Complex Numbers

Laid Off

No, not me. That would be hard to do, seeing as I own half the business.

A friend of mine and another acquaintance were laid off from a competitor's company. The owner of that company is a friend of mine also - I play poker with him from time to time. Really good guy, great business sense, terrific designer. So why is he laying off 1/4 of his people?

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about his business sense. Maybe he just hit some bad luck. Maybe the entire industry is entering a slump. It's this last possibility that I'm most concerned about, obviously - if he's having trouble finding work, it won't be long before I'm having the same trouble.

What really sucks is his firm was my fallback position - you know, if my business didn't work out, he made it abundantly clear that he'd love to hire me. And I wouldn't mind working for him, except that I wanted to NOT work for someone else. We can't always get what we want, of course, but in this case I had the opportunity to try.

Well, like I said, it's working out so far. This industry is somewhat unpredictable. I've been in it nearly 20 years now and have been through ups and downs, and expect that to continue. Still, I'll need to be careful. And if we stay busy, I guess I know where I can find drafting help