Thanks WinOSCentral for the heads up on this one. The story of Stephen shows how a layoff is not always an ambush by Human Resources wielding a pink slip.
Stephen, as well as the 40+ staff at a dot-com company, thought the CEO was just on vacation. As weeks turned to months, the CEO called in to his companies Help Desk and asked Stephen to lay off many of the staff. Weeks later, paychecks and lease checks bounced. The electricity was disconnected. As more staff drifted away, the CEO also remained "on vacation" and unreachable. Stephen stayed until he was the only person left, and then began searching for another job with a paycheck. He never heard from the CEO again.
Yes, working for a secure dot-com company is starting to sound like an oxymoron. The first quarter of 2001 saw nearly 26,000 Internet job cuts, from the tiniest startups to giants like Seattle"s Real Networks and Amazon.com. (Q & A inside)