The Restructuring Email

The email always comes on a Thursday. Late afternoon. Subject line: “Organizational Update.”

Three paragraphs of nothing. “Evolving landscape.” “Strategic alignment.” “Difficult decisions.” Signed by someone you’ve never met.

Buried in paragraph two, between “exciting opportunities ahead” and “we remain committed to our mission,” is the sentence that means forty people just lost their jobs.

Nobody writes these emails in first person. Nobody signs them “sorry.” Nobody says “we chose money.” They say “we made the difficult decision to restructure” like the decision made itself and they just happened to be in the room.

The restructuring email is a masterpiece of disappearing the actor from the action. Forty people are gone and the sentence doesn’t have a subject.