Reorg, reorg, reorg....

Tough times call for desperate measures. The Commercial Production Department at my TV Station, of which I was a part was just effectively dissolved and dispersed. I will go to the Promotions-Community Services Department. I will switch supervisors and even move my desk up. I will shoot and edit Promotions-Community Services projects only. My other colleagues in commercial production, Michael the shooter, Gary the coordinator and Dave the editor will become a part of the Sales Department. They will answer directly to Sales and move to the Sales floor. This is particularly painful because Sales tends to be abusive of us as a resource, always assuming that they are more important that you because they bring in the money. They also never seem to manage their own deadlines and commitments and they are constantly asking you to drop everything you are doing and do a project for them because they will loose a sale if you don't! We've always had the buffer of not being directly under their control and now the buffer is gone! So to be honest my colleagues have it worse than me. But my move is not totally horrible. I like the people I will be working with and get along with all of them fine so really it's probably a good move for me in the long run. I just fear all change and always have! I’m just very thankful at the moment to have a job with the state of the economy as it is so I’m going to move forward and be positive. I’m going to embrace my new department and put on a happy face.

So that’s that! I guess I should count myself lucky to only have gone through one reorg in my 9 years at the station. Can’t say it won’t be the last the way things are going. I think this is going to be a tough year for the TV industry. But my trust and hope is in the Lord. He is the One who preserves me and my little family.

Nate

In the news...

This is a big week on my end because the latest issue of a local magazine (Austin Business District) was published and went into circulation with an article about my efforts with door64.com:

http://www.abdmag.com/

The cover article is titled "Hello, my name is Matt." It's resulting in some great publicity for door64, and I'm excited to see membership and activity spike. Hoping this will really help my efforts to coalesce the high-tech community down here.

Layoffs hit close to home.

First of all I still have my job... but my brother Seth just lost his job yesterday. He was working for a company called Areva in Lynchburg, VA where I used to work and live before we came here. The company had a mandate to shed 1000 jobs. His department had said that he was safe... apparently not. He had only had this job for 3 months. It's his third job loss in a little over a year. He is devastated and won't even talk on the phone. I'm just shocked and frustrated. At my place of work it's all doom and gloom and it seems every other day we have "Quitter Cake" and a mini party for yet another person who took a buy-out or got laid off. I've had to say goodbye to several people I really care about. And how do I feel about my job? We'll I've begun to realize that for the moment I may be somewhat secure because I don't make much money and I also create a lot of advertising content. So for the moment I'm part of the revenue stream. It's funny I thought for a while that I was low on the totem pole and might loose my job because of that. Now I realize that corporate want's all the old guard to go, the one's making the most money. However what happens when I become part of the "old guard"? Not very encouraging. I had thought back then that I might try to break out of TV and get some well paying job in some other field. Make enough to stop working on the side for myself. Now I'm just going to sit and wait and try to keep my current job. Oh, and as of this new year I will be taking a pay cut of 3% and there will be no raises.

I'm curious about how the rest of you are impacted my similar forces? Do you have co-workers you had to say goodbye to? Friends that have been laid off? Are they having trouble finding new jobs? Are they changing careers? Have you taken a pay cut?

Also please pray for Seth. He is married with a todler.

Nate