Friday, January 21, 2005

DEPRESSINGER AND DEPRESSINGER

Things seem to really be circling the drain at The Place I Used To Work. I just heard from a friend and former co-worker that he was offered the "pay cut or severance package" choice, and opted for the former. He managed to get them to let him "work from home" two days a week, instead of the one he had been taking - this is in fact time he spends with his autistic son and said son's therapist, not time spent working, but even someone like me who doesn't even like kids understands that.

I'm doing some freelance stuff for the company, in addition to my rock-rag dribblings. So I kinda hope they don't go completely under at the end of '05, but the way they're running things, and the way the publishing business is as a whole, I can't imagine them lasting that much longer.

Things used to be pretty good. But in the last 12 months, the vice-president got really sick and hasn't been in the office since March, and in his absence the accounting department has taken over and run literally every move the company makes through the cost/benefit squeezer. And caution doesn't generate sales, it only contains losses. I think the losses are starting to become uncontainable, and that's too bad. I really liked most of my co-workers. (I hope they like the way they're portrayed in my novel, once it gets published*.)

In slightly better news, I just bought two tickets to see Interpol at Radio City Music Hall on 3/1. Opening band hasn't been announced, but I kinda hope it's somebody like the Rapture or the Killers, so I can pull a two-birds-with-one-stone deal.



*I refuse to entertain negative thoughts about this project. It's going to sell, and I'm going to make a bucket of money from it. This is just how it will be.

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