The following email was sent to all staff at 7:58am on a Monday. My notes are in brackets. They are not legally binding. Neither, it turns out, was your contract.
The Memo
Subject: An exciting new chapter
[Nobody has ever been excited by the word “chapter” in a subject line. Chapters are how stories end. Yours, specifically.]
Team, I want to start by saying how proud I am of everything we have achieved together this year.
[He is proud of the numbers. You were a cost.]
As we look to the future, we are evolving our structure to become more agile, more aligned, and better positioned for growth.
[Fewer people. “Agile” has never once meant more people. It means whoever is left fits in one lift.]
“Evolving our structure” is “rearranging the furniture”, if the furniture was you.
We will be moving from a regional model to a matrix model.
[In 2022 we moved from matrix to regional. Next year we move back. The consultants who recommend this have bought a second boat.]
Some roles will be impacted.
[“Impacted” is doing a tremendous amount of work here. “Impacted” is carrying your desk to the car park in a box.]
Affected colleagues will receive a calendar invite from their HR partner today.
[The whole company is staring at their calendars like a smoke alarm. A man in Logistics has refreshed Outlook 61 times. He has nineteen years of service. The invite is fifteen minutes. That is 47 seconds per year.]
The Sign-Off
I know change can be hard, but I’m confident that together we will emerge stronger.
[“We” will emerge. A smaller “we”. You are the part that was trimmed so “we” looks good on a slide.]
My door is always open.
[His door is on a floor your pass stopped opening at 8:01am.]
Warm regards.
[The warmest thing you will ever receive from this company. Frame it.]