Slashdot Mirror
More Massive Layoffs at AOL
dawnzer writes "It looks like AOL read the comments from Slashdotters saying that 950 employees do not constitute a 'massive' layoff. Several news sites are reporting that AOL is getting ready to cut 5,000 jobs, or roughly 26 percent of their global workforce. Now that's more like it."
No, this falls under feeling bad for the contractors that worked on the second Death Star in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Anyone one working at AOL should have seen this coming years ago and if they had any clue and any talent they moved on to somewhere with a future. It's not like they couldn't have seen this coming, years and years ago.
Which employees are these?
The people who work at the AOL booths giving away coasters(CDs)?
The Mexicans who work customer support in Spanish?
Coders and network admins?
Because the article doesn't give much details.
Finding a job that pays more than minimum wage in all this turmoil is very difficult and you should be thankful you got one.
This is simply not true unless you have no skills and nothing to offer. I got bored and posted my resume to monster.com and the response I got was overwelming, I eventually took it off of there because I was getting so many calls/emails. It was also not all headhunters, only about 25% (if that) were not people who actually worked for the companies that the jobs were at. I don't think I have anything exceptional to offer other than a pretty good understanding of c/c++ and the STL and I also can learn new concepts quickly. Sure, some of the companies offered shit salaries but there were quite a few that were between $75k-125k+, all for around 4 years of experience (and I have 2 but they still were interested) which seems damn good to me.
Two years ago the job market was tough, it took me six months to find the job I am at now and it was very frustrating. The job market nowadays however is worlds better if you at least have something to offer.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
It would seem that AOL is still in reorganization and are trying to find it's niche in the broadband market. And the AOL software will change as a result. AOL Explorer is probaly the beginning of that change.
\
I've been waiting for the symptoms of AOL's impending doom for years upon years. All I can say is: Good fucking riddance, you CD-spamming, English-torturing hellspawn of a company. You took my precious CServe forums from me, and now you will perish. I do, in fact, believe I've been saving some champagne for when AOL finally dies. I'll go dust it off in anticipation.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Man... I was about to say they were probably firing 5000 of their asshole customer retention specialists. I guess I shouldn't make fun of customer retention to their face. :/
AOL is doing just fine here in the UK and that is because here - and elsewhere in Europe - telcos have been forced to let other ISPs on their ADSL lines.
So while they are cutting in the US, they may well keep growing in Europe. So rather than thinking of AOL as being EOL, maybe they should just change their name to that and get on with it.
It will simply make it more difficult for AOL users to cancel their account.