Man Retires to Save Friend's Job
Andrew Norton
Just when you think that the world really is a cold and uncaring place where everyone is looking out for number one, something unique and wonderful comes along to at least put a dent in that notion. As many of you know, Ford is laying off up to 30,000 jobs by 2012. Jim Shepard was one of those affected by layoffs on January 26. George Hobart, a longtime coworker, heard about Jim's layoff and wished that he could retire so Jim could have his job back. All it took was a little work and some help from Ford's human resources department. On January 30, Jim received one of the most surprising phone calls he is likely to ever have. A representative from human resources and his coworker, Hobart, were on the phone with good news.
Hobart told Jim the good news about him retiring so they could bring Jim back. Dick Gross is the director of personnel relations and equal employment planning at Ford. He stated that "technically, employees can't retire to save a specific person's job." At least in this case, that is what happened.
In this day and age when all we hear in the news is doom and gloom and the loss of more and more jobs isn't it nice to know that there are still people who care and look out for their fellow man?