How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

[GRG55]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I just saw today that Honda is leaving Formula 1 racing. Racing is a form of diversion albeit a highly expensive one. perhaps we will see a return to less expensive and more localized minor league athletic sports teams.

As a research engineer perhaps you could shed some light I had on a theory: Racing used to be a testbed for new technology that made its' way into production. Auto technology has pretty much peaked in terms of law of diminishing return, at least as it pertains to the internal combustion engine. Racing is now just a very expensive marketing program and as you point out increasingly seen as frivolous.

As an avid F1 fan from the 1970s, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Probably more so than any other motorsport, F1 has evolved from a technology proving ground and marketing platform for companies like Alfa Romeo and Lotus, to not much more than a bling-filled celebrity circus. Almost none of the people that attend the races know anything about the cars, and when I hosted a couple of avid motorsports fan biz associates to the Bahrain GP last April, it did not escape our attention that very few of the people around us even bothered to follow the race.

I hope that Honda will use part of the money saved to increase it's presence and sponsorship of more local racing.

[GRG55]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

It's too bad that the global warming thread is more popular than this one.

give it time...

[ER59]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

Anyone on this board in IT/Tech Recruiting business?

[mikedev10]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

Anyone on this board in IT/Tech Recruiting business?

not one but the consulting company i work at is hiring. previously i would have told you it was just because we are exceptionally good (IMHO!) but i've been tapped by recruiters a fair amount recently. i'd say at least 4 recruiter contacts in the past 2 weeks. chicagoland area.

[ER59]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I am not looking for job, just have a couple of questions for a recruiter in any part of US

[santafe2]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

As many here know, I work in a heavily government subsidized industry. Eight months ago my partners and I broke away from the largest pure renewable energy company in the world to start our own company. We're on plan but it's been tricky navigating from a market consistently short of product to a market where product is being sold by some competitors at a loss to move it out of inventory before the end of the year. Also competitors are offering 90-120 day terms. Since this isn't the business 101 thread I won't go into why that is a crazy idea.

While government and utility rebate/incentive systems have moved up 20-40% over the last few months, delivered prices have started to fall before these rebates and other incentives. But with these changes, the level of uncertainty is still palpable within the industry.

To answer the thread starter: How has this affected you? We cold call. If the inbound phone calls are slow, we each get on the phone 10 or more times a day and introduce ourselves to a new prospect. It's very old school: Tell us about your business, we'll tell you about ours and our values and it resonates with a small percentage of the people we call. But in distribution a new customer who shares your values is a long term and often loyal customer. Despite the economy next year, we intend to grow so I see a lot of cold calls in 2009...Even on a bad day it builds character...we can all do impressions of the top 10 worst people we've ever cold called.

How has it affected us? We appreciate our families, our associates, our customers, our communities and our opportunities a lot more than we did a year ago. I'm not sure our competitors do and I hope they continue to miss this point or we're going to have to work even harder.

[hans007]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I work at a relatively small software company (150 or so).

We oddly have been doing really well this year , and actually exceeded revenue estimate by something like 30%.

That said, its probably because we make IT management software , that does things like manage power and security and is marketed as helping eliminate costs (like power waste, and excess IT staff). So i suppose we help make companies more efficient (or eliminate jobs depending on how you look at it)

That said, some of our customers are giant banks, and our CEO has frozen hiring anyway so that they could roll the surplus cashflow into next year. I basically work the equivalent of what 2 people would do at a larger firm (I left one that this year has been hit hard, and had many layoffs according to my former coworkers) so I figure I'm relatively safe.

During october almost no recruiters contacted me even though they had basically been calling nonstop for 2 years (i do windows programming in lower level languages, which apparently no one learns how to do anymore) in silicon valley.

I have had a few recruiters call in december though, so maybe its picking up somewhat.

[FRED]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

As many here know, I work in a heavily government subsidized industry. Eight months ago my partners and I broke away from the largest pure renewable energy company in the world to start our own company. We're on plan but it's been tricky navigating from a market consistently short of product to a market where product is being sold by some competitors at a loss to move it out of inventory before the end of the year. Also competitors are offering 90-120 day terms. Since this isn't the business 101 thread I won't go into why that is a crazy idea.

While government and utility rebate/incentive systems have moved up 20-40% over the last few months, delivered prices have started to fall before these rebates and other incentives. But with these changes, the level of uncertainty is still palpable within the industry.

To answer the thread starter: How has this affected you? We cold call. If the inbound phone calls are slow, we each get on the phone 10 or more times a day and introduce ourselves to a new prospect. It's very old school: Tell us about your business, we'll tell you about ours and our values and it resonates with a small percentage of the people we call. But in distribution a new customer who shares your values is a long term and often loyal customer. Despite the economy next year, we intend to grow so I see a lot of cold calls in 2009...Even on a bad day it builds character...we can all do impressions of the top 10 worst people we've ever cold called.

How has it affected us? We appreciate our families, our associates, our customers, our communities and our opportunities a lot more than we did a year ago. I'm not sure our competitors do and I hope they continue to miss this point or we're going to have to work even harder.

Very good! Bumping this to make sure the New Posts button addicts didn't miss it.

Sound business principles, persistence, sharing the load. It's all coming back.

[phirang]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

A friend of mine laid off another 100 people at a fortune 500 project developer.

[Digidiver]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I live and work out of Las Vegas for the largest casino operator in the state. Massive layoffs across all properties running on barebones staff and deals to the public and almost daily e-mails about the “family and friends” discount programs. Was talking to the Security Director at one of the properties and was told they were so short staffed that they were forced to decide which to cover “a fight or a medical emergency” because they couldn’t handle both. Consolidation across all departments and properties (accounting/payroll/hr). Everyone seems to be waiting for the next shoe to drop. Just sold one of our major properties this week and wondering which one is next. Seeing lot’s of Japanese here in town, I suppose the exchange rate and deals here available are giving lot’s of incentive. National Finals Rodeo just wrapped up so it’s dead again, many specials available for New Years which is unheard of. I have season tickets for UNLV basketball and after they use the arena for rodeo followed by basketball, you can imagine the smell hasn’t quite dissipated. We had a freak once in 30 year snow storm today that caused lots of flight cancellations which isn’t helping but people that live here are excited anyway because it’s so rare for a “White Christmas” in Vegas. If only people here knew how to drive in bad weather... They’re lost!!!! As for me, I’ve been wanting to wrap things up here and move to Asia and retire but am worried about the dollar and general economy. I’ve enough to retire but wonder from some postings if it’s toilet paper tomorrow. My best take on things at this point is sit out 2009 and observe events and decide then. Thanks to iTulip and the great postings from everyone I have learned quite a lot but still feel like I know next to nothing.