It shouldn’t be too long now.

The thing is though, do they give impressions that they are loyal to you? I’ve not had a lot of experience in many corporations so there could well be ones that do (and if so, shame on them).

Our company has never given that impression. That sounds negative to me but it isn’t. It’s not like they said if you do well and work here a long time you’ll NEVER EVER get let go. At the end of the day, they will do whatever makes the most business sense. And that’s how I treat myself as well. Like a business. I have no loyalty to my company either, really. I like them, I like working there and I think I do good work. But I wouldn’t harm myself to stay there, or stay there because I owe them something or because I am “loyal”.

But I think where the real failings here, that Scott is talking about, is treating people with dignity. That’s huge to me. Being fired or layed off is horrific. That IS one thing about my company I do respect. They have a ridiculously huge severance package. The owners have said that when people are let get they must be treated with respect and dignity (we had a round of lay offs some time ago and that was one of the first things they said).

The press releases are gross, I agree. The company should be expressing regret about the need to make such a decision in these financial times, or because budgets weren’t met or WHATEVER.

But hey it could be worse, your boss could have fabricated a bunch of emails so that they have a reason to fire people instead of layoff. (Happened to me once)

Your boss isn’t your friend.

When you take a job you aren’t joining a clan who will stick with you through thick and thin. They’re taking on your services because they need them and they can afford them; if either of those things changes, and one day it will, they should and will let you go.

The problem here isn’t that people lose their jobs when the economic situation doesn’t support them or when the company is being run poorly. Those are just facts of life.

The problem is that there isn’t enough provision for the people who lose their jobs. It’s part of how our economy works; those people form the pool of labour that allows new businesses to form and flourish. The unemployed are a vital resource but our society treats them like dirt. Losing your job should mean tightening your belt a bit; it shouldn’t mean losing your health coverage.

The other problem is how much people identify with their jobs and place their sense of self-worth in something they were merely hired to do. I know it’s difficult not to if you work in an industry you love. But ultimately, unless you own the business the job is just a job; it isn’t a part of you.

You’ve got a point about the press releases. I don’t think it’s really a matter of betrayal so much as it is of being pricks about it. They have every right to lay off staff they can’t support or don’t need, but they don’t have to be pricks about it.

And even if you’re right and corporate powers are going to take a lasting beating in the coming months (which I doubt) corporations will still not act ethically, they will simply follow the letter of whatever new law is enacted.

He went into big debts paying off his employees’ salaries out of his own pocket and other added costs/owings after it was discovered that the entire Gizmondo thing was actually a scam to launder/steal money by the Erickson mafia rampaging boy and that there was no actual funds to cover all the development costs – which put a lot of people on the streets, render many gizmondo owners pissed and canned lots of cool game projects.

Now I’m even more depressed than I was when I started reading this thread.

I’ve had friends let go, too, and it sucks. If anyone out there wants to learn more about the indie side of things, perhaps work on a small project, drop me a message. Perhaps we can do something that doesn’t require us to put out press releases criticizing people who sacrificed part of their life for the opportunity to maybe work on a cool game.

And while I don’t think people are gleeful about it, they are being realistic in that expecting anything else out of corporate America is simply foolish.