This week, Yahoo! canned me.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it with any of the typical euphemisms. Laid off. Downsized. Rightsized. Reorganized. My favorite is affected. I’m waiting for a romantic comedy where Sandra Bullock tells an unsuspecting Matthew McConaughey that she’s reorganizing her love life and that he’s been affected. Gawd, I’d love to see that.
I’ve been dodging bullets like these in Silicon Valley for the past 8 years. When I worked at AOL, I think we had a culling once a year, every year– mostly around the Holiday times, and I’d survived all of them. I knew at some point, my time would come.
I was sitting at my desk, sketching out a particularly hairly problem, earplugs in and focused. My director’s boss came to my desk and asked if he could meet with me for a second. Thinking that he wanted to talk about the aforementioned hairy problem, I instinctivly grabbed my clipboard, ready to explain our status and current direction.
As I was following him, something started to smell fishy. It dawned on me that I recalled watching KTVU Morning News, and layoffs were happening today. I started to piece things together. “Hey…waitaminnuutt. I never meet with Mr. Lumbergh!,” I realized. (Names have been changed to protect…well, me)
I suppose at this point I could have turned tail and ran. “They can’t fire me if they can’t catch me!!,” I convinced myself. Eh, maybe I was a bit too grown up for that. Okay, maybe not, but it still wouldn’t be very professional.
Over the past couple of weeks, my logic and unrelenting optimisim had lulled me into a false sense of security. The layoffs were supposed to be concentrated in areas that were no longer core to Yahoo!’s direction, and I was in Yahoo! Developer Network. Interaction designers were pretty hard to find, and I strangely enough was an interaction designer. Surely this meant that if you were entry-level QA engineer in an a beleagured property like Yahoo! Voice, you’d better worry. As comforting as all this was, I remained prepared for the worst. Hell, I worked at AOL. I’d been prepared since 2001.
As I turned the corner, Mr. Lumbergh opened the door to the conference room. The table was stocked with bottles of water and boxes of Kleenex. “Oh, shit,” I muttered under my breath.
Mr. Lumbergh began his prepared script, and I gotta tell you, for a second there, I started to feel sorry for him. What a shitty job that must be. Then I imagined how much he probably gets paid for doing it, and I was over it pretty quickly.
When asked if I had any questions, I asked the textbook victim question, “Why me?” Lumbergh had an uncanny talent of being extremely articulate at saying nothing at all. I could have recorded the audio, played it back for you and still wouldn’t have been able to decode it. I felt like I was stuck in the dialog between Neo and The Architect from The Matrix. He asked me if I had any further questions. While my brain was trying to figure out where to start, my mouth simply said, “No.”
Within seconds of me sitting back at my desk to collect my thoughts, the phone rang. It was a recruiter. Now, under normal circumstances, professional code of conduct dictates that you discreetly and in the most emotionally-detached manner possible tell them to take a hike. That ship had sailed.
“SURE!,” I blurted as I sat back in my chair and put my feet up on my ergonomically- designed work surface,” I’d love to hear about opportunities at other companies! What’s that? Mayo Clinic? I heard that’s a pretty good outfit!”
The rest of the day was par for the course. The only wrinkle was that I had encountered was that I hadn’t brought my truck. “Dammit,” I thought to myself. That morning, I had contemplated taking my truck and a dolly with me, but that damned nagging optimist convinced me otherwise. Damned optimist. I’d have to return the next day.
One thing that was humbling was the amount of compassion and love that I’ve received from all of my friends, families and coworkers. Leaving all of my fellow Yahoos will be the hardest part of this whole process. It was really overwhelming. I got a lot of quizzical looks like, “You? Really? Out of all people? What were they thinking?” I’m a pretty humble guy, so it’s difficult processing all of this praise. Mamazilla’s been absolutely wonderful and supportive, and her confidience in me is really calming.
I have other thoughts on the matter, but this post is already too long. I’ll save my insights on Yahoo! as a company for another time.
22 responses so far ↓
Micah // February 16, 2008 at 9:35 pm
To say the office won’t be the same without you around is an understatement. Your passion, creativity, hardware hacking skills, positive energy, willingness to chip in and help others, and talents will be sorely missed. This is definitely Yahoo!’s loss.
Let me know if I can help in any way. I’ll be calling you up for the ‘Craft soon, my man.
Richard D. Chennault // February 17, 2008 at 10:08 am
Dude. That sucks. I mean really, that sucks. Whatever I can do for you let me know. I’m stuck in Malaysia at the moment so I’ll check back in when I return next Friday.
Chanel // February 18, 2008 at 5:37 am
So, Lance, whaddya say we get together and come up with a virus that rounds off fractions of a cent and deposits it in an account. Our very own little hack day.
dan // February 18, 2008 at 5:37 am
Lance, we are a startup in Silicon Valley looking for a star UI designer. The company is co-founded by well known people in the valley. Email me at Daniel.carroll4@gmail.com for details. thanks.
cheers,
dan
Peldi // February 18, 2008 at 6:39 am
If you really are a star interaction designer like people say, you’ll have no problem finding a new job, your skillset is in high demand and will only be needed more in the future. In fact, this might be the best thing to happen to you!
Good luck and thanks for sharing your feelings like this.
Melissa // February 18, 2008 at 6:56 am
The fact that there were visible kleenex boxes in sight when you entered the conference room is horribly tacky…like making people walk past a shop for headstones as they enter the hospital. Tacky.
drew olanoff // February 18, 2008 at 11:48 am
You will definitely be able to choose your own path. The fact that you were focused on problem solving and not the drama around you makes you a perfect addition to any company.
Congrats on the freedom and good luck!
Tom Limongello // February 18, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Sorry to hear about the canning, but I noticed that you are a watcher of KTVU morning news - we run a mobile website for KTVU, and since you are a rockstar, any thoughts on our mobile UI for KTVU?
http://ktvu.mlogic.mobi/
Tom
thompsa6 // February 19, 2008 at 5:40 am
Congrats on the new found freedom. It’s amazing that they let you go…good UI and user experience designers are VERY hard to come by.
I’d love for you to check out our very simple yet powerful startup and let me know what you think. It has been mostly an engineering effort up to this point and your feedback/insight would be greatly appreciated:
http://www.addada.com
I’d love it if you felt compelled to join in the conversation as we blog about our startup in “anti-stealth” mode at:
http://www.wekarma.com
Cheers and good luck!
Ben Clemens // February 19, 2008 at 8:04 am
Tupac said, “keep your head up.” It’s not the judgement people assume it is. It’s just random noise. On to the next.
lantzilla // February 19, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Thanks everyone for your sentiments. After processing it for a bit, I’ve come to realize that this really was a blessing. As Ben put it, “On to the next…”
david hyman // February 19, 2008 at 5:33 pm
hey, i’d love to talk to you about MOG.
see recent review by mossberg and in techcrunch:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119741603808822011.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
and techcrunch:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/11/mog-integrates-rhapsodys-streaming-music-collection-launches-redesign/
lots of stuff going on here. we’re looking for a ui lead.
i’m at david at mog dot com
peace out
drob // February 19, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Lance I have a poem for you.
“Fuck! Wait, no. Ahhhhh, excellent.”
by Drob.
Spin, move, bob, weave, duck & cover! Fire quickly!
Who?
It doesn’t matter!
Margins! Margins! Hurry!
OMG! MSFT is coming!
Fuck.
——–
Blessing in disguise my friend. I only wish I had the influence to hire you.
drob: design, funnies and general debauchery » Layoffs are awesome. // February 19, 2008 at 6:06 pm
[...] friend Lance got the boot from Yahoo! last week amid shrinking margins in their advertising business and while I can I know all too well [...]
lantzilla // February 20, 2008 at 2:07 pm
You are too kind, dRob.
Kimen // February 20, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Hey there, seems I’m late to the party to try and get you to come look at our company, but we’re looking for a UI lead too! We used to be called Offermatica but just got bought by Omniture. Check us out at http://www.omniture.com/products/optimization/offermatica
and email me at kfield at omniture dot com. Thanks!
Jim Panttaja // February 20, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Some companies are shrinking, and some are thriving. Sounds like you have an opportunity to look for what’s next - what’s arising. We have a great idea, and need great people to help us create it. Please send me an email, and we can discuss what we are thinking
David Grabel // February 26, 2008 at 12:58 am
Lance–
How about sending me your resume’? dgrabel@ebay.com
We have two open reqs for interaction designers.
–David
Mario Bourque // February 27, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Having been through it twice myself, I have to agree that it blows. When it comes to business, we are all pretty much expendable. That’s the nature of this business. It is even more hard to swallow when you are at a company that is at the forefront of technology and a leader in it’s field. What bothers me most about these events are the missed opportunities due to poor management decisions, then nobody wins.
Down the road, it turns out that these events were a blessing in disguise. I moved to a new city, found a great place to work, family got a new start, and we’re all the better for it.
We need to take negative events and turn them into opportunities. We need to be the masters of our own destinies.
Good people don’t remain unemployed for long periods of time. Chin up, you’ll be the better for it.
lantzilla // March 13, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Thanks everyone for your gracious and uplifting comments. They really help.
Raymond To // March 27, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Hey sorry to hear about your experience…here is maybe an encouraging email?
Have you heard of a company called NowPublic? http://www.nowpublic.com
They want us to find them good people and perhaps you may be interested?
want to call me or email me?
778-869-9268 or raymond@gorecruitment.com
Andrew // May 13, 2008 at 4:47 pm
And as of today (May 13), they still list you on the Yahoo Developer Blog’s blogroll. That’s classy.
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