Intacct Corporation. Well it's probably time I wrote something about my former company. You probably know that I got laid off the day after labor day. I was given a decent severance package, considering that I was with the company for 2 1/2 years, and was a Director in the engineering department. My severance was enough that since then I have been mostly travelling and only making a half-hearted attempt at finding another job. I had told myself that up until my 20 year high school reunion (which was last weekend) I wouldn't really spend too much time job hunting, but after that I would start in earnest. I would still have some paychecks coming in, and wouldn't be too stressed out. Well, all that has now changed.

Yesterday, my good friend, and co-worker at Intacct, called me to say that he had just gotten laid off. We were both in shock. It was quite sudden and severe. When we talked, it had just happened, and so he didn't have a lot of details, and I think he was in shock, so here's what I know. About half of the company was let go. The labor day layoffs were about 1/3 of the company. The people who stuck it out since then have been working like crazy. From what I understand none of them got a severance package, or they got some lame one week equivalent if some funding comes in, or some lame ass story. I spent the day really sad for these people. Many of them with new babies, and new houses, now shoved out on the street to fend for themselves. However, the real kicker came later in the day. Around 6:00 pm my phone rang, and it was my former boss. He told me that they had been forced to have another round of layoffs, and that I was also affected. The way I was affected was that my severance package had been terminated. In other words, they were not going to pay me any more.

Of course I had many emotions, but one of them has occupied my thoughts for the last 36 hours. ANGER Angry that the Exec team is so full of lies. Angry that now that I look back on it, they lied to us the whole time. Angry that I will see the CEO in church on sunday and that he will have some bullshit story to give to me, which will also be a bunch of lies. Angry at myself for believing any of them, when I should have known that they were a bunch of greedy, self-serving, ego-maniacs with no care whatsoever for any of us that worked our asses off for over 2 years. So angry that I called a lawyer! I have in writing that they will pay me x number of checks as a severance package, with x number of months of insurance coverage. I intend to find out what my rights are, and even if they can get away with this crap, I intend to let the CEO and his minions know that they are morally wrong, even if they are legally right.

This CEO has now failed at another company. I think that this is his 3rd or 4th try, and every time he has left a wake of destruction in his path. Hard working people, not "resources", PEOPLE, are now trying to pick up the pieces of his failures... wondering how they will put food on the table, and buy diapers, and pay the mortgage, or rent... And yet he walks away unscathed. He still has his millions in the bank, his house on the hill, his raquet club memberships. Oh I know, it's life. It's a risk we take by working at a start-up. No one of us is naive enough to think that we should have some guarantee when we take a job. But to de-humanize us at the end, after all the company meetings that spouted off the blatant lies about "family" and "we're all in it together", is just so wrong. Anyone of them who can look themselves in the mirror after all this and think that they are good people, are truly wicked.