It hasn't been a particularly pleasant time as of late. The tech market went to hell this year. At the same time, financiers swung the pendulum from greed to fear. Then terrorists murder thousands of people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. Thousands more have to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. All of that puts our own problems into proper perspective, no question, but our problems still exist. Some of our ("our" as in UF Media's) clients evaporated or augured in over the past several months, causing us to adjust, cut and re-adjust. And now we've had to make the hardest cuts of all. As of the end of September, some of the finest people I've ever worked with are leaving UFM because we can't pay them anymore. These people aren't just employees, they're people that believe in what we're doing, who always brought extra effort and brilliance to their projects despite not being paid anything close to what they're worth. Most of all, I consider them all to be good friends. The site and cartoon won't be directly affected. Webdiva, myself, and our own Smiling Man still remain, and we'll be shouldering all of the extra work amongst ourselves. Yohimbe will remain as the technical diety, but on a part-time basis. Our own Chief will also remain full-time, without drawing a salary. A few of the staff will remain on a contract basis to handle fulfillment. Right now my greatest concern is helping the people who are leaving with finding new gainful employment. The UF community is both vast and diverse, so I'm appealing to all of you for any leads you might have. If you know someone looking for any of the following, please contact the individual directly. To defeat e-mail crawlers I've stripped out the "userfriendly.org" that would naturally come after their e-mail addies: Yohimbe (Jay Thorne): Senior technical role, perhaps at the Director of Technical Operations level. Email: yohimbe@ Kickstart (Greg Webster): Sysadmin role, technical support role, or a manager position. Email: kickstart@ Grovella (Jaleen Grove): Visual designer, interface designer, illustrator or art director role. Email: jaleen@ Lurch (Graham Sharp): Flash animator with classical animation training. Solid illustrator. Email: graham@ Erik Loptson: Collaborative marketing role, or marketing analyst. Email: erik@ Laura Jo Gunter: Senior management role, business, broadband media and intellectual property development. Email: laurajo@ Christian Larmer: Sales managemenr role, especially in the tech market, selling both tangibles and intangibles into a variety of channels. Email: chris@ All of these folks are highly skilled, have earned their cred, and come with my highest recommendations. Not one of them is a dot-com wonder. The road ahead remains bumpy, but we'll weather the storm. We're at a level now that we can chug along fairly well without having to shrink again in the forseeable future. Someone once said that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Given the events of the past while, including the soul-rending tragedy last Tuesday, living through this year should make us tough as nails then. Anyone who is able to help with placing these very fine people has my eternal gratitude.
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