All is well, and all is well, and all shall be well

Well. Today's the one year anniversary of this job. Interesting, because droves of people are being laid off. First round is done, but no one knows if there will be more. Let us meditate on this.

We've seen it coming for a while, those of us with access to multiple departments. I'm unfortunate enough to be on the Acquisition team. Acquisition is a single mailing (well, three mailings, but all one job) that accounts for about half our billing for the year. Last year the company decided to take an aggressive pricing strategy to acquisition for 2010. Sort of a make or break thing. We broke. The actual numbers are only beginning to coalesce, but to give you a rough idea we needed to sell something like 7 million pieces to not lose money over last year, and 8 million to make our targets. We're just under 5 million right now, and that's if all of our regular clients buy the recommended quantities and don't decide to tighten their belts. So it's ugly.

There are other things. This company bleeds money. It's just inefficiently built. Everyone is working at top capacity, and we're still not making money. So they're cutting people. I have an idea how much we're losing thanks to acquisition this year, and I know that today's cuts won't cover even an eighth of it. So things are far from settled. There's no way for them to cut their way to profitability, but they can try to close the gap. We'll see.

So, here I am, a year later. I still think it was the good move, coming here. I would have lost my mind a long time ago at the last job. And there have been other developments that are positive. I don't really think my job is in immediate danger, but I do think that as a company there are some deeply flawed systems in place that will not be easily repaired. May be irreparable. And on it goes.

So today's firings. The fired the whole research department, one guy in production, and the CFO. And yes, the CFO has been screaming bloody murder about how much money we're losing. So that was the kind of move that makes you think we're adrift. In case you were wondering.

That's all I've got right now. Updates will follow as time allows.

*UPDATE* Two others were let go, but management has said that the layoffs are over for the foreseeable future. So that's something. Then again, we just shouldered a whole bunch of work from Research, using tools that none of us know. So that's something else.