Seymor Hersh, legendary journo, has a go at Elon Musk and his team "running amok" in the US government, with the DOGE boys identifying areas of waste and fraud to cut. In "Zero empathy; Zero Shame".
There's no empathy given to those fired, complains Hersh. We've seen Tik Tok vids of young women sobbing about how they've been fired, "even with top performance reviews".... sob...
Well, I've been fired, let go, twice in my life. It's never nice. In both cases I'd been at the top, the highest, of performance ratings. But life and business times changed. Once it was because the company was restructuring, moving my position to another country. In the other case I was just one of many retrenched because of the Asian Financial Crisis.
Did I get any empathy? No, I did not. Nor did I want or expect any. I was treated well. Given time to phase out of the company. But if they'd been "I feel your pain".... ? Ick. No thanks.
Why should those doing the firing feel Shame?? There's nothing shameful if you're doing something for the sake of the company or the sake of the country. You have to explain to the staff why they're being fired. And give them a decent severance package -- as are all those being fired from the US Federal Bureaucracy. And that's it.
Claiming there's a need for "Empathy" and "Shame" is just another version of Suicidal Compassion.
