I was laid off
Just over a month ago I was removed from management, and finally they let me go. I was one of nine that got canned last Thursday. Call it laid off, fired, whatever, it amounts to the pretty much the same thing.
A few of the ones that were let go were no surprise. They were either stealing from the company, abusing the company, couldn’t do their job or just plain screwing up. However a few of us were let go because — in our opinion — we were outspoken and management didn’t like it. Not one damn bit.
Technically we weren’t fired because they did offer us a severance package of one month’s salary. The conditions of this package? This is where it gets good. It seems that we can never work for the company — ahh fuck it, the company is the Greenspun Media Group (who owns Vegas.com BTW) — ever again, NOR can we ever work for any entity that they are affiliated with. What the hell is that? First it implies that did something wrong to the company. Not all of us were trying to defraud the company, steal from them or anything else. We just wanted to give them great work and see things done correctly. Second, for those that don’t know Vegas, the Greenspuns are affiliated with most of the big companies in this town in one way or another. It is almost like they are telling us to get out of town. To top it off we are supposed to sign an NDA stating that the agreement never existed. What?!
I’ve never been laid off or fired in my life so I’m not sure if this is standard in any way but it sure sounds fishy to me. Any lawyers out there or anyone heard of such conditions?
Why were we let go?
Well the company line is that they were downsizing the internet group. It all started with the hiring and subsequent firing of the VP withing six months, as I stated in my removed from management post. The problem with this story is that they just hired a COO who happens to have a successful internet background, one of their sites (the Las Vegas Sun) is still going to launch as planned, another site is in the works to be redone and they didn’t remove the whole internet group.
Who did they keep? Ah yes. Well the ones that stayed were the QA (very recently hired), one senior developer, and developer contractor and a multimedia developer. All three developers are great at what they do, no doubt and no beef against them. It also happens that they don’t challenge management, in particular the manager who replaced me, in any way. That is OK as not everyone speaks out against what they think is wrong. I guess there is something to be said for keeping your mouth shut huh?
The manager that I worked for is in a bit of a sticky spot. See, she has spent millions of dollars on hardware and software for internet and publishing and can’t let it fail. It doesn’t matter that she knows nothing about technology and even less of software and software development, nor does she listen to anyone that does. All we would hear is “I don’t want to hear negative comments”. Well shit, sometimes the truth IS negative. What is also funny is that she is taking all of these leadership courses and claims to not be a political type and yet in the past six months has back stabbed those who called her a friend, done everything to cover her ass on the software that she bought, and didn’t want to listen to anyone that was actually trying to help her. So much for “leadership.”
Oh, they beauty of it all? She didn’t even have the courage to be the one to inform us that we were being let go. Wasn’t even in the building. Someone higher than her (a ‘C’ level position and a pretty good guy) had to do her dirty work. What a coward. She knew she was screwing us over and didn’t have the balls to do it herself.
What’s next
So now I’m on the look for another job. Maybe I’ll try to do some contracting work, who knows. So if anyone is in need of a developer skilled in Java, PHP and other web technologies I’m in the market 
I love to do things ‘right’, whatever that is for the job at hand. I’m not too much of a language zealot either. I don’t care if the situation calls for PHP, Ruby on Rails (which I have dabbled in but would love to really learn), Java, MySQL, Postgres, Oracle, DB2, whatever. Hell, I would love to learn Python too, but I don’t see jobs for that too often. I’m even versed in SEO techniques, CSS layouts, various AJAX-related libraries and good old SQL.
Oh well, life goes on I suppose.
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Comments
Sign nothing
Don’t take the money
and finally
one night when drunk and angy
deface their website
exploiting a vulnerability
that you probably know how
by posting a photoshoped image
or your exmanager and a dog
on the homepage.
or
sell out for one month’s pay and shut up
Wow, sounds like a pretty evil agreement they want you to sign.
Sadly, the only time I’ve been terminated (as opposed to moved on), it was a bankruptcy, and I didn’t have to sign anything or get any kind of severance, so it was remarkably paperwork-free. More of a “Well, we’re not going to pay you anymore, so you might want to look for another job” arrangement. 
So I don’t really have a basis for comparison, but it still sounds pretty ugly to me.
Whenever I quited a job for any reason I found a better one and it helps me to grow up. I have read your blog since you joined the management gang. This can be a exceptional chance for you, who knows? Quoted from Steve Jobs at stanford: “You can connect the dots only looking backward!”
Good luck man.
Dont worry …whatever happens happens for good !