Be Excellent To Each Other

They could have picked a more tactful moment to tell her than after she'd just discovered them in bed together, though.

One of our contractors is not being renewed. It all starts here.

Hopefully by the time they've got through the contractors the wolves will be sated.

We might be having paycuts, because our parent company has not made enough money..

My sister-in-law has just been made redundant. Our company seems to have hired a couple of people recently, so hopefully we won't be crashing any time soon.

You might end up working for me at this rate.

If any one can impove on my salary + car + benifits. i am open to offers.

Remember to spell-check your CV!

I do.. my spelling is bad, very bad.. If there was a spell checker on IE I would be better

IE7Pro is what you want.

or just re-read what I type

'allo,

Been a tense morning. My roommate was summoned to a meeting with the head of department about 9.30ish, and was made redundant. He was told two others are going (out of a department of under 30). He relayed all of this to me on his return so I was obviously worried it would be me, all morning. Then an email from head of firm went round at 11.30ish announcing the redundancies (firmwide about 5%) and saying that everyone who was effected had been told, so then knew I was safe. But had been a very worrying morning waiting for the phone to ring.

However, they're not ruling out future redundancies, of course, so there will be no more worktime BeeXing (after today, obv) for me to avoid giving them any excuses to put me under the axe next time round.

The poor support staff will find out in June how many and who are going. A nice few months of worrying for them.

So - see you in the evenings, kids.

EDIT - oh, and CRASTER FOR DICTATOR. Failing him, Kalmar. Or davpaz. Or... whoever.

Be interesting when I get back, pls.

Ooh, nasty
Not a nice moment is it, been through that a couple of times here.

We had a "gather together for an important announcement at immediate notice" last week.
Yes, it was one of those. But so far mainly in Marketing.

Marketing people are almost as cunty as lawyers.

You could try and put forward a case of 'Look how great I am at this lawyer stuff - I've got time to dick around on forums all day and no-one's noticed!'. Has a chance of back-firing a little though.

Apart from Australian marketing people who work in this country who are the biggest cunts of the lot. They're like a crossbreed between the cuntiest British marketing people and Glasgow Rangers supporters.

Thanks to dickery on the part of our one big customer, my employer will become insolvent in early June; less dickery from the customer still only extends that to Jul/Sep. There are a lot of promising sales leads but getting money in from one of them on those timescales is challenging.

Needless to say, it's CV update time.

Crikey. Not good.

I was speaking to someone from the company I used to work for earlier today. We had our backs up against the walls several times, but just always scraped through somehow. Apparently it happened again and they've managed to turn it around with a new product.

The question is always, what is there in reserve?

In the early days as my own boss, I worked out that I was 60% reliant on one source of income. I managed to naturally reduce that over time so it's now a non-issue. But in that case I identified the problem with enough time to steer the ship around it.

Finally (and this is just an observation in general and not directed at you), a recession doesn't mean there is no business out there. It means the amount of business is reduced. I was looking at my figures today and it appears that everyone shat themselves in November/December and stopped spending. But suddenly I'm back at the same levels as this time last year. My year on year growth has been pissed up against the wall, but at the moment at least business activity is continuing as normal. Despite what the media say, the economy hasn't ground to a halt, but it is less active.

And finally finally, I noticed our local O2 shop closed down today. Sign of the economy or the fact that there are too many mobile phone shops in the town and 02 sell all their stuff online anyway? You decide.

Indeed. We've always attempted to maintain a minimum of six months of burn-rate tucked away as liquid cash, which is very conservative in the IT startup world. We've also identified the strategic risk of having a single customer and worked really hard to make a second big sale, but to no avail. Que sera sera.

The customer in question was talking of a $1mill purchase order in January. That was even drawn up! However, they have split that part of their business off and merged with someone else, and the someone else's have come out on top in the management tussles. And it appears they do not like us. The PO was scrapped and then they only wanted $150k's worth of support contracts; suddenly, they only want to pay that quarterly, meaning we're due just $75k now.

Total kudos to my bosses for being open about this with us though.

Man does that sound familiar

Hang in there, DoccyG.
<3 from MaliTowers.

If I had a need for IT shit, I'd chuck an order your way.

An update. My current employer have agreed to put me on a sabbatical for eight weeks starting Tuesday, on zero pay. And my previous employer has agreed to take me on a contract for the duration, on £QUITEALOT per day. So my current mob get to ease their cash flow problems and I get to build up some savings to buffer me in case they go under in the mean time. Obviously I'm still seeking permanent work, but this should take some of the edge off.

But I have to go back... there. Shudder.

Oh, well that seems to be a decent compromise, at least you get to keep the money coming in.

Does "your previous employer" mean back in Gloucester?

No, Cwmbran. My commute just dropped from 25 miles/50 minutes to 0.5 miles/10 minutes (if I walk)/1 min (in the car).

*sharpens cider bottle*

Cwmbran Coop tobacco counter?

_{[edit] glad you've found something in the meantime Doc}

A further update. I have been verbally told my main employer isn't going to make it. If I go back there when this contract runs out (mid-August) I'll get my notice immediately, and one month's wages, but that's my lot.

The previous employer I'm working at just now on the contract have sounded me out for permanent work. I'm not keen on being permanent here (it's a workplace with a lot of bullshit and stress which you can duck as a contractor) but obviously you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I could play hardball and say "contract rates or nothing" but I don't know if that'd fly.

I do have a complicated Plan B, however -- too complicated to outline here and too fragile to withstand the light of day -- which might just let me get the best of both worlds. We'll see.

Well at least that's better than being dropped from the contract post and still having an uncertain job to return to, I guess. Shame about them going under though.

Good luck.

I can't grumble, there are lots of people out there in far worse situations. Plus I've now worked for a failed IT startup, which is an ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED, I think.

We find out if we're being outsourced in September.

Our overlords want to shed another 3000 jobs, so not happy days here too.

I have a telephone interview tomorrow. Of the three positions I've got CVs in, this is the one I least want.

Which feels a bit like saying "I've got Angelina Jolie half nekkid at my door but to be honest, I fancy a bit of Alyson Hannigan" but... y'know.

Good luck.

Good luck.

Shit. Hope everything turns out well guys.

Meh

We're losing a bunch of (mostly sales) people, and also any payrise or bonus this year.

Don't worry Doc, you've always been redundant to me

Hi5! I've been made redundant twice, the worst was when the newsagent I delivered papers for had to close. £20 p/w is a crazy big amount when you're a wee guy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8128099.stm

that's my work. I'm screwed.

Did you find out that way?

Oh noes Sounds like there might be a relocation in the offing? How far away is the place they are opening?

Arse. Relocation, relocation, relocation?

We got called into a meeting this morning with the whole staff from every shift. They had every shift but dayshift in a seperate building and they had locked the site down so people expects redundancies but I think everyone thought it would be just dayshift who stayed so it was a shock to everyone. We have been sent home for the day.
The other site is in Leven in Fife which is too far to commute when Jen works in Ayrshire. I actually fancied a transfer there at some point in my career. That is no longer an option.
I am employed as an apprentice so there is a very small chance I may get transfered to the site in Glasgow to serve the rest of my time but I don't know how likely that is.
Sorry for the slow reply,unsuprisingly my phone keeps ringing. Think I've convinced my parents to buy me lunch which shows how bad this is, they never do ANYTHiNG for me

Ah crap, sorry to hear it Gill

Sorry to hear your news Gill.

Rubbish luck, mate. Steal as much drink as you can.

I think it's more likely they'll keep you on than any other randomly chosen member of staff. You're cheap, and you're an investment in the future, and you must have impressed them for them to put you through an apprentice program. Fingers crossed for you.

If I get a chance of a job at Leven you might have a houseguest on your sofa kalmar

och it'll be fine,I'm awesome I'm sure there are loads of people celebrating at the thought they might get to employ me now

That's the spirit!

(Spirit, geddit?)