Wednesday, November 12, 2008

First 24 hours after Current TV laid me off

Since Monday I was discussing my promising future at Current with my manager I was more than a little shocked to be shown the door yesterday with some 30 others.

In the last 24 hours I've gone through a range of emotions, but mostly I'm happy to be outta there and I think I will soon be back in LA with good friends, good weather and good fortune.

Here's some of the press I've come across in the last day.

Mentioning me:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10094101-36.html
http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2008/11/10/daily51.html#tp_newCommentAnchor

Mentioning lay-offs:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117995673.html?categoryId=18
http://gawker.com/5083790/al-gore-just-outsourced-your-job-to-twitter
http://feeds.paidcontent.org/%7Er/pcorg/%7E3/450099587/
http://culturite.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/current-tv-wired-and-six-apart-slash-jobs/
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/010005.html
http://www.inquisitr.com/7964/current-tv-cuts-32-employees/
http://valleywag.com/5083592/current-tvs-official-body-count-30-gone-30-shuffled

Mentioning other Current news:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.ca/2008/11/zed-20-coming-to-canada-via-al-gore.html
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/11/a_web_20_summit.html
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/entertainment/story.html?id=6d1af377-2220-4a6d-b428-bb3df3b823b1

I've been let go from current tv

The VP of development and programming @ezracooper pulled me into an office with David Harlston (sp?) our head of business affairs to let me know that 11/11 was my last day at the company. It seems that I was the second SF staffer to receive that news (after @severshed) that I was no longer needed along with some 30 other people of whom i've only accounted for a dozen or so in our close knit UCG/VC2 family.

At the moment I've just finished bonding with some of the many let go and the few left behind and we're all returning to our google news feeds to find links to stories about today's events and hoping that the 30 unemployed don't get marked with a scarlet letter A for "Aborted UCG experiment". UGC (dubbed VC2 by @Current)is not a failure.

what we need are people inside and out of current to comment on all the press, anonymously if need be, and to give recommendations and connections to the talented people looking for work now.

Will Al Gore's revolutionary network fall prey to the golden parachuting that is being called out from coast to coast? I hope that Current responds to the better angels of its nature.

Find the people you should be hiring for your UGC programming through my linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/malaise
and my twitter contacts: http://twitter.com/kalisti.