MOTM

On Tuesday, October 2, 2001, at 07:51 PM, alt-mode wrote:

> Wow, Paul.  I know that folks have some negative outlooks from the 
> recent events but
> this was a bit of a surprise to me (and I work in one of the industries 
> you
> mention).

Well, just to offer another view. My company (http://www.gobe.com) is 
funded
by Linux Global Partners, based in NYC. Their funding of our company is 
monthly,
and they informed us they can't make payroll due to all that is happened 
in NYC.
I haven't received a full paycheck since 911. We're two months away from 
releasing
a product that:

- Reads and writes all Office formats but is easier to use than Office.
- Renders to HTML, PDF, etc. better than Office (and PDF better than 
Adobe).
- Does image processing ala Photoshop.
- Does vector graphics ala Illustrator.
- Runs on Windows and Linux (you get both with a single purchase)
- Has $12k in preorders (from previous customers on BeOS) that we can't 
charge
until we ship.

So I'm working for free, drawing unemployment ($400 a week with $1500 a 
month rent)
while wondering if when we finish in November (Wired will be running an 
article on
us that month, if they're still in business) whether anyone will have 
money to buy our product.

Six months or a year ago I could post a resume on Dice or Monster and 
get hundreds
of responses. This time: zero. And I've been doing software development 
on every platform know to man for twenty years. Yes, there are a few 
opportunities, but none
include reloc, and the northwest is pretty devastated right now (Intel, 
Sun, HP, etc.)

Of course, talking to friends in the southeast (ATL) they're not doing 
much better.
Out of nine previous office mates (our Cygnus ATL office was closed by a 
Red
Hat purchase), seven went to work for companies that have failed (four 
owing
them money, none giving severance). The other two stayed at Red Hat, 
whose
stock was trading at $150 when  I left. It's under $5 now.

I entered the job market in 1981, I've never seen a worse time for 
programmers.

Tomy