On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 1:20 PM, Ryan Simpkins <p...@ryansimpkins.com> wrote: > For those not aware... Robert works for Novell as a Sr. Recruiter (since > 2009?).
Yes > The Attachemate overlords just made his job a lot tougher. > > "A black cloud hung over Novell’s Provo campus Monday while hundreds of > employees were packing up personal belongings and being laid off." -- I am compelled to say that all of the following is my personal opinion and not representative of any person or other organization.-- I won't deny that, personally, this has been a really hard week. I'm waxing eloquent here, but I do this job (much like you do your jobs) because I love it. It may not be that exciting to you, but to me, I get up in the morning because I know I get to find and hire people into jobs they want and help them negotiate good pay, etc. I like to think I am more of a consultant to the candidates I find, prep and work with. I try hard to invest myself into not just the technology, but the people--this is why I do this job. Remember the first time some code you wrote actually compiled? Or a SQL statement actually returned the data you wanted? Or you successfully navigated TCP/IP packets through multiple layers of NAT/port forwarding routers over a secure SSL tunnel? Well, that's what getting someone's acceptance to a job offer feels like to me. I personally hired several hundred people to Novell last year and, while I think the news reports are overblown, truth is a lot of those people are gone already... and all their work and passion for what they do is now stuck somewhere, at risk of being decomposed or worse. Ryan's link to the Herald does add a fair amount of dramatic overtone to the conversation, but I can't deny this has been a tough, tough few days--and surely, I am one of the least affected. I remind myself that Novell had some financial catastrophes in mid 2009 thanks to some of our biggest customers (banks) literally evaporating overnight leaving a LOT of money on the receivables that would never, ever arrive. That would have been a much worse time to see this kind of reduction and, I wonder if Novell could have even had a chance of survival then if it had not limped along at least for a few more years. The people who left us Monday are in a MUCH BETTER environment today for landing a new gig than anyone would have been 2 yrs ago. I have to say I was GRINNING when I saw the list of jobs that are being hired for right in this thread. I will add in there a few companies I am watching: Fusion-IO and Corda are making some bold moves right now. The guy I am replacing is going to Mozy/VMWare up in PG, who seems to be having a resurgence after being folded into the VMWare business instead of being somewhat (my opinon) awash in the EMC ocean. I have talked to recruiters from three companies in the last two days looking to hire our people, and I'm doing all we can to facilitate that. I will also finally say (and this is personal) that our overlords are, if anything, doing what I think is a good job of making sense of what Novell can be really good at, and stopping a lot of the nonsense we got ourselves into over the last decade-ish of continual reinvention. I think you will see... over time, of course... a Novell that really, actually (finally) knows who they are and what they do... and, simply... does it. </soapbox> /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
