Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Out With The Old, And In With The New.

Happy New Year, all.

My first words of 2009 are in the Out With The Old category. My former employer Primus Canada went through yet another cycle of layoffs last week, which by my count makes several dozen jobs cut since I personally jumped ship about 10 months ago. As in the past, the purging had a direct impact on several friends and colleagues within the Residential Marketing group, along with Outsourced Customer Care, etc.

Heard from one of the remaining insiders that the overall mood is not so good and his feeling was the future looks pretty grim for Primus. No surprising given that some of the people let go this round had been with the organization for 6 years, and another for 9 years…or basically a hundred years in Sionne Time, since I am not personally known for my ability to remain with any company for an extended period.

But I’m sure by applying some obscure EBITDA Math equation, these cuts ended up making
sense, at least on paper. Puzzling approach to running a business in my mind. Which makes the observation offered by one of my Primus Canada Alumni Club associates that “With nearly all the mid- and low-level staff gone from the Resi group now who will actually do the work? And why then do they need to keep on two directors, a vice-president and a senior vice-president when there are only around 5 people still left reporting into those guys anyway?” address an interesting point indeed.

One really competent product manager received her layoff news while still at home, on month 10 of her maternity leave. While I learned afterwards that she was at least treated fairly severance-wise I have to say it did disappoint and irritate me anyway. It is a brave new world of employment in the shiny year 2009 when these types of things happen in the workplace but I suppose if one does not like it they can just stop playing, take their ball and go home, right?

Onwards and upwards, into the A Little Of Both (some in/new and some out/old)
area. Unless you live under a rock it was pretty difficult to not hear the online media industry announcement that Yahoo! has hired a new CEO. Carol Bartz joins after a celebrated tenure with Autodesk and while I do not know much about her, she does at least address the Mark Cuban requirement that Yahoo! get tough management-wise. I mean, what does it say about a person when she receives a cancer diagnosis in her first week on a new job, takes 30 days off for aggressive treatment - including a mastectomy - returns to working only a month later? Word is the newest Autodesk employee Bartz would arrive early enough to vomit in the company parking lot from the effects of chemotherapy before going into the office. Maybe this anecdote is apocryphal and the work of a clever PR team, but then again maybe it is exactly what really happened. Either way, you can just look it up and decide for yourself.

Oh, and Sue Decker decided that being passed over for the CEO spot and instead reporting into a
new boss with a mandate for making aggressive cuts to the Yahoo! business was not how she wanted to spend the few years of her life. Decker’s resignation is of course not surprising but what interests me most is watching to see where she will land and what she will do next. Will she quickly salvage a new gig elsewhere, like Kevin Johnson did after MSFT's failed takeover bid for Yahoo! this past summer? Or will Decker spend time idling on the corporate sidelines with the industry (rightfully?) attributing much of the blame for the recent Yahoo! market cap evaporation to her role as the senior executive primarily responsible for a series of management mis-steps down in Sunnyvale, in tandem with Jerry Yang? Stay tuned as only time will really tell on that score...

Finally, some In With The New. My ongoing fixation with circulating employment
leads throughout my personal network has proven successful enough for both candidates and recruiters/employers recently that I currently have several interesting roles worthy of broadcasting. See my next post for these latest opportunities…if you note something appealing and wish to connect an interested, qualified candidate with a prospective employer do get in touch with me so I can arrange that connection ASAP.

Until next time.

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