Blog's Labours Lost

I was writing a long post about managers admitting mistakes. I had it 90% done but did something stupid and lost it. I am apparently destined to re-learn the lesson about saving drafts of my work many times. I'll get it rewritten in a day or two, and for now will share a few other items.

There was an interesting article about Intel culture in the Oregonian a couple of weeks ago. It's a good article, but I don't agree with all of it. It's a short read.

Traffic to this site is fairly low. But I'm still surprised to be getting any traffic at all. The visitors I am getting can probably be attributed to the generosity of Josh and PentrinoVI IV. I thanked them both privately for mentioning this blog on theirs, but wanted to do so publicly as well. Thanks guys! I recommend checking both their blogs if you haven't yet (they have permanent links in my Other Interesting Blogs section).

Things are starting to heat up as we approach the next round of cuts. I've had several conversations lately with people from one sub-group that is going to get hit hard. (I'm choosing not to say which group out of respect for them.) They've all be told that about 75% of their ~100 person group is going to get laid off, and they don't know yet who will be keeping their jobs. These guys know their chances are not good, and are scrambling to line up temporary assignments or find something outside of Intel. Most impressive is that the people I've spoken to are philosophical about it. They all want to find something else, but none of them are angry or bitter. Real pros, these guys.

We'll see more and more of this over the next couple of weeks. Some people will take it in stride, some won't. No one way of reacting or handling this situation is better than another. Those who are laid off need to get through it the best way they can. Most people just want to work and go home to their families. I don't have any sage advice to offer. As I said in a comment to a previous post, this is hard on everyone at Intel, and doubly so when you start seeing people you know and like being impacted.

I appreciate you reading, and especially appreciate the comments I've gotten. I had originally posted a longer version the "Don't Speak" post which read much better and had more impact, but I thought it was too long and whittled it down. Someone had read the original before I edited it, and commented that they were unimpressed with shorter version. So going forward I'll worry more about content than length. Let me know what you think and I'll consider making adjustments.