Pacificapocalypse

Jim Kunstler on the recent ‘economic unpleasantness’ and possible fall-out and the future; he’s a little hyperbolic and I’m not completely convinced about all the doom and gloom, but still and interesting take. I might have taken this with a slightly smaller grain of salt if he hadn’t recently penned a fiction novel that falls right in line with this prediction.

In the meantime, however, millions of Joe-the-Plumber types will have gotten their pink slips, slipped helplessly into foreclosure, watched the repo men hot-wire their Ford pickups, and eaten down the kitchen cupboard to a single box of Kellogg’s All-Bran (which had been sitting there for eleven years infested with weevils). They will be watching the official proceedings in the federal courtrooms with jaundiced eyes as they hunch in their tent cities, in the rain, sipping amateur-brand raisin wine bartered for a few snared rock doves. How long before the hardier ones among them venture out to Easthampton with long knives and matches?

I was joking before, but yeah, maybe I should learn blacksmithing and baking… you know, just in case this whole Mad Max thing plays out.
Or maybe I’ll just get another game for the Wii.

Yeah the post title has absolutely nothing to do with the actual post, but how often do you get the chance to insert random Doors lyrics?

SF Chronicle announced - Part V: The Aftermath
Okay, so the final tally is something like 30 people from the business side have taken the buyout and are already gone; there are ( that I know of ) another three or four that have applied for and been accepted for the buyout but they’re still on-site for a number of different reasons ( training replacements, that sort of thing).
My old department has been eviscerated. And I mean that in the technical sense in that the internal organs have been removed leaving and empty shell of a carcass. I started with the Chron three years ago; when I was hired my department was made up of 14 people, some outside people, some inside people, some dealing with agencies.
As of this morning there are three people remaining.
Where once, there was enough business to support a 14 person department, there’s now only enough for three. Like a jumper of the Golden Gate, the business has just dropped out of sight.
Pretty friggin’ tragic.

Oh yeah and I’m no longer *in* my old department.
I’ve been transferred to a whole ‘nother part of the business. It’s been busy ( hence the lack of and intermittent posting ) which is good, makes the days go by quickly.
The training has been pretty much what I expected. None.
But at least I already know all the back end systems that make this multi-media behemoth function.
A whole new group of people to charm and subvert to my will; it’ll take time, but that’s ok.
I have all the time in the world.

Previous episodes of this sordid tale here:

SF Chronicle buyouts announced
SF Chronicle buyouts announced - Part II: The Reckoning
SF Chronicle buyouts announced - Part III: The Long Descent
SF Chronicle buyouts announced - Part IV: The Death March

Sounds legit, what do you think?

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Via BoingBoing

Ok so I’m watching Good Morning America and Chris Cuomo is interviewing the former CEO of AIG, Hank Greenberg, and he’s talking about how the government bail-out is a necessary thing ( side note - did you know that we just bought an insurance company? By ‘we’ I mean every tax paying American… for the bargain price of $85 billion. Now try and wrap your head around that number for a moment. That’s 85 followed by nine zeros. Here, take a look: $85,000,000,000. That’s more dollars than there are people on the planet by several factors. If every single living man, woman and child on the globe gave $10 that still wouldn’t get us to $85 billion. ). His rational is that if AIG goes under there would be a domino effect of financial firms that would go tits up.
Me, I’m thinking, ‘hey, how about a bailout on a more personal level? I could use a couple thousand dollars. That’s not even a worthy of notice when we’re talking billions.’
So Greenburg then goes on about how the downturn in AIG’s fortunes have effected him on a personal level, but he then says “but don’t worry, I’ll be alright.”

He’ll be alright.

Did you hear that? The man has a net worth of $3.2 billion, but he wants us to know that AIG’s misfortunes, are also his misfortunes. That this has effected him on a personal level.

But he’ll be alright.

fucker.
I swear to christ, someday I’m going to be rich and famous for inventing a machine that let’s you stab someone in the face over television.

</rant>

In addition to the weirdness from last week and over the weekend, the body count continues from the buyout offer from management. So far 25 people have opted for the buyout AND they’ve pushed back the final filing date from August 22nd to the 29th. Does that mean that they have a large number of applicants or that they don’t have enough? No ones sure.
Of the three people in my department that I’m sure were taking the buyout, two were told that the offers had been accepted and their last day was Monday this week. Holy crap! Gone! Poof! Just like that.
Three more that I know of are on the fence… it’s an odd feeling, the sense of uneasiness. There’s talk of just disbanding the department but they need local people who know the marketplace, so I highly doubt that’s going to happen. I’m guessing we’ll be downsized ( christ I hate that word ) to the minimum number of staff and be done with it. Time will tell. Life goes on, blah blah blah, but coupled with the break-in, this is making me very uneasy.

It’s been one hell of a week.
First and foremost - our house was burglarized on Wednesday last week. Two laptops stolen (with personal data on them both, which of course prompted frenzied password changes and financial information that had to be secured - seriously, do you have your browser store your passwords and login information for all your personal sites? Email? Banking? Insurance? Hell even your social sites, Netflix, Facebook, etc? Well not anymore.), Jewelry, cameras. The list goes on.

Read the rest of this entry »

*sigh* ok so the score is now officially three people from my department are taking the buyout; two more are considering it and I learned yesterday that the remaining supervisor has put in her request, which, if she gets it approved, will leave the department with no management at all.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. I see the department being reduced to no more than five people in the future and eventually folded into SFGate.com which makes sense to me.
More later.

So the fallout continues; another person in my department is taking the buyout; she’s been with the company for 15 years, so again, it sort of makes sense. That’s two definite and two maybes.

What other fresh, disturbing revelations shall the day bring?

Yeah I wasn’t going to post about this but…
We received a company wide email announcing a buyout program starting today, Monday, August 4th.

Dear Chronicle Guild Members:

As you may already know, Hearst management intends to reduce staff by about 125 positions through voluntary buyout packages. The packages will be similar to the last round of buyouts and will include: 2 weeks pay per year of service, with a minimum of 4 weeks to a maximum of 52 weeks; COBRA commensurate with weeks of service, with a minimum of 2 months to a maximum of 12 months and members can cash out COBRA if they choose; and uncontested unemployment benefits. The 3-week offer period is from Monday, Aug. 4 to Aug. 22, 5 p.m. Once you sign, you have 5 business days to rescind. End dates will be worked out with your supervisor or manager, but all must be finalized by the the end of the year.

This reduction will affect all departments and also include management. We will hold meetings on Monday, Aug. 4, at 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. in the third floor Guild Conference Room at 433 Natoma St.

We know that this a difficult time and will assist you in any way possible. Please check mediaworkers.org for the latest updates.
I wasn’t too concerned (I being an absolutely integral part of the Hearst Corporation’s long term financial plan) but today is weird, people are huddled in small groups in cube farm intersections speaking in low tones. There are these odd wondering, sideways looks from people: who’s taking the buyout? Will they get enough volunteers to avoid layoffs? You can smell the fear and desperation.
Or is that lunch? Anyway, there’s a strange vibe in the office and I don’t know which way people are going to jump. Certain managers have already indicated that they might take it, leaving the department in even more precarious straights.

Time to polish the resumé.

Stayed tuned for further developments.

UPDATE: Wow, one person in my department is definitely taking the buyout and two more are seriously considering it. All three of them have, on average, been here 20 plus years, so it makes sense.
Dame this might be serious.