September 05, 2005

Dotcom staff cuts. Not all bad.

I had both the fortune and the misfortune to be part of a dotcom a few years back. And today, when a friend was talking to me about staff cuts at her workplace, I had a chance to look back at the time spent in the dot com world. It struck me that I have learned a few things here and there.

For example, when you have a meeting in which the "CFO" draws a graph and explains the earnings to expense ratio vs. the market trend, drawing the conclusion that "we're doing well" while all around companies are laying off people, it is time to start looking around and wonder who'll make the lay-off list. That and, of course, start backing up the work and contacts because it's only logical to assume you're on the list yourself. Word of advice, have your work backed up at all times, do not use company email for job search and company trash talking and, of course, have a plan. You'll be better off if you do.

It sure was interesting... Being lied to and somehow wanting to believe the rosey tale, while knnowing better and trying to ignore your gut which is yelling at you to come to your senses. Those times are long (3 yrs) gone and the on-line design industry has reached a new maturity.

The people that got in the design game because they had an iMac in the basement and somehow belived the pie-in-the sky stories about the money to be made in this field, have since came to the realization that this business is damn hard, and dropped off the map. Which is great, because the prices will even out while the quality of work will go up (hopefully).