乔治•齐默被The Men's Wearhouse公司扫地出门了！全美国似乎都听到了这个令人震惊的消息。乔治•齐默在供职于这家男装零售商的40年里曾无数次在电视广告中信誓旦旦地保证，客户一定会喜欢他们的样子。

    这家公司最初发布的解职声明非常简洁，没有做任何解释，致使不少客户和粉丝纷纷在社交媒体上表达愤怒情绪。随后，它提供了一个更加详尽的解释。本质上是声称，齐默无法接受他不再执掌自己创办的公司这个现实——齐默于2011年把CEO一职移交给了道格•尤尔特，但依然担任执行董事长。这份新闻通稿还指称，他一直寻求将公司私有化。齐默随即聘请了一家公关公司，发表了一封言辞激烈的公开信。

    此后，The Men's Wearhouse持续成为新闻主角。这家公司先是收购了另一个男装品牌艾堡德(Joseph Abboud)。10月份，规模较小的竞争对手Jos. A. Bank出价23亿美元，对它提出收购要约。这项提议遭到拒绝，The Men's Wearhouse公司转而实施所谓的反噬防御策略，打算以15.4亿美元的价格收购Jos. A. Bank。

    但齐默本人却陷入了沉默。他解聘了那家公关公司，自6月份以来，他一直未就他的离职或未来发表任何公开评论。直至现在。

    12月初，齐默接受了《财富》杂志的电话专访，以下是经过编辑的交谈记录。在这次交谈中，他坦率地回顾了这次解雇事件，他对Jos. A. Bank合并交易的看法，以及为什么他现在似乎比任何时候都更受欢迎。

    《财富》：你是如何获悉The Men's Wearhouse打算不再聘请你担任执行董事长？

    齐默：大约10天前，我收到了一封言辞极其苛刻，用意极其卑劣的电子邮件。电邮里说，我的职位和薪酬“在这个时候”将保持不变。随后，他们就开始了一系列小动作，基本意图就是要把我赶出我的办公室。我当时非常痛苦，跟我实际上被解雇时的感受没什么两样。原因在于，到了这个节骨眼，我已经非常清楚即将发生什么事情。

    根据此前的安排，那个周三要召开一次股东大会，随后将在周四召开董事会会议。所以，我在周一晚住进了酒店。几位董事分别来找我谈话，解释第二天即将发生的事情。我不会被立刻解职，他们还是为我提供了一个有名无实的职位，以及一笔还算公平的薪酬。但我绝对不愿意为昔日的下属工作，他们现在竟然要求我出任我当初雇佣他们担当的职位。所以我拒绝了。

    第二天的年度股东大会上，我原本将被重新选举为公司董事，因为连续数周的代理人投票已经结束。于是，他们表示，除了不再供职于公司之外，他们还希望我辞去董事一职。如果我不从的话，他们将推迟股东大会，这些人也的确这么干了。接着，他们发出了新的代理人投票委托书。在这份委托书上，我没有获得董事提名。

    被解雇时，我没有获得一分钱的遣散费。他们甚至收缴了我的电话，终止了我的保险。

    It was the firing heard around America. George Zimmer was out at The Men's Wearhouse (MW), after 40 years and countless television ads in which he guaranteed that customers would like the way they look.

    The company's initial termination announcement was terse and without explanation, sparking social media outrage among some customers and fans. It then provided a more detailed explanation, essentially alleging that Zimmer was unable to accept that he was no longer CEO of the company he founded -- Zimmer handed the reins over to Doug Ewert in 2011, but remained executive chairman -- and alleged that he had been working to take the company private. Zimmer hired a PR firm and responded in a blistering public letter.

    Since then, The Men's Wearhouse has continued to be in the news. First for buying Joseph Abboud, and then when smaller rival Jos. A. Bank (JOSB) offered in early October to acquire the company for $2.3 billion. That offer was rebuffed, with The Men's Wearhouse then offering to buy Jos. A. Bank for $1.54 billion, in a so-called Pac-Man defense.

    But Zimmer went silent. He took that PR firm off retainer and has not made any public comments about his firing or future since June. Until now.

    What follows is an edited transcript of a phone conversation, held with Zimmer last Thursday. In it, he discusses his termination, his thoughts on a Jos. A. Bank merger, and why he seems more popular now than ever before:

    FORTUNE: How did you learn that The Men's Wearhouse was planning to fire you as executive chairman?

    ZIMMER: I got an email about 10 days earlier, which was extremely harsh and mean-spirited. It said that my job status and compensation would remain the same "at this time." Then they basically began throwing me out of my office, and that was as traumatic as when I was actually terminated because, at that point, it was pretty clear what was happening.

    We had a scheduled board meeting on a Tuesday followed by a scheduled shareholder meeting on the Wednesday, so I checked into the hotel on Monday evening. A couple of directors came to see me individually to explain what was happening the next day. I wasn't being summarily discharged, but instead they offered me a figurehead position, with fair compensation. But I elected not to work for people who I had originally hired to work at the company, who now just wanted me in that sort of role. So I declined.

    I was going to be reelected director at the annual shareholder meeting the next day, because the proxies had already been out for weeks. So they then said that they wanted me to resign as director as well as be terminated as an employee, and if not they'd postpone the shareholder meeting, which is what they did. Then they sent out new proxies in which I wasn't nominated ...

    When I was terminated I got no severance. They even took my phone and cut off my insurance.