My thoughts go out to the group of CRMers who were just laid off out West. Two weeks before Christmas, thats tough folks. I am really sorry to hear that.
For those of you looking to get into CRM this is also a cautionary tale. Funding for projects can be capricious. The general rule of thumb for a company is that for each employee a company has they need to bring in $100,000/yr per head to meet all the backend expenses (utilities, insurance, etc… all add up really really fast) so your project managers are always having to be looking out 6 months, 12 months, 18months+ ahead and making sure their budgets meet their needs. And if one or two key projected projects are delayed or cancelled, or not received and there is not forewarning it can throw a huge monkey wrench into the works.
Moral of the story - even if you have meager wages set up a rainy day fund that you absolutely never tap into to help through these emergencies. I realize that yet another hit on your paycheck is like getting blood from a stone, but you want to avoid having to live off your credit card. I have been there and burned myself badly, so just be careful.
I don't think I can pull this off in short order but this does give me the idea to have an ancillary wing of ShovelBums where if a company is going to have to do a layoff ShovelBums could pool those resumes and have companies get access to them if they are willing to take on people short term to help them out until their main employer is back in the black…just a thought, probably lots of flaws I need to think through.
Best,
R. Joe
