I hope and pray that Chicago does not win the 2016 bid. The city should spend its money and resources on making it better and balancing the budget rather than creating a legacy for its mayor and line the pockets of officials and businessmen of the city and crook county.
The New Year got off to a rough start for me. I returned from a month long vacation (half of it was unpaid and the rest was all the vacation days that I had shored up for this trip to India) to work to find that I have no work. My boss (the CTO) of the company told me that due to financial difficulties the company was going through another round of layoffs. Since they had decided to stop all IT initiatives they did not need someone to define and manage IT initiatives.
So, here I am looking for a new job. A recruiter that I talked to mentioned that I should not use "eliminated" or "layoff" as they have negative connotations. Instead, he suggested, I should use "separated." Well, "separated" it is even though it does not change the reality. Someone else told me that averaging 2 yrs at a job does not sit well. True. I would not hire someone who changes jobs every two years. And, in the first 8 years of my work I was a sucker for the newest technology. I changed jobs every two years to work on the latest thing. In the last 10 years it has been the economy and the companies who have been prompting my job changes. One company that I worked for kept laying off people every 3 months that I finally quit after being there for 6 rounds of layoffs; the other decided consulting was not for them; the next two failed (one of them managed to sell themselves before it went under)
Someone once asked me - "How long can a 'start-up' call itself a 'start-up'?" I had no answer for that one. My former employer has been in business for 3 years and is down by $35MM. In B-school they said investors look for 3x3 or 5x5 returns (i.e. 3x returns in 3 years etc...) I bet this is not what they had in mind. Anyway, what do you call a 'start-up' that is in this state? Wind-down.
Back to the job hunt.
No this is not a bad musical or the name of a Lollywood movie (but, I guess it could be either one), it is a nice way to reference the happenings in Pakistan.
I think Jemima Goldsmith's (former wife of former cricketer Imran Khan) reference to Benazir Bhutto is the most apt one I have heard. She called her "kleptocract with hermes scarf". It is interesting to see how low the doyens of democracy (US and UK) will swoop to keep their interests. Anyone who thinks Benazir Bhutto will transition Pakistan to a liberal democracy is smoking the stuff that democracy brought to Afghanistan. Just because someone talks in English, got educated in the West and wears western clothes do not make them democratic. And, while US made all the right noises about imposition of emergency in Pakistan it was clear who had whose balls. Soon, the cat was out of the bag - Mush had told Bush about his plans to impose emergency.
How can you have democracy in a country where all democratic institutions have been suspended? And, how can a country be liberal when majority want it to be aligned to a particular religion (if not, a religious state). How can you have a democratic government when at least one legitimate (or, equally legitimate) leader sits in exile in Saudi Arabia? And, can a nation that was formed "because people of a certain religion need a separate state that encompasses their religious majority areas" ever be secural?
I think the Pakistani ambassador was onto something when he said "different nations have different paths to democracy." I guess what he failed to add was "and, some nations do not want to be on the path to democracy." A quick scan of the newgroups and message boards is enough to realize that people in Pakistan are bit cynical about democracy and Mush is more popular than Bush (in their respective countries). You can't blame the people - when democratically elected leaders use the state treasury as their private privy purse (which is the bane of all of south asia) people turn to less corrupt authoritarian heads. In Pakistan it seems the folks who are in the minds of the people are Mush, Mullahs and the madam (probably in that order).
Here is my personal test for "secular" democracies - which are the nations where the religious minorities have increased their population compared to the religious majority since the nation's independence? I think I know the answer for this one in South Asia.
Back in 2001-2002 I was at an Internet consulting company that was laying off people every three months. Just when I thought I was behind that here I am after making the cut.
Back in 2001-2002, I remember the firm's CEO saying "we don't want to become good at this" after mishandling the first layoff. But, by the third layoff they had the process well nailed down. Often there were people who were offered additional incentives to stay on to finish the project they were on. They were called "trailers". But, pretty much everyone got laidoff the same day.
Here they took a different approach. First they told the analysts and public that they were downsizing. Then, told the employees the next day that over the next two weeks they will know if they were going to be affected. So, for the next two weeks nobody really did much. And, when the announcements were finally made all were asked to stay on till the end of September to get their package.
My boss said someone had to go from our group. And, he said "Since you recently got your graduate degree we thought you may want to do something else." A very noble thought indeed. Over the last six weeks there have been a flurry of resignations from the department. And, it prompted the CIO to spin it as a sign of "red hot" job market. The spin is something that I expected.
I am often amazed how the folks at the "C" level get away with screwed up performances. And, can spin their way out of it.
This week the firm I work for announced that they were going to cut 15% of their workforce. Now, I am no stranger to layoffs, having survived about six rounds of layoffs back in 2001-2002 at my then employer. But, it is always interesting to see how these things work.
Back in 2001 the firm I worked for laid off a whole lot of people, good number of them were staffed on projects at client sites. They all were given an hour or two to get out. And, they left without any opportunity to transition their work. And, we were left to figure out how to keep the projects going. But, they did get better over the next few layoffs. They started asking folks who were on projects to stay on till the end of the assignment in return for a better severance package.
As for the current saga, I believe we will be told over the next two weeks if we are affected. Now, I am not sure how they released the number to the public if they have not identified who is staying and who is going. And, why would you keep the employees waiting for two weeks. I bet the employees are going to be very productive during these two weeks.
The options backdating scandals seems to be picking momentum. I wonder if there would be a stock buyback scandal soon. A number of corporations are doing buybacks claiming the stock is underpriced. At the very same time senior management is cashing in on their options. Nothing illegal about selling the options if you have filed the necessary papers. But, is it ethical. And, I am sure some of these guys can co-oridnate their sale with the planned buyback well in advance.
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