After several months of unemployment related low self-esteem, there comes a time when the unemployed have to buck up and return to work like a decent human being. In some cases, it involves crawling back to their former company for more torture. With their head hung low, the unemployed will return to their old job to help finish up unfinished business. For free.
Several months back when first laid off, the unemployed scoffed over a bottle of whiskey, shouting out things like “They can’t afford to let me go” and “They’re screwed. Just watch, they’ll come back for me.” It turned out to be true. After months of hiring high-priced consultants and other temporary workers, the former employer just couldn’t get the information together for their annual meeting. With only a month left to go, and no budget remaining to hire more consultants, the employer had no choice but to ask the laid off to come back and finish up. For free.
Thinking it was just another telemarketer, the unemployed let their phone go to the answering machine, and awoke from a mid-day slumber to hear their former boss on the other line, “Hi Bob, this is Jeff Smith, Esquire. We’re running into an issue with the reports you were working on before your, uh, departure. Now, we don’t usually like to admit mistakes, but after spending half your former salary on consultants, we just can’t figure out how to complete your reports. Could you please give me a call back so we can discuss a plan to get you back here working on a temporary basis? We are a bit desperate, now that we’re out of budget and coming up on a deadline, so it will be high pressure like the old days. Oh, and Bob, we don’t have any money to pay you. So we’re counting on you to do this. For free.”
Extended unemployment will cause people to yearn for work. There comes a time when the unemployed realize that getting paid to do nothing isn’t what they want to do for six months to a year – they’d be better off not getting paid to do everything. And if the unemployed can’t manage to go back to work for free at their old company, then they have failed as a human being. So, after calling the boss back and discussing the conditions of an unpaid return (and failing to get free lunch, validated parking, or movie tickets for also donating blood as some sort of compensation), Bob, out of a misguided sense of loyalty, decided to go back to work. For free.
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