If you are a salaried professional, go and watch Up In The Air. But while you are at it, make sure that the CEO of your company doesn’t watch it. Cause he is sure to get ideas…

For regular folks, George Clooney in Up In The Air has a nightmare of a role.

Seriously.

For here is a guy who goes around firing people from their cushy jobs. And he is hired to do just THAT. And our man does it with a lot of (cinematic) ease. Cause supposedly it’s his (professional) calling. And that’s what he’s getting paid big bucks for. (Well, if you ask me, I think he gets paid zillions to just look the way he does!!!) To ask professionals to look for options even as he himself is flown to different parts of the continent, helping cut costs for the various firms which employ the services of his organisation.

And he executes most of this in pretty much a clinical fashion, with hardly any room for emotional display.
Well it’s definitely a different story that director Jason Reitman realised that he obviously needed someone like Clooney to make a bad job look good (at least on screen). And he sure does a helluva good job, quite convincing as the (rude) reality check.

Cause Up In The Air is a reality check, in ways more than one. It is a film that fits in almost perfectly in today’s milieu. A film of recessionary trends in hard times. A film that could be anybody’s story.
And it is, therefore, a film which India Inc must watch. And swear to try and avoid most of it, if it can be helped. Because after watching the two-hour-long film, most of us who work in the corporate world are bound to come back with a somewhat heavy heart. And wonder why corporations, the world over, are so ruthless in their dealings.

We will also wonder why (individual and collective) shortcomings are easier to remember while success keeps dodging the memory! We will also wonder why rationale and reasoned thinking are not always rewarded the way they should be. And most importantly, we will be left to wonder why compassion has no place in the corporate world.

Desperate times almost always call for desperate measures, they say. And Up In The Air is a good example of that.
Else, why would you have a completely unknown person walk in to tell you that you are not doing a good enough job? And you may be meeting this person for the first and hopefully the last time (unless Providence has some other plans)! If this isn’t intolerable cruelty, then what is?

Being reprimanded or pulled up by superiors for non-performance at the workplace is understandable. Being punished for the same can also be explained. But imagine being told that you aren’t good enough from someone who has zilch clue about what you can do, is really pushing it too far. Apart from denting your confidence, it is sure to make you feel like a victim. And would make you wonder that whatever happened to things like loyalty?

But as Up In The Air actress Vera Farmiga would have us believe that “there is nothing cheap about loyalty”.
Whoever knew that one had to pay such a heavy price for loyalty!

The post originally appeared here