On vacation
Walking my dog downtown around Christmas, I noticed a sign in the Chinese restaurant window announcing they were “on vacation.”
At first glance, I did not think twice about it. Three weeks later, when I walked by again and the same sign hung from the door, I got the hint and realized what they were actually saying.
Like another local business not so long back which had a “on vacation” sign hanging, they too were not vacationing in the Caribbean – they were vacationing in the unemployment line.
While I admit seeing businesses come and go is no laughing matter, I will have to say that the way they come and go can be hysterical.
Unless you are the “Vacation” store in downtown Norwich or you are applying sunscreen to yourself on a sandy beach right now, just put a “going out of business” sign up instead.
People seem to have a real problem when people get “fired” around here. Not so much that they care if the person lost their job, they just do not like referring to it as “fired”. Well the euphemisms such as you “got let go,” “involuntary separated from employment” or you were simply “on vacation” don’t cut it. Some say when a business goes out of business, it is not like being fired.
Well get over it. The community obviously did not like the establishment well enough to patronize it, essentially the community FIRED it. People who can not handle the reality of certain words try to protect themselves by using different words that sound prettier and happier when really they’re not.
Why is the word “fire” so bad anyway? If the person got fired, they got fired, they obviously were not performing at their job like they were hired for or other circumstances arose and certain people were fired.
When George Carlin spoke of the term “shell shocked,” what is known today as post traumatic stress disorder, he was 100 percent correct. People add a couple syllables and some fancy wording and the blunt force the word implies, is lessened. “Fired” sounds shorter and meaner than “involuntarily separated from employment,” so when people see FIRED, they get nervous and worked up – but wasn’t that what happened?
“We are sorry to inform you Jill we have to involuntary remove you from employment.”
“You are firing me?”
“No we are involuntarily letting you go.”
“Letting me go where?”
“Home.”
“But I am working, I don’t need to go home.”
“You need to leave to premises before we have you involuntarily removed from the building. (or in real terms.. .before we have you kicked out!)
And then Jill gets moved to the basement wonders why she has not received a paycheck in three months.
Get the point?
So the reason these people say they are going “on vacation” …
1. It sounds like they are making enough money from their business to take a trip
2. They want to leave without anyone giving them grief or asking any questions
3. They got involuntarily displaced from employment and separated from making money, therefore they had to displace their income and had to, not shut down their business, but they chose to let it go.
Really I don’t know the reason, but I just wish people would be honest and use real words, not hide behind ones that mean the exact same thing and simply add insult to injury of both parties.
There you have it, Jill’s weekly rant …
February 29th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I can not help but to comment on this one.. As someone who also went on vacation this past holiday season it gives us (The business owners) a time to reflect on our operations. For myself after re-opening after a week of being closed I changed a lot of things in our operations. Unless you have owned your own business before, you do not realize all of the nonsense a business owner has to put up with just to keep the doors open. We dedicate not only our life’s savings in opening a business, but our lives as well! In addition to all of that, we also subsequently destroy the lives of our family as well. We have to dedicate so much time and effort into our business and simply do not have time for the little niceties in life.. Like attending a child’s concert, enjoying a parade downtown, or even having a birthday party for someone. When you “Close For Vacation” you have time to reflect on that and the thought of doing it all over again is a real motivation killer. Somehow the public thinks that if you are in business you must be making millions of dollars. Look into 90% of the businesses in the area. There have been many times where I worked all week and did not make a dime.. How motivated would you be to come back to that?
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:21 am
My point was that these stores put up a vacation sign up and in reality they were closed for good. Maybe they went away and decided then to close, who knows. I am sure as a business owner it is difficult. My father owned a downtown business for years so I know first hand what goes into making it, running it and how easily one can lose it. Thats not what I was saying. In the cases I mentioned the vacations were not vacations. Its not a big deal, I just was noticing a trend and like everything else around here not saying the words and announcing the store will close and just quietly shutting down seems the way to go. It was nothing personal about small business owners who actually take vacations.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:27 am
My apologizes if my response came across too harsh, I had just reopened my business after an severe illness a week prior to my response. We were forced to close for 19 days while I recovered. During this time, despite a notice explaining everything, hanging on the doors, and a message on our voice mail. Our customers panicked spread a rumor that we went out of business, and we even had 3 customers who went as far as to call the police on us! Very unnerving to say the least. So not to get off topic.. I agree, if you are a business that is going out of business.. You should certainly be up front with your customers about it.