YAY! We got laid off!, originally uploaded by .Ariel.


After weeks of speculation and blog rumors, today it was made official: 60 of us got laid off! Thanks to the joys of our CEO’s blog, we all knew it was coming and most of us had already been looking for work elsewhere (and some of us are already busy with new projects) so it wasn’t really a sad day. The only tears I saw were shed by employees who weren’t laid off.

Several of us axe-worthy types coordinated to wear our special INCH X INCH shirts today. The shirts were given out at a motivational meeting a few months ago. INCH X INCH is a reference to this quote from Al Pacino in "Any Given Sunday":

The biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Either we heal as a team or we are going to crumble. Inch by inch, play by play, ’til we’re finished. We are in hell right now, gentlemen, believe me. And we can stay here and get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell. One inch at a time.

Oh and as for what *I’M* doing next? Well, the lay-offs couldn’t have been timed better for me. For the next couple months I’ll be promoting the heck out of my book and its partner website. I’m not getting a new job — I’ll be returning to my freelance copywriting roots. I’m also working to develop my nascent social media consultancy.

In the interest of tossing this out there: my dream gig would be consulting on-site with a hip Seattle dotcom a couple days a week, talking about exciting things like web 2.0, social networks, blogging, and brand tone. Get in touch if you want to talk shop.