Having survived (and not survived) close to 15 “reorganizations” with a resulting reduction in force, I believe they were initiated with good intentions for the company.  The road to hell and all of that aside, several of these were nothing more than exercises in creative accounting.  This year’s ledger will show a reduction in costs while still seeing the same revenue.  They did not take into consideration next year’s financials or growth.  Many were quickly followed by hiring sprees.  I was once told that it was more expensive to find a position for someone in a different group/role rather than RIF’g them and giving them an “opportunity” to find a position within 60 days.

(more…)

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I’m heading to India for a couple of weeks for work.  In the odd way life works, a few people I used to work with at the old place will be there the same time/same city (Bangalore).  It looks like Ning’s old man and I will hook up for some beers and wild time.

The trip is starting out awesome already and I haven’t left Columbus.  My flight into O’Hare is canceled and they put me on one leaving 2 hours later.  The vague voice on my voicemail reassured me there was plenty of time to make my connecting flight out of O’Hare to Heathrow.  I hate O’Hare.  These things always happen there.  They’ve pissed off some Norse God fursure.

So, I really like reading timetravel or alternate history stories.  You know, like the ones with premises that start out…

What if the city of Nantucket was sent back thousands of years ago…?
What if the South didn’t lose the Civil War…?
What if Lou Ferigno didn’t play the Hulk…?
What if you discovered time travel, but could only go forward in time… how would you get “home”?
What if you suffered from Chrono-Displacement and your wife met you in a field when she was 6…?

Well… I can go on and on.  I really love this stuff.  So, now, I have a place to shop so that I’m prepared if I’m ever thrust back in time and splinter reality into another parrallel reality!  Time Travel Market

Obviously, they will do well there.  They already did in the future.

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Back in December, I talked on the eve of the last day of employment.  I didn’t post much after that.  It was hard.  I have that midwestern (since when is North Dakota or Minnesota ‘midwest’ of anything?) work ethic, or, as I like to call it, fear.  Luckily, I had been looking for several months, knowing the end was near.  Right before Christmas, I received an offer with JPMC working in an IT group in one of the lines of business.  It definitely made the holidays happier and being able to use my severance package to pay off a home equity loan was pretty nice.  (more…)

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I’m writing this on the eve of one of the most major milestones in my career. Tomorrow is my last day working for the company I’ve spent 13 years learning my trade.

Over the past year, AOL has transitioned from a subscription revenue model to an advertising driven source. Unfortunately, it hasn’t proceeded as planned. In an effort to reduce cost to compensate, approximately 2000 positions were eliminated. This included me and the majority of my team. We extended ad support into our video applications, built a stable, easily maintainable and extensible system. In a time of cost cutting, it was a logical business decision based on the state of the product and the direction of the company.

That’s my official exit statement and I’m sticking with it. (more…)

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Early this year, my organization went through custom training from Rally on agile development (specifically, scrum). I grew up doing waterfalls in traditional SDLC methodologies. I can’t say I was resistant to the timeboxed approach, but I was skeptical. More often than not, the waterfalls I worked on followed this type of planning lifecycle:

1. business defines ask
2. dev/qa/ops define cost/timeframe
3. business redefines ask
4. dev/qa/ops redefines cost/timeframe
5. business sets hard date for launch
6. dev/qa/ops redefines ask based on cost/timeframe to meet topdown date

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