And on a more somber note

For the first time since I’ve been working for my employer, we’re having a concerted set of layoffs in the IT group.

(And before I go any further, none of them are happening in my group, or to me, or anything like that. But I know at least some of the folks, and one of them used to work for me.)

Back in ’98 or so, under the first new CIO we’d had since forever, a bunch of folks in the corporate office were let go, “Night of the Long Knives” style. One of the dangers of not being able to adopt to a new regime.

But in this case, it’s an economic thing. Business is flat, and probably will be until calendar Q3 or Q4. IT is now fully corporate overhead as far as labor costs go. That’s good, in that it makes us relatively immune to the ups and downs of individual offices. But when the billable hours of the corporation, as a whole, fall short of the projected/budgeted amount, it means “mass” layoffs.

I use the word “mass” in quotes, because it’s on the order of 20 people or so out of an IT organization of about 650. But it’s a new thing for our IT people, the first chill wind of you-might-get-canned-and-it’s-not-your-fault.

Cue the “survivor guilt” and the long, panicky conversations at the coffee machine, and folks frantically checking their resumes in case they’re next.

Actually, even though communication from the top has not been optimal, they are at least trying to deal with it in one swell foop, rather than drag it out any longer than necessary.

The biggest problem is that they’re using that awful acronym, “RIF” (Reduction in Force). Actually, it could be worse — someone might have used the term “right-size.” Bleah.

So for those friends of mine who are themselves looking for positions — sorry, not likely I can help you there at this point.

Not much point to this post, save to simply share a bit of what’s going on around me.