Brooklyn Library head resigns over Up in the Air–style firing scandal

You probably thought the corporate downsizing company featured in the George Clooney movie Up in the Air was a fiction, but sadly it was not. There really are companies like that, and one of them – The Five O’Clock Club – has figured in a scandal that is engulfing the Brooklyn Public Library. According to the New York Daily News, library head Dionne Mack-Harvin has resigned after her decision to hire the Five O’Clock Club resulted in a very public embarrassment:

After taking a 5% cut to her $80 million budget, Mack-Harvin hired corporate downsizing experts to fire 13 employees. The Manhattan-based firm, the Five O’Clock Club, was being profiled at the time by a Washington Post reporter, who was allowed to witness the library bloodbath – and chronicled it in painful detail.

The reporter didn’t name names, but the article contained enough detail that the staffers’ reactions to arguably one of the most crushing moments in their lives were laid bare – and made them easily identified to co-workers and friends. There was the axed receptionist who came out with “tear stains on her blouse” and had to surrender the only employee rest room key.

[...]

Worse, sources said, Mack-Harvin appeared to lie about the gaffe after the story appeared.

“The notion that you let a reporter in to this very personal moment was very poor,” said one insider. “And then there’s the way they dealt with it. It was a case of the coverup is worse than the crime.”