So I was working at my last company for about 7 months. A friend of mine left for another job w/ a defense contractor in Raleigh. Two months later, I got an offer from that company. When I went to talk to my boss, he was trying to get me to stay by offering me more money, telling me that if they were going to lay people off I wasn't going to be one of them. This was a start-up, had already had a bunch of layoffs, and was in search of more funding having pretty much run out of their original round. On top of that instability, the investors/board of directors basically fired our founder/CEO and replaced him with an interim professional company turner arounder guy.

I took the defense job anyway, and started last Friday. Today I found out my old company layed off > 80% of their workforce, which had been around 90 people I think. My software (firmware, apps, QA) team of > 20 people is now down to the manager and two other guys. They basically killed the entire product, and I found out the manager who was trying so hard to keep me around had no idea this was going to happen. Not only that, the former CEO and founder of the company was barred from the building, along with his wife who was something like VP of marketing.

Thank god I took that other job though, with much better benefits/pay to boot. Now would be a shitty time to get laid off.

/twwlog

Free thread?

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 8:50 PM. Reason : Friday]

1/21/2009 8:49:37 PM

nicely done.

instinct is a powerful thing.

1/21/2009 8:51:50 PM

did you do this with 360 degree camera coverage?

1/21/2009 8:51:51 PM

gg

why was the old CEO trespassed?

1/21/2009 8:52:21 PM

No.

361 degree.

^ I dunno, still trying to find that out. I know he lied (by omission) to the board for a long time about how much our hardware was going to actually cost...

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 8:53 PM. Reason : .]

1/21/2009 8:52:49 PM

190% resolution?

1/21/2009 8:53:43 PM

No.

191% resolution.

1/21/2009 8:54:37 PM

nice... nice

1/21/2009 8:55:10 PM

The only drawback is I don't get to work on the top floor of a downtown skyscraper anymore. But I have an office! With a door! First time I'm not in a cube.

1/21/2009 8:58:43 PM

Quote :

"But I have an office! With a door!"

Fuck. Just...fuck.

1/21/2009 9:03:35 PM

wat

1/21/2009 9:04:49 PM

I share an office with a door. I'm trying to figure out a way to permanently eliminate officemates.

1/21/2009 9:06:38 PM

Yeah, when I was a co-op at IBM I had an office mate. Worse than a cube. It was the project manager too

I don't think anybody has an office mate at the new place - for some reason the management just insists that everybody needs a whole office to themselves.

1/21/2009 9:07:43 PM

I've been trying to psych myself up to get back into the corporate world. I'm not sure I can do it.

1/21/2009 9:09:57 PM

i have two office mates, it gets loud

1/21/2009 9:15:52 PM

^^ Which world are you in now?

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 9:16 PM. Reason : ^^]

1/21/2009 9:15:56 PM

when i worked in the JP building I FELT SO AWESOME...for like 3 days.

but im glad to hear that man, so many of my buddies are taking it in the ass lately... you dodged a huge huge bullet. what did the team specialize in? you strike me as a low level dude, and low level guys have been the only ones safe in my world.

which leads me to my next pioint, if i EVER relocate, a lawyer will be involved in the contract. i already know how it feels to be across the country with nothing at all and no gas to get anywhere hahah.

1/21/2009 9:22:20 PM

heh. Yeah, it was low level. Firmware and embedded linux dev. for proprietary hardware.

1/21/2009 9:24:43 PM

all the asshole user level programmers got it a couple months ago and shipped the work to all the senior testers and programmers in ca

at least thats how i saw it. its really just cause its like they need a billion bucks this quarter so they can get their toy pony off lawaway and mayhe rehire 250 people

motorola spreads more rumors about us than the investors, its their fault we lost so many people. they miss projections and leave us with shit we can't do anything with but store.

but we're going evil, got a couple deals with the devil. defense stuff. which is good for people with family in the war. WE GONNA WIN

in 4 years we will hit the tipping point to where we mostly work for death machines

1/21/2009 9:41:19 PM

this thread delivers

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 11:16 PM. Reason : .]

1/21/2009 11:09:29 PM

next time u plan on getting fired, come interview here. i want the referral moneyz.

1/21/2009 11:15:11 PM

k, where do you work?

1/21/2009 11:37:17 PM

Quote :

"The only drawback is I don't get to work on the top floor of a downtown skyscraper anymore. But I have an office! With a door! First time I'm not in a cube."

Leasing space on the top floor of a downtown skyscraper should be a big warning sign for most start-ups. Good looking out on the instincts, I'm glad you made the right call.

1/22/2009 12:19:26 AM

at my job the only people that get offices are the "talent" i.e. the hosts

everyone else works in a well-designed free-flowing space with a bunch of filing cabinets with casters on them that have padding so you can sit on them

1/22/2009 12:20:06 AM

bttt

^what's a host?

^^Yeah, I recognized going in that there were long odds against us being successful; I guess that's ultimately why I decided to get out when I did.

FYI, when they did their last rounds of layoffs, I was included. But my manager called me a day later and was all like "lol, ur l33t" so I went back before the layoff paperwork was processed. That was early November and also when I decided that if I got another offer, I would take it.

1/23/2009 8:01:38 PM