Part of working in the dot-com industry are layoffs. My buddy BushPutin’s employer Pandora suffered some cutbacks about a month ago. Fellow Richmond-based company Circuit City filed for bankruptcy protection, which explains the sheer number of CC applicants that have come our way in the last three months.

Based on the rumblings around the campfire at my work, we’re due for some layoffs, too. Oh, sorry, that’s reductions in force.

At this point in my career, I know there’s nothing I can do to prevent or delay a layoff. I’ve been directly involved in or survived at least a half dozen layoffs and closures. There was never an instance where I said, “I wish I would have done XYZ,” or “I should have done a better job” or whatever. It’s business. Strategies change, products get spun off or killed, and companies shut their doors.

So, what can you do when a layoff may be in your future? Keep working hard, and daydream about what you’d do if you got shitcanned.
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I never thought I would be this disappointed to drive my Mazdaspeed3, but it’s true. I have to break my motorcycling streak in order to take Kaylee in for a 12,000 mile service. The streak was 39 work days in a row, almost two months of working! I don’t know what’s more impressive: riding to work that many days in a row, or the fact I haven’t been fired yet ;).

Today will be the twenty-third day in a row I ride my motorcycle to work. Not a bad streak, eh? There’s only one problem: tropical storm Hanna is expected to hit my area sometime this evening. With weather prediction being as flaky as it is, that could mean it could show up early while I am at work, or not at all. It is high sixties and clear right now: should I ride or not? If so, should I take the more nimble Cylon or the more protective Raptor?
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That’s about the last thing you want to hear on an airplane, right after “ALLAHU AKBAR” and the sound of a dead man’s switch being activated.
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Last of my ongoing photographic and gibber-acular tribute to my home office, now that I’m moving back into a cube farm.
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Part of my ongoing photographic and gibber-acular tribute to my home office, now that I’m moving back into a cube farm.
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Part of my ongoing photographic and gibber-acular tribute to my home office, now that I’m moving back into a cube farm.
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Part of my ongoing photographic and gibber-acular tribute to my home office, now that I’m moving back into a cube farm.
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I am going to post some pictures of my home office this week, in preparation for my new job which starts on Monday. I’ve spent most of the last three years in this room, working, chatting, and playing. It is going to be weird working in a cube again. I am definitely going to miss my dogs; Rosie and Pearl have always grown up with me working out of the house. It makes me sad to think of them being without me all day, but that’s how things go.

So, here’s the view of my office from the doorway. There are relics from previous positions all over the place. The “Surrender the Booty” flag was from my time at my last “real” job, a play on the mercenary theme my manager generated amongst our team. You can’t see it, but the Pets.com dog is over on the filing cabinet to the left. I have two red Swingline staplers, given to me by two different people from two different places, some random stuffed animal/figures, and a button that says, “It’s Xi’s Fault!” referring to a team “member” who ditched out on a project to go sell real estate in the Bay Area.

If you squint, you can see a dog bone underneath my chair, to the left. There are three or four toys in here at any given time, along with at least one dog.

Yes, those are stacks of Magic cards on my secondary desk where the fax machine and printer live. That is also a four-stage nail buffer bar next to them.

I sometimes thought of this room as a prison. I would isolate myself from the outside world for days at a time. I remember four days passing where I never went outside except to get the mail. But now that I have to give it up, all I can think of are the things I loved about working from home.