December 09, 2003

• I realize the auction is over, but I thought it funny enough to post...
• I wonder if the guy at pud.com is right about the main ingredient in hot dogs. On the other hand, maybe I don't really want to know for sure.
• Aw, the link is no longer available, which is understandable as this is two years old, but still a pity. As another anecdote, the guy at pud.com and his F'd Companies web site (which pre-dated the book I think) was a favorite of my boss a few jobs ago. Every morning I'd see him scanning the web site looking for news of our company. When he didn't tell me he didn't find anything, I knew we were in trouble. This was back in the dot com implosion of 2000/2001, and we had something like 4 rounds of layoffs. The only time we found out about them was during something I came to call a "reverse fire drill"--we would all be called to the conference room at the center of the building, the furthest from any emergency exit. This was about the only time all of us saw one another, so pervasive was the fear to be deemed "productive" at one's desk. Then, while we waited for upper management to appear, we got to play a game called "who's missing?" Whoever was missing was who was laid off that time. We never saw them again, like, not even if they left the buiding. Upper management would finally appear at this time, state the now obvious, and silently dare anyone to foolishly ask a question. Then they disappeared back behind their office doors, leaving the survivors to fester in their own discomfort. I could have been working for a Lovecraftian cult come to think of it. Or perhaps K.R.E.A.P. Well, it's good to know that a two-year old post can give me the jibblies (needs Flash).
• The company I worked for during the "downsizing" era, would announce a month or more that there would be a layoff. I went through a few of those before my fears were validated.