The Layoff Effect

Sure, some of my friends have lost their jobs and my husband has taken a 10 percent pay cut, along with the 40 other employees at his think-tank. But I didn?t fully grasp the scope of this recession until I tried to rent a car at Los Angeles International Airport.

It took a two-hour effort to wrangle a rental car out of the lot to show me how mass layoffs can bring a swift-running society to a toddle. And as tens of thousands of jobs continue to be lost, I find myself fearing that the entire nation will devolve from wi-fi efficiency to dial-up.

I?d made a phone reservation with Hertz the day before. After our plane landed, my husband and I wheeled our luggage and our baby out to the curb to wait for the company?s shuttle. We waited. And waited. I called Hertz. ?We?re backed up here,? the operator told me. ?The shuttle will be there soon.?

The shuttle? There?s only one shuttle for an airport the size of a major drilling area in Alaska?

It finally arrived, and drove us through the rain to the Hertz office. We entered to find a queue that snaked back and forth like the ones at Disney Land. Or like breadlines in the former Soviet Union. I?d forgotten to bring extra diapers for the baby, and I could see the pee slowly soaking his fleece traveling suit. I was growing as irritable as a person who hasn?t eaten bread, or anything else, all day, when I noticed the self-serve kiosks. This is the United States, I thought. In 2009. We have computerized kiosks?which run awfully slowly, and eventually offer the message: ?Unable to rent you a car today.?

I marched over to the customer service desk, fuming. ?What?s going on here?? I asked, when it was finally my turn, trying to maintain a non-accusatory tone of voice.

?We?re dealing with what everyone else is dealing with.?

What?s everyone else dealing with? ?Oh, you mean the economy??

?I can?t comment,? the agent said.

?But it?s not always like this, right?? I said. ?I mean, I think of Hertz as being a high-end company.?

The agent was young, well-spoken, calm. Maybe a college student with a part-time job. He wore a ?trainee? pin on his shirt. ?We?re running a skeleton crew,? he finally said. ?There aren?t enough people to clean out the cars. They are cutting back everywhere. We?re trying to make do.?

He found our reservation, offered an upgrade, and went to a back room to fetch our car seat. I gazed around the room. Women were collapsed on couches, their husbands waited in line. More travelers kept arriving, packing themselves onto the back of the queue, which now reached the front.

Who was missing a business meeting? What deals weren?t getting struck? I pictured similar situations all across the country. Planes unable to take off. Copiers lacking toner. Empty vending machines facing exhausted office workers. What goods didn?t get delivered, what foods went rancid, what lucky breaks were missed? What were the laid-off Hertz workers doing that night? Renting a car is so mundane, so typical, so low-tech. It?s something I just expect to work here in the United States, like freeways and bridges, like plumbing and ATMs and the frother at the Starbucks.

Hertz, I later found out, cut 40,000 jobs in January. This massive layoff came on top of an even larger cut in 2006. In sum, this once super-efficient car emporium is attempting to serve those of us still prodigal enough to travel with 32 percent less staff.

We finally got our car and headed for the exit gate. Out here, too, the remaining employees were devising their own systems, without hand-held computers and high-tech communications. ?Let these three cars go!? one agent shouted to the man operating the exit gate.

It was a primitive method. But it worked. We drove into the dark and stormy night.

Here?s one upside to a tottering economy; it can inspire ingenuity and emotional investment among the remaining employees at even the biggest, most faceless multi-national corporations. The trainee taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves, trying to fix his company?s inefficiencies himself. The exit agent, May, getting the customers out of the lot any way she could. They both seemed to actually care about helping customers, about working hard and creatively.

Back in the flush, fully staffed days of, say, last year, I often complained about listless employees, widespread rudeness and lack of concern. Who could blame them, feeling like underpaid, underchallenged cogs in a big machine? Now, with so many cogs missing, ther jobs take a lot more skill than they used to. I can?t help thinking that some employees go home at night not only exhausted but also feeling a sense of pride. At least until they lose their jobs, too.

--Posted by Wendy Paris, RecessionWire.com

Depression-Era Dinner & Flick
Global Capitalism Event in NYC
Out on the Street: From Bankers to Wankers