Bob Porter : I looked into it more deeply and I found that apparently what happened is that he was laid off five years ago and no one ever told him about it; but through some kind of glitch in the payroll department, he still gets a paycheck.
Bob Slydell : So we just went ahead and fixed the glitch.
Bill Lumbergh : Great.
Dom Portwood : So, uh, Milton has been let go?
Bob Slydell : Well, just a second there, professor. We, uh, we fixed the glitch. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally.
Bob Porter : We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem is solved from your end.
After relocating from the US to Scandinavia, people here are always give me crap for having worked in a cubicle farm. And I always tell them I'd go back to that layout in a second compared the open landscape nightmare we have everywhere here.
I remember in the early 00's seeing blogs or cartoons where they would complain and call it their "gray, 4-walled prison cell". Well, that cell is a lot more dignified than today's open-office hot-desking that would be akin to an impoverished country's prison!
While it was a really funny scene in the movie, I always assumed that on top of being cruel this seems like a dangerous way to handle the issue. Looks like a pretty easy wrongful termination lawsuit here. Especially if Milton keeps showing up for work and doesn't get paid for it.
Wrongful termination generally requires either discrimination based on protected class or retaliation for reporting (discrimination / injury / safety).
You generally can’t sue your employer for being an unfair asshole.
Good point I guess - axing relates more to terminations, and ‘erasing’ sounds more like they’ve removed the job role altogether. That said, the former usually comes in tandem with the latter.
Nokia still exists? It looks like they make mid to low tier phones. What value could they possibly bring to the table? They should take the Volvo / Epic route and just sellout to the Chinese now.
They do not make phones. The are only selling license to the company that is branding them with Nokia logo. Nokia is a major global vendor of 4g/5g and PON equipment. Like really big. Especially now when using Huawei devices is not acceptable in many countries.
It sounds odd to me, too. The original statement from Nokia – https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/10/19/insi... – doesn't use it but is rather matter of fact talking about a "reduction in personnel expenses" and the need to "protect profitability" rather than being people-led.
The Register tends to use slightly more evocative language and metaphors than most tech publications, so maybe it's a tongue in cheek reference to how robotic and unfeeling Nokia's statement sounds.
I guess it's tongue in cheek and an Office Space reference to this long winded and "corporate" way of saying you're firing 14k persons.
Nokia accelerates strategy execution, streamlines operational model and takes action to protect profitability
[...]
The program is expected to lead to a 72 000 – 77 000 employee organization compared to the 86 000 employees Nokia has today.
that was my thought too, my impression was they went under several years ago, so not only they has 14k employee, but they has 14k employee who can be let go
anyway, i visited their wikipedia page, say they have 86k employee and make 24 billion a year
i tried to understand from their webpage what they sell now, but it seem this will need more time to understand , the page is all over the place with generic terms
The thing that went bankrupt, afaik, were the phones division that got sold off. Nokia phones, after their short stint at Microsoft, are now manufactured by HMD, who conveniently has their HQ right across the street from Nokia HQ. Nokia, the rest of the non-phone company, makes telecom stuff, and I don't think ever went under, just suffered quite badly.
They don't even make phones anymore, that division got sold to Microsoft (we all know how that went), and is now owned by HMD Global, who funnily enough has their HQ across the street from Nokia HQ, and has a funnily high number of former Nokia phone execs in their leadership.
