Getting Laid Off Twice

from the ouch dept

Sick or reading all these dot commers who have been laid off? How about reading about those who have been laid off twice? What’s that old saying? “Laid off once, shame on you. Laid off twice, shame on me.” Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a paraphrase. It’s interesting that a number of those laid off are now “consulting” instead of hooking up with another full time job. Soon we’ll have companies that are made up entirely of founders and contract workers.


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Comments on “Getting Laid Off Twice”

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4 Comments
Phillip says:

Re: Re: To clarify further

Let me clarify… I’m sorry if you thought I implied it was a bad thing. I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. In fact, I think it’s a great thing for a lot of people. I just thought it was amusing to note that a lot of laid off people are suddenly becoming consultants.
Or to clarify even further, I think Mike is amused that companies are laying off large numbers of people and blaming the current dot-com climate and then finding that the people they layed off are a little more key than they realised and are being forced to rehire them at exhorbitant contract rates (I’ve seen this happen a few times). Would this be fair to say Mike?
Phillip.

Mike (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: To clarify further

Thanks for putting words in my mouth… 🙂 That’s part of what I meant. I’ve definitely seen that as well, which is especially amusing. I’ve also seen that such consultants work for a few months and then take some time off to relax since they’ve got the money for it.

But, more to the point, what I meant originally was that it’s amusing that in the past “contractors” or consultants tended to be experts in their field, whereas now it seems like every laid off employee is suddenly claiming they’re an expert in their field and are starting up their own consulting business.

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