Jeff Grubb, who left TSR (the company eventually bought by WotC) in 1994, has blogged about the layoffs at WotC in an article titled "The Titanic Had A Band" (a reference to an old joke: "What is the difference between TSR and The Titanic?"). He mentions that the timing (frequently Christmas) of the layoffs is due to the fact that management tries to put off the layoffs for as long as possible in the hope that the numbers will balance out, with the fiscal year end in December being the hard deadline after which they cannot delay what is often the inevitable.
He also portrays a rather dismal picture of how it appears from the inside: "And for the long-term employed, here's the warning sign. After a slew of good reviews and standard raises, you get a warning flag. Nothing major, but a mild disapproval in your performance. Congratulations, you've gotten as much salary as they want to give you, and you have pitched over into a new box - candidates for dismissal." As for why veterans seem to be ripe targets, he says "Now, you will see early layoffs when companies get into this downward spiral where they lay the new guys off, the equivalent of eating the seed corn, But when you can lay one guy off instead of two, its a better idea. And ditching a veteran frees up more investment."
Jeff Grubb worked at TSR from 1982 until 1994, and was heavily involved in the Marvel Super Heroes game, and the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms campaign settings, as well as authoring the first Manual of the Planes and designing the Spelljammer setting. More recently he has been working on video games.
The image to the right is Dork Tower's comic strip for December 15th. Click through to see the original.
He also portrays a rather dismal picture of how it appears from the inside: "And for the long-term employed, here's the warning sign. After a slew of good reviews and standard raises, you get a warning flag. Nothing major, but a mild disapproval in your performance. Congratulations, you've gotten as much salary as they want to give you, and you have pitched over into a new box - candidates for dismissal." As for why veterans seem to be ripe targets, he says "Now, you will see early layoffs when companies get into this downward spiral where they lay the new guys off, the equivalent of eating the seed corn, But when you can lay one guy off instead of two, its a better idea. And ditching a veteran frees up more investment."
Jeff Grubb worked at TSR from 1982 until 1994, and was heavily involved in the Marvel Super Heroes game, and the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms campaign settings, as well as authoring the first Manual of the Planes and designing the Spelljammer setting. More recently he has been working on video games.
The image to the right is Dork Tower's comic strip for December 15th. Click through to see the original.
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