[geeks] observations and rants.

[Bill Bradford]

On Sun, Feb 17, 2002 at 06:47:23PM -0500, Adam Kropelin wrote:
>*That* was unquestionably the worst day of my career. We were a close bunch and
> a number of the guys were on H1s so getting fired essentially meant they were
> also getting thrown out of the country. 

$MY_DAY_JOB had layoffs on November 29th; out of ~900 people here in Austin,
they laid off 400.  We'd known layoffs were coming, but didnt know *when*.

That day, I got to work, and Seth, the guy next to me (also the newest member
of the team, and sadly, the least experienced - but not due to his own fault)
said "hey, I think layoffs are tdoay".  I said "ack!  good luck" and started
cleaning my cube just in case.

About an hour later, I heard $DEPARTMENT_MANAGER (who isnt a PHB, at all) say
"Hey, Seth, can you come here for a minute?"  About thirty seconds later, 
$MY_BOSS walks over and said "uhm, hey, Bill, can you go change the password
on Seth's sparc and log him out of his Windows machine?" I said "Is it what
I think it is?" he nodded sadly and said "yes.."  

$MY_BOSS wasnt happy about it at all.  They basically laid off the people with
the least experience and least senority, to meet monetary numbers.

Sad thing is, Seth was on a H1B, had just bought his first new car (after
learning how to drive) and found out he had a kid on the way.  Fortunately,
$DAY_JOB gave everyone at least 2 months severance, and he found another place
to work within that time frame.

(out of six people, we were down to five, then two contractors got 
 ended-early the next week, then out of that three people, one of the
 guys had 30 days vacation scheduled, and had been scheduled for months... so
 we did the next 30 days with two people where we'd had six before.. yow.)

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford
mrbill at mrbill.net
Austin, TX