http://www.hulu.com/watch/13187/office-space-door-salesman

I can’t wait for the movies about the mortgage disaster.

Well I will add a comment about the snarkiness.

Funny… the hypocrisy is thick with this one.

“Sure, we were right about the housing bubble, but nobody likes to see people lose their jobs.”

When I read this line, I was put off. It turns your sincerity into a “I told you so”. There are hundreds of posts about how we were right about the bubble; all you needed to say here was:

“nobody likes to see people lose their jobs.”

I love the blog but there are days when I feel the tone has changed. On the other hand I understand that it is hard to write a blog – people interpret things in a way you did not intend and other times one isnt even aware of their own feelings which can come out in a post. There can also be a desire to add an opinion to a post that is best as just news/facts.

Keep up the good work. Living in Seattle and working at Microsoft, this community is my safe haven of reality.

Costco? That’s what I was thinking anyway.

I wish I came to your site earlier! I bought in December, 2007. Have no plans to go anywhere anytime soon and have the savings to pay off the mortgage if it comes to that, but would’ve been nice to buy now or maybe in a year or so.

Good luck to everyone.

What is your definition of “major employer”? And I assume you mean King County, not Seattle proper? I might have a candidate for one that won’t do layoffs. But I do agree that most will.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Microsoft dump 8000 people worldwide before this is over.

Yes, I said it. 8000 people would hardly be a haircut for MSFT, even if many of you think it would be the end of the world. It would be a good opportunity for them to refocus on profitable or soon to be profitable ventures, slim down their core groups, and get out of some non-performing gambles they took trying to reinvest their cash pile.

It would probably shake our local economy badly since so many seem to believe MSFT is propping this whole area up, but long term I think it would be good for business as laid off employees start new businesses and spread the talent around.

And just think about how much better 520 traffic could get. ;-)

Apparently so. I took my GF out to dinner in Seattle last night. I picked up a newspaper, and was a bit surprised to learn that Seattle had the biggest decline in home sales in the nation. Things are getting ugly around here in a hurry. It appears we are just starting into the “official” recession. Thus, prepare for it to get a lot worse.

Even supermarkets see lower sales in slow downs, and people need to eat!!!

MS doesn’t do official layoffs. They just screw people and push them out the door at review time. I’ve seen it happen a lot and know someone in HR who basically confirms this.

That’s not true. You should ask your HR friend what a “RIF” is – because they do happen. I know of several examples.

MS doesn’t do official layoffs. They just screw people and push them out the door at review time. I’ve seen it happen a lot and know someone in HR who basically confirms this.

Yes and I imagine that something big may be coming.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27821495

“Microsoft Thursday filed plans with securities regulators to tap the debt markets, raising money to pay for working capital, share buybacks, or other types of general corporate expenses.”

Thank God for that.

The day that MSFT announces layoffs will be the darkest day we’ll see in this debacle, so pray that doesn’t happen.

I like Microsoft a lot, but it will not remain immune from the massive global downturn that is picking up speed. If the company is already feeling the impacts of the credit crunch and looking for ways to cut costs (as the CEO is publicly stating), then the pressure to cut costs will become even more intense if the economic environment becomes even more dire.

I’ve said here before that I don’t believe there will be ANY major Seattle employers who avoid lay-offs by the end of 2009. Whether they will call them such is another matter. Some firms might shut down whole departments, or divisions, deemed to be unprofitable, thereby claiming they are not laying people off. In the end, however, they will still be reducing over-all head count.

Let’s put it another way: no CEO of a publicly traded company will still have a job if they don’t significantly reduce overhead when revenue contracts. And Microsoft will wind up seeing an outright contraction in revenue just like everyone else will (i.e. not just a slow-down in growth).

There are many people in Seattle who thought this could never happen and they hate to be proven wrong. For that reason I believe Jon@51 is reading far more into your article than is actually there.

Fair enough, although I admit that I thought that the phrases “I’d like to extend my condolences” and “best of luck” would be sufficient to set the tone of the post in the realm of “serious.”

I’ll work harder next time and try to be more conscious of that. Thanks for the feedback.

http://www.housingwire.com/2008/11/19/at-wamu-a-lack-of-oversight/

Or you can watch it over and over on U Tube. I still say I could have done the “head-knocker commercial” but Comcast insisted on this guy.

I’m feeling fussy so I’ll take a crack at that.

The problem is that sarcasm is used so frequently here that it forms an expectation in the mind of a reader. It may have also formed a habit in your writing. So when we see a statement like

“With no other major banks headquartered here in Seattle, I wonder where all these newly jobless banking professionals will be able to find work.”

Several things pop out. “newly jobless” is an odd phrase because the word new implies something fresh and welcome. There are other uses of the word, but the intended effect is to create a contrast with the default usage. “Banking professionals” is problematic, because most of the people who work at WaMu are not specialists in banking. They can do HR, accounting, IT, or whatever at a wide range of companies. So back to “I wonder,” it suggests you aren’t really wondering, but in fact making some other point, because if they are really are just bankers, then the statement implies that they are doomed. In that context, saying “I wonder” is a bit sarcastic.

Not a biggie, but in the overall context of the blog whose stated purpose is to refute the public statements of RE professionals, the onus falls on the writer to make it clear that a statement is to be an exception to the writers usual style.

To everyone else:

It’s nowhere close to an apples/apples comparison when you put MSFT in the same sentence as companies like Boeing, Starbucks, WaMu, or any other Fortune 500 in the Seattle areas. The only similarity is they all have major operations in the state of WA.

The day that MSFT announces layoffs will be the darkest day we’ll see in this debacle, so pray that doesn’t happen.

I can buy the “Seattle isn’t special” argument, but there is only one MSFT.

You were thinking these guys too right Jane?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Z3LucrHOg&feature=email

I’m sorry I just had to…………

Though many people are happy to say “Seattle is no longer Immune”, I still feel seattle is a great place and real estate is going to pickup in the next few months.

With such low prices now is a really good time to buy a home. Going with a honest and experiened real estate agent is very critical in this market.

Let’s give him the toning credit at least..

These people saw it coming and they should have left!

A lot didn’t leave because they were sure they would not get the salaries they had attained while the business was booming. Managers with maybe high school diplomas who talked sweet and guys who developed databases (Access) who were untrained hacks.

There were a LOT of great people there. Don’t get me wrong. I’m speaking about why some people didn’t leave – they might have a hard time getting that sweet salary.

P

Microsoft shareholder meeting: Ballmer expects much slower hiring this year and next

Posted by Benjamin J. Romano

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, speaking at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Bellevue this morning, said the economic downturn will certainly have an impact on the company’s business.

The company is looking at every aspect of its business for opportunities to reduce costs; utilize resources more efficiently, and “much, much slower growth, particular in headcount, for the remainder of this financial year and, I suspect into the next financial year,” Ballmer said.

I think this might be an example where tone is easy to misread online. I was trying to be totally genuine here. Job losses suck for everyone involved.

Perhaps it’s just me.

We are not talking about a friggin’ start-up here! WaMu was founded in 1889 (5 months before Washington state); it takes a lot of stupidity and incompetence to bring down a company as established as that.

They had the guts, the vision and the nerve to be great.

Yes, let us celebrate the guys that had the vision to put untold numbers of people into loans they cannot afford and sell the loans to other people as AAA grade investments.

At first it was debt == wealth, now it’s evil == greatness.

I read a recent article on the financial folks exit from New York in droves due to the DOW and NASDAQ collapse. Financial jobs are drying up there like the Sahara Desert. How’d you like to be a recent college graduate with a business degree right now? Or with the Big Three tanking; an engineering degree? How about an experienced worker laid off who made 6 figures, when they don’t even want to pay 5?

On the lighter side, Horsey had a great cartoon on the solution for the economic meltdown:

And it reminds me of the brainless stand on continued globalism and uncontrolled growth.

It asks a “Quiz” question: “How do we solve the economic meltdown?”

A. Have Paulson throw trillions of dollars at the banks.

B. Have a witch doctor dance on one leg and say incantations.

C. If you can’t decide between “A” or “B”; you’re on to the solution…..