I was listening to NPR today—All Things Considered or Talk of the Nation or one of those programs—and heard a new expression: "layoff survivor."
It was bandied about several times during a discussion about a Time article about "survivor's guilt," which examines all the boo-hooing going on in offices across the land by the poor workers who remain employed while their fellow cubicle-dwellers are shown the door. I'm sorry, but the use of "survivor" in this context is worse than inappropriate: it's criminal. A survivor of war or a concentration camp, okay. Of a serious fire, flood or famine, yes. A potentially fatal accident by air, land or sea, definitely. Any kind of cancer whatsoever, you got it. Sexual abuse? This is where it gets fuzzy for me. The last time the trials of those (allegedly) pedophilic priests from Massachusetts was being discussed, I heard the victims describe themselves as survivors. That gave me pause. I know that nobody wants to be seen as a victim, but I'm not sure if they can really describe their admittedly heinous experiences as being on a par with getting out of Hurricane Katrina alive.
And now, this. It's horrible losing your job. It's happened to me, more than once. Two different magazines I was working for folded abruptly due to the recession in the early 90s. I was flat-out fired by one boss because, well, he was a prick with a reputation for sacking people who didn't kiss up to him, so I'm proud about that one. And I was laid off again along with several other people three years ago, just as I was about to embark on family medical leave to spend time with my father, who lived in another country and was dying. (That one I still have nightmares about.) And I lost a cushy little freelance online gig last October, along with hundreds, nay thousands, of other media folk who have been losing jobs faster than the Dow can plummet.
Sure, I suffered, and I survived. But please. Unless getting laid off includes taking a bullet to the head or a bit of mandatory water torture, a person who has loses their job does not qualify as being a survivor. I think "sad sack" is the appropriate term, let's be honest.
photo courtesy of mediabistro.
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