Recession Watch: News from the Trenches

Posting will be a bit more sporadic in the coming weeks as a work deadline approaches.

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I was at work the other day trying to figure out who I can get in touch with to handle an IT task that my department is currently facing. I emailed one of my contacts and he eventually got back to me with the info that I needed, but also informed me that some people in his company had been laid off. Layoffs in itself is not a newsworthy item, but what was interesting was the response I got when I probed for more details. I was actually contacted by another person who worked at the same company as my contact, and he informed me he was one of the people who was laid off. We talked for a bit, and he told me that one of the reasons for the (relatively) big round of layoffs was because the company was anticipating 2 to 3 quarters of little to no growth in revenues.
This was a mid-sized company (just under 1000 employees) in the high tech sector with headquarters in Silicon Valley. Now if they are trimming head count in anticipation of a slowdown in growth, it makes me wonder how many more tech companies are thinking the same thing?

Anyways, on a more personal note, I was contacted by recruiter the other day. Normally I don't talk about these things, and I was actually planning to wean myself from my current job. But this recruiter was from a special company, one that I would give my left arm and right pinky toe for an opportunity to contribute to their success. I've got a phone interview next Wednesday, and I just hope I can nail down that phone interview.