You're Fired!

All through my 30 plus year career in IT I feared being fired. There was never a let up of chatter about downsizing, rightsizing, reorganizations, technological obsolescence, mergers, falling stock prices or bottom line panic. It never happened, thank goodness, but I always had an updated resume ready, a fallback plan and a strategy for a worst-case scenario. It was important to me to voluntarily retire and not to be kicked to the curb like an old shoe at an inopportune time in my life.

Yesterday I read about changes on Dancing With The Stars. Their current hostess, Brooke Burke-Charvet (try saying that fast a few times) and the entire 28 piece band were fired (even after repeated praise and accolades on every episode). Truth be told, I cringed almost every time Brooke opened her mouth and wondered why they kept her so long.  And I was a bit surprised at the cost they were willing to incur to have such a large live musical ensemble. But how awful to be fired in such a public way!

The bandleader, Harold Wheeler, is 70 and I'm pretty sure there is not a huge demand for a live 28 piece orchestra these days.  He and his merry men and women are being replaced by an electronic synthesizer and recordings of old songs. That old bottom line is to blame, I'm sure.

Another reason to love retirement (as if I needed more). I can't be fired!

;-)