Due to reorganization and mergers, GTX decided to lay off employees. Similar plots have been staged countless times in all walks of life in the United States. Bobby, played by Ben Affleck, serves as the company's regional sales manager. He is 37 years old and has an annual salary of $160,000. When he entered the office at work on Monday, he subconsciously practiced his golf swing, unaware of the upcoming bad news. The lawyer told him, “The company is merging related departments and has to make some difficult decisions in those areas where the functions overlap. We have arranged a generous severance payment. You have been working for 12 years, so you will get 12 weeks. Salaries and benefits."
If the topic is more challenging, Americans are accustomed to using various euphemisms. The lawyer had a lot to say to Bobby, but nowhere did he directly use the word "dismissal" and he used "difficult decision" instead. As far as I know, there are no fewer than 10 expressions euphemistically expressing the same meaning in American English. In addition to "difficult decisions", they also include "cost saving", "simplification of work flow", "balance of human resources", "downsizing", "The company has determined a new development direction", "introducing new employment concepts" and so on. No matter how well the icing is, there is only bitterness at its core: you have been fired. When hearing any of the statements listed above, anyone who has worked in a US company should be very clear that the next thing they can do is to pack personal belongings in the office into cartons, such as those on the table or Hang on the wall to radiate happiness to colleagues around you and take photos with your wife or girlfriend.
Of course Bobby understood what the lawyer was talking about. His voice was a little excited, "You fired me?" The lawyer asked him to calm down and said that the company would provide placement services for employees and make it easier for everyone to find their next job. Next, Bobby attended an inspirational training class and shouted "I can do it! Why? Because I have confidence, courage, and enthusiasm!" After such slogans, he needs to face a series of humiliation in the process of finding a job. At first Bobby didn't realize the seriousness of the problem, and he still tied his tie every morning, just like a high-paying job waiting for him. He was completely uninterested in jobs that require low wages and relocation to remote areas, but he soon understood that he no longer had the right to pick and choose.
Unlike the young MBA Bobby, Phil (Chris Cooper) was promoted from the front line of production to a white-collar position after years of hard work. He is almost 60 years old. Phil escaped the first wave of GTX's dismissal, but he was not spared. For him, the chance of finding a new job is even slimmer. The pressure of maintaining the current lifestyle is so great that he cannot get a moment of relaxation. Phil can handle housing loans, children's education expenses, credit card bills, etc., when he has a job. After being unemployed, everything becomes an unbearable burden in life. He fell into despair, and in the end he could only close the door of his garage, open the door, get up to the driver's seat, and start the engine. "My life is over, no one will notice." He once said so. Phil must not know what Napoleon said, "If rape is already inevitable, you'd better relax and enjoy it later." (If rape is imminent...relax, enjoy it.) As long as you have to replace "rape" with "unemployment" "With the courage, Phil's life will continue.
Bobby and Phil’s boss, Gene (Tommy Lee Jones), is one of the founders of GTX. He really cares about the fate of his employees and he loves soldiers like a child. Judging from the degree of dignity on his face and the degree of furrowed brows, every time he walked, it was like cutting off a pound of flesh from his body. But besides inviting everyone to drink a cocktail and eat a steak, what else can he do? The scene of the movie is arranged near Boston Harbor, and the old red-brick buildings around Rowes Wharf are clearly visible. I have been to Boston Harbor for interviews and filming several times, and I have never even seen the shadow of the shipyard. The United States today should only have shipbuilding. In addition to building the aircraft carrier fleet itself, the merchant ships may have been outsourced decades ago to Japan, South Korea, and later China. In the movie, Jean took people to walk around the GTX factory several times. Unlike the thriving Jiangnan and Hudong people in China, GTX is not like a shipyard, but more like the ruins of a shipyard. Gene said with emotion, "Our country really made something in the past, but now, everything depends on the computer, relying on nonsense...".
Even Obama cannot revive the manufacturing industry in the United States. Of course, Jean cannot reverse the decline of the shipbuilding industry. Fortunately, he is kind and warm. His partner, GTX CEO Salinger, is the opposite. His focus is only on the stock price after the company's reorganization, and he doesn't care how many employees are laid off or what their fate will be. Salinger and Gene were once like brothers. From the movie, under the squeeze of profit, the space for friendship is already very small. No matter how many employees in the company suffer, Salinger, as the boss, continues to receive tens of millions of dollars in salary and is on the income rankings of Fortune magazine. Even if his annual salary is cut in half, it is still too high. If the other half is used to save his subordinates, dozens of employees will be able to continue to maintain their middle-class lives. I can only do a virtual arithmetic problem, but who really has enough moral authority to ask CEOs to do it? How many CEOs contribute to the company worth dozens of employees? Apple’s Jobs counts as one. In terms of performance, most CEOs cannot compare with him. When it comes to income, most CEOs don't care to compare with him. Even Jean also said that no executive is willing to give up a $500 meal for lunch and a hotel room for $5,000 a night.
The film did not provide clues to solve the problem by cutting the CEO's annual salary. Returning to the true colors of working people is the answer given by the director. Bobby's eldest brother-in-law Jack (Kevin Costner) is a small business. He hired a few plumbers and masons to build houses. Bobby refused to work for Jack at one time, but finally abandoned his vanity and became his carpenter. Through this kind of low-income manual labor, Bobby could not continue the life of Porsche and Golf, but his spirit was restored, and the marriage was reinvigorated. However, everyone knows that Bobby's solution to the difficulties cannot be promoted, and there are not so many older brothers-in-laws and small builders who can digest the large amount of labor left over after the decline of the manufacturing industry. Blue collar save the United States? Even fanatics who uphold utopian ideas do not think so.
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