro Detroit area are humble, keep their head down, family oriented people who have made their fortunes by being good in one thing.

If they can do it, so can I, so can you, so can anybody. This is not like playing professional basketball where good genes, talent and a fair amount of luck are needed to pull it all together.

Anybody with enough desire to make in real estate can find a house, fix it and sell it. It is not exactly rocket science.

I see people hesitating all the time, standing at the crossroads of decisions, wondering if they should take the plunge or not. A large number thinks that starting their own businesses or investing in real estate for profit is complicated.

I think that what you do for a living, every day of the month, 8 to 9 hours per day, getting stuck on I-696 during peak traffic hours, putting up with an employer who looks at you as a number, gulping fast food and feeling exhausted, stressed out all the time and wondering if this is all there is to life is much more difficult than what I do and other people like myself do in Michigan real estate.

It is easy to fear new things. I say that if you are going to fear something, don’t fear what you don’t know, and fear what you should know – your employer thinks that you and your payroll is part of the problem.

After all building cars that people want to buy takes hard work on part of top management.

Printing 4000 pink slips – couple of laser printers.


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Posted by Mark Ijlal on January 23, 2006 11:59 PM |

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