My son survived a 50% layoff this weekend.

[mnhtnbb]

He works for an on-line gaming company providing customer support to people
around the world. He was hired due to his German language skills, and
spends a lot of his time handling issues from German speaking customers.

The local company office is staffed 24/7. For the last couple of weeks
people have been laid off--one here, one there. Last weekend a native
speaking German employee was laid off and my son started getting nervous.
He was gone this Fri/Sat/Sun with us for a family wedding in Chicago.

This morning he opened the door to the office and it was dark. There was NO one
there--no note on the door. So he went to the other office location in another
building and was told half the staff (about 35-40 people) had been laid off--via a phone call--on Friday.
None of the people received any notice or severance. He was told "probably"
the remaining people NOT laid off will be moved from 'contract' status to permanent
employee status...and thus my son is hopeful that his job will be continued.

It continues.

[riderinthestorm]

1. Brutal and horrific. Did your son have any inkling this was going to happen, mnhtnbb?

I am so grateful he was spared. He does know however that it sounds as though the company's failing. Does he have a backup plan? Interviewing to find another position?

If the company's so wobbly it made such a drastic move, your son may not be as secure as he thought.

[Betsy Ross]

2. It doesn't matter which side you end up on.

Lay-offs suck. Of course it's good not to be out of work, but the morale is grim.
Best of luck to all.

[mnhtnbb]

3. They had hired a LOT of people for the introduction of a new game

which ended up not selling according to projections.

He was hired on a 90 day contract last May--and had been told "likely to
turn into a permanent job" when he was hired. I suspect they kept all
their employees with foreign language skills--particularly German and Russian
(he's fluent in German and has some Russian) as they can also handle
all English speaking customer support. Many of the foreign country
customer inquiries will come in English--especially from France and Germany--
but for the last month he's been handling German customers in German almost
exclusively. So...it maybe that the game sold better in Germany...than elsewhere.

So, yes, I've advised him to keep applying for jobs---he really only needs something
through next summer as he's planning to apply to graduate school for fall 2013--but
there's not a lot around here for someone with a liberal arts degree (his majors were
German and Comparative Literature). There are a lot of tech jobs around the Triangle--but
he's really not a techie. He's applied for half a dozen jobs in the last 10 days and not heard
one thing back from any of them. So, we have fingers crossed for this job...but will keep
looking.