Downsizing Quotes

The problem is that affirmative action could never really get at the issue of corporate power in the workplace, and so you ended up with the downsizing; you ended up with de-industrializing. You ended up with the marginalizing of working people and working poor people even while affirmative action was taking place, and a new black middle class was expanding. ~ Cornel West

Advertising was fairly simple work, and I really just wanted a job where I could sit and write every day and not get fired for it like I had at other jobs, but it was fun. ~ John Hughes

At some point, the world is going to have to bite the bullet and accept a huge downsizing in its way of life to bring the assets-to-debt ratio back in touch with reality. ~ John L. Casti

In practice, downsizing is too often about cutting your work force while keeping your business the same, and doing so not by investments in productivity-enhancing technology, but by making people pull 80-hour weeks and bringing in temps to fill the gap. ~ James Surowiecki

Actually, I began to think that maybe there is a god, after all. Or maybe it's a different one. The old one got fired. ~ Terry Gilliam

Okay, well, I guess I'm still a kid. Because when I get really angry and fired up and I feel like my back is up against the wall, I will say vicious things. ~ Howard Stern

It can be liberating to get fired because you realize the world doesn't end. There's other ways to make money, better jobs. ~ Ron Livingston

Clutter may rob us of the life we imagined or prevent us from creating a new vision for our future. ~ Lisa J. Shultz

Much of what is called investment is actually nothing more than mergers and acquisitions, and of course mergers and acquisitions are generally accompanied by downsizing. ~ Susan George

We should because when coaches get fired, the players have a lot to do with it. ~ Allen Iverson

There is no denying that downsizing can happen when a company receives private equity funding. It is unfortunate and hard on everyone who is affected. ~ N. Robert Hammer

In a 91-part series of sob stories from the laid off and the disgruntled, The NY Times is in the midst of bemoaning 'the downsizing of America' - better known as 'the whining of America.' The cause of all the heartache, in the esteemed newspaper of record's view, appears to be heartless corporate chieftains - as well as capitalism itself. Americans are moving forward, despite shackles. The shackles I am referring to are not NAFTA, not corporations. They are, instead, the barriers imposed by our own government. ~ Rush Limbaugh

I'd fired anyone who was involved with Creed. I didn't want anything to do with the music business. The entire press and industry hated me, so what was the point? ~ Scott Stapp

When I got the script for Memento, I read it and I got killed off on page one and I fired my agent. ~ Joe Pantoliano

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Every time you walk down the street people are screaming, 'You're fired!' ~ Donald Trump

We all have a million things vying for our attention. If you tell yourself that you don't have enough time to clear out your junk, you might be delaying the well-being and relief you could experience by tackling it. If not now, when? ~ Lisa J. Shultz

Now I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips - whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company Bain Capital with all the jobs that they killed, I'm sure he was worried that he'd run out of pink slips. There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business and I happen to think that's indefensible. If you're a victim of Bain Capital's downsizing, it's the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain, because he caused it. ~ Rick Perry

Putting the dream in motion involved significant personal downsizing, moving three times to trim housing expenses and continuing to freelance. I sold one piece to The New York Times Magazine, many more to The Courant, and another to The St. Petersburg Times. ~ Gina Greenlee

I remember when Circuit City was around, I never understood why people would shop there. I always thought Best Buy had a better selection and cheaper prices. ~ Kerry King

What began as downsizing went on to wholesale abandonment. Schools closed, libraries and academies shut their doors, professional grammarians and teachers of rhetoric found themselves out of work. There were more important things to worry about than the fate of books. ~ Stephen Greenblatt

This is so cool!" Nico said, jumping up and down in the driver's seat. "Is this really the sun? I thought Helios and Selene were the sun and moon gods. How come sometimes it's them and sometimes it's you and Artemis?"
"Downsizing," Apollo said. "The Romans started it. They couldn't afford all those temple sacrifices, so they laid off Helios and Selene and folded their duties into our job descriptions. My sis got the moon. I got the sun. It was pretty annoying at first, but at least I got this cool car."
"But how does it work?" Nico asked. "I thought the sun was a big fiery ball of gas!"
Apollo chuckled and ruffled Nico's hair. "That rumor probably got started because Artemis used to call me a big fiery ball of gas. ~ Rick Riordan

[...] we started talking more about all of the fiftysomethings being dumped out of the economy by downsizing. No one knows what to do with these people, and it's so sad, because being 50 nowadays isn't like being 50 a hundred years ago when you'd probably be dead. ~ Douglas Coupland

Why do we need so many people on Earth? I ask you. What are they good for? They live out ludicrous lives of pointless desperation. Ninety-nine percent of the human population is so much wasted resources. Stubborn vermin, we humans are.

Granted, in the past, the unwashed masses were necessary. We needed them to till our fields and fight our wars. We needed them to labor in our factories making consumer crap that we flipped back at them at a handsome profit.

Alas, those days are gone. We live in a boutique economy now. Energy is abundant and cheap. Mentars and robotic labor make and manage everything. So who needs people? People are so much dead white. They eat up our profits. They produce nothing but pollution and social unrest. They drive us crazy with their pissing and moaning. I think we can all agree that Corporation Earth is in need of a serious downsizing.
...
The boutique economy has no need of the masses, so let's get rid of them. But how, you ask? Not with wars, surely, or disease, famine, or mass murder. Despots have tried all these methods through the millennia, and they're never a permanent solution.

No, all we need to do is buy up the ground from under their feet -- and evict them. We're buying up the planet, Bishop, fair and square. We're turning it into the most exclusive gated community in history. Now, the question is, in two hundred years, will you be a member of the landowners club, or will you be living in some tin ~ David Marusek

Do you not comprehend this in America, how your unions have been all but destroyed in the last 30 years? Do you not understand why your local US Postal Service offices are cracked, neglected, and almost derelict buildings, with their staffs downsizing and limiting their days of service? The corporately owned US Congress is destroying the postal service as part of its act, playing you for a fool while wearing a two-party (two-headed) monster mask. One sadistic party acts as a wrecking ball hurled at a wall of political inertia that is the second and masochistic party. ~ John Hogue

I recruited my dad to be my bass player and fired him on several occasions. He stayed on as a bus driver. ~ Chely Wright

Downsizing budgets may be necessary, but downsizing dreams is a decision to be disappointed. ~ William J. Clinton

The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors; everything depends on the money. ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti

In the career world we are downsizing. That means the one person that will keep their job will do three or four jobs for the same amount of money. You have to be that way these days. ~ Michelle Visage

Nouns now turn overnight into verbs. We target goals and we access facts. Train conductors announce that the train won't platform. A sign on an airport door tells me that the door is alarmed. Companies are downsizing. It's part of an ongoing effort to grow the business. "Ongoing" is a jargon word whose main use is to raise morale. We face our daily job with more zest if the boss tells us it's an ongoing project; we give more willingly to institutions if they have targeted our funds for ongoing needs. Otherwise we might fall prey to disincentivization. ~ William Zinsser

Academic "units" (that is, departments) are seen as "revenue centers"; the ones that can't pull their weight - much of the liberal arts - are slated for downsizing or outright elimination. Science is king, but not just any science; basic research is suffering, too. The holy grail is technology transfer: scientific investigation, often sponsored directly by corporations, that is capable of being parlayed into profit. ~ William Deresiewicz

The company calls it 'downsizing' or 'rightsizing.' My own informal "Name the Layoff" contest produced some other euphemisms: Retroactive Hiring Freeze, Resume Revision Days, Amway Opportunity Time, and Corporation Lite. ~ Dale Dauten

I decided to break the trend of accumulating stuff sooner rather than later. I moved to smaller homes ahead of my need. I downsized before I was forced to do so. I sorted and dispersed my things while I had the energy and the ability to either donate or sell my stuff. ~ Lisa J. Shultz

In the days when corporate downsizing was all the rage, Wall Street took a lot of flak for judging companies too harshly and setting the bar for corporate performance so high that executives felt their only option was to slash payrolls. ~ James Surowiecki

Then, in the 1980's, came the paroxysm of downsizing, and the very nature of the corporation was thrown into doubt. In what began almost as a fad and quickly matured into an unshakable habit, companies were 'restructuring,' 'reengineering,' and generally cutting as many jobs as possible, white collar as well as blue ... The New York Times captured the new corporate order succintly in 1987, reporting that it 'eschews loyalty to workers, products, corporate structures, businesses, factories, communities, even the nation. All such allegiances are viewed as expendable under the new rules. With survival at stake, only market leadership, strong profits and a high stock price can be allowed to matter'. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Learn to say no in situations where saying no can be difficult, where it could mean getting fired. Say no anyway, because it could lead you to greater opportunities. ~ Samuel Dash

When I eventually moved to a smaller home, it felt cozy, like having a pair of jeans that fit me just right - no wasted living space and no baggy fabric. ~ Lisa J. Shultz

Once the fired stone is out of the kiln, it is still possible to mentally reconstruct it in its original form. ~ Andy Goldsworthy