Oh’s Zany World

Redundancy

February 13, 2009 on 11:17 pm | In Oh Yeah, Poly Tics | No Comments

Redundancy, according to Webster is “the quality or state of being redundant.”*  Hummm, that sure tells me a lot? So here, I get to look up the word redundant. Dear Mr. Webster will like that. I suppose, so will Mrs. Webster. A chicken in her pot again tonight.

 

Webster bless his great knowledge of the English language tells me that redundant means it is “exceeding what is necessary or normal.”*  Cool I can understand that. Likely very simple English, as I suppose I may learned that in 4^th or 5^th  grade.

 

Which brings me up to the point of why I looked up the word redundancy.

I just love the British, they have such funny ways of saying things. In all fairness, though, I suppose they think the same thing about us midwestern Americans. Well the article I was reading was about americans losing jobs. Well it was on Telegraph.co.uk, so I suppose, I should not expect them to use good old fashioned English! And they said that there were 1.5 million people made redundant.  An interesting way of saying that they had more people then the work they had. But I could live with that little quirkiness, no problem.

 

I went a little farther in to the article then they said that one company was “dispensing with 5,000 positions in its first company-wide redundancy scheme in its 35-year-history.” From the Telelgraph dated 06 Feb 2009.

Ok I say to myself I understand the first word redundant. I understand that redundancy is a word the comes from the word redundant but what is a redundancy scheme?  It seems that the British likes to say that too many workers for a company’s sales makes the workers redundant. And since they can not make money if they have too many workers. Which I point out here, the extra workers are redundant. They need to get rid of the redundant workers. So a redundancy scheme is getting rid of too many workers.

 

What I have not figured out is how they get rid of the workers? In US they would call them in and say we’re sorry, joe, but we just don’t have enough work for you so we are going to have lay you off. But in the UK workers are redundant and word redundant is also use to mean they are laying someone off.

 

Does the conversation go something like this?

 

Boss: Joe could you come into my office for a minute?

 

Joe: Sure.

 

Boss: How many years have you been here Joe?

 

Joe: 10 years.

 

Boss:  Well you know business is slow and times are not looking good for some time to come? (Assuming the boss is a nice guy).

 

Joe: Yes I understand that.

 

Boss:   Well Joe you are redundant and so we are going to redundant you.

 

………..

 

That would have to be a big moral booster! Joe must kinda feel like, just a bunch more spare parts for the old Ford that got thrown out.

 

Well I guess that most of have at one time or another been in a job that though no fault of our own, were just a redundant part. And in a redundancy scheme got thrown out. That, happens in life. 

 

Words are funny sometimes in how they get used. The pain of no work is not so funny.  Laid off or redundanted means tight times.

 

 Hopefully, things will turn arround soon and many that have been “laid off” or “redundanted” out of work will be going back to work soon. If not remember there are a lot of redandanted people out there, that are going though the same thing and keep the faith.

 

Hang in there!

 

OH

 

 

* Merriam-Webster online.

Copyright 2009