An Australian man chose a clown to take to his redundancy meeting.
While most would choose a colleague, a family member or a union rep, Josh Thompon chose to hire a clown.
When Josh was restructured out of his job at an advertising agency in Auckland, New Zealand, he made the decision to bring this unusual character to the meeting.
The human resources department encouraged him to bring a ‘support person’ to help soften the blow, an option that is legally required in New Zealand.
According to the New Zealand Herald, the clown blew up balloons and shaped them into animals throughout the meeting.
It’s further understood that the clown mimed crying when the redundancy paperwork was handed over to Josh.
Josh said he’d highly recommend hiring a clown to take to a possible redundancy meeting.
“I was working – because I had a job back then – and I got an email and the email said: ‘Hi Josh we’d like to meet with you to discuss some matters in regards to your role,'” he told the BBC from Australia. “Basically I sensed that this was going to be a redundancy … so I thought I might as well try to make the best out of this situation,” he added.
The clown cost around £100 but the BBC states that he was asked to keep the balloon twisting noises down as it was drowning out the conversation at the meeting.
And it was all good as copywriter Josh has landed on his feet, securing a new job at another company along with his creative partner (not the clown).
