GoogleQuestion for the weekend: Would you sleep with your boss?

You know, Technorati is just cool. I'm so glad I got to meet the guy who codes it. I'm glad to see that I'm still not on the top 100 list. If I was, I might need to blog tomorrow instead of going to see the Two Towers.

I knew Marc would like the Hiptop weblog (he shows what he likes about it here). Thanks to Tim Hitchings for asking me why I wasn't writing about the Danger device. Heck, I just don't have time to try everything out there! Translation: help, I'm trapped in front of the Tivo and can't escape.

Some more...

If your company lays people off the week before Christmas.

If your company employees are reading fuckedcompany.com just to see how often their company appears.

If your company's employees are all reading this weblog this morning instead of doing their work.

Even worse, if your company's management is reading this weblog this morning to try to find new ideas.

If your company has ice cream socials, but only after laying people off to "cheer up the survivors."

If your company's employees are all doing four people's jobs.

If your company gets to be half the size of what it was 1.5 years ago, but still has the same number of products.

If suppliers call ex-employees, not to console them, but to find out how bad it really is and if they have a chance in hell of getting paid.

Signs your company is failing (these are signs my friends and I have all noticed -- I have about 25 friends who've been laid off in the past three years and I had to lay myself off this year, it ain't fun -- how many is your company experiencing?):

1) An increase in closed door meetings. Amazing how "open door" policies change when the cash is running out.

The controller quits.

The salespeople quit or get fired or get laid off.

The management forgets all the platitudes they tell you in offsites in better times "reward your employees" and all that crap. If company holds "Tom Peters" bookburning in company courtyard, you're really going places.

The management is so practiced at laying people off that they manage to smile while doing it.

When employees keep calendars of "deadpool bets" of when the company will go bankrupt.

When ex-employees get together every few weeks to welcome in a new pool of ex-employees.

When the buildings you used to occupy are still unoccupied. (Common sight in Silicon Valley).

When eBay has a few hundred job openings you meet all your co-workers in lines with their resumes ready.

When employees in a successful division with a product that generates millions of dollars in revenue get laid off

If your company is getting acquired, or is acquiring another company in a "sure thing" deal

If your company hasn't paid many of its contractors in the past six months.

The only people getting laid off are those who aren't friends of the owner.

If the company is laying off more employees than managers.

If the company tries to "be fair" about layoffs, in other words, if 10 people gotta go, they spread the 10 layoffs around equally to all divisions without regard for how much revenue or contribution to overhead the group is bringing in.

If the company is subsidizing a product with the profits generated from another product. (This one isn't a good indicator, after all, Microsoft does this, but I notice this is a trend).

If company starts hiring lots of outside managers when the company was growing just fine by promoting from within.

If the company tanks for two years straight and none of the managers who managed the tanking get laid off, but nearly everyone else does.

I'm sure I'll think of some more. Anyone want to add to the list?

Hey, now that my wife is "on the beach" maybe it's time to get that weblog conference/event idea going. Hey, anyone up for Iranian food at a weblog event? :-)

Well, now that neither my wife nor I work in the conference business anymore (my wife was laid off this past week) we can look objectively at the market. Is Tim O'Reilly doing interesting conferences? Chris Pirillo? Shirley Brothers DevConnections? How about Kerry Gates' MSDN Magazine and Windows Developer? Neil Bauman's Geek Cruises?Chris Sells Web Services conference?

Who is positioned to really take off with the Windows developer market? Who will serve their customers the best? Anyone hiring in the conference market? I know attendance is on the upswing, especially since Microsoft is releasing Visual Studio.net 2003. Hey, maybe we need a Tablet developer's conference? I still think a good .NET CLR conference would do well. 2005 is the prize. When .NET turns 3.0 IT will be spending money again and this economy will have firmed up (not necessarily improved all that much, but definitely firmed up so IT can start taking a long-term view again).

Heh, my readers never miss a thing. Fellatio is spelled with a T, huh? Heh.