Well, not really impacting me much directly at this point, but it did a year ago.
For some, the crunch started a while back, well before it became news.

I used to work for a German-owned semiconductor company (that alone should be enough information to tell you who, if you're at all interested). They were who I worked for back in my early days of b3ta, until I left due to them treating me badly; they were who I worked for a little over a year ago as a contract employee.

When I was there as a permanent employee, I was given a stock option: I could lock in on some stock at its then-current price, and when it reached ten euros per share I could sell it and get a nice chunk of money for it. At the time it was selling for something like $9.50 a share, so it had a little way to go. Of course when I left that all became meaningless anyway.

When I came back as a contract employee I knew that the price had dropped a bit, but didn't really give a shit, to be honest. They were encouraging me to put in overtime- in fact, they had a mandatory 10 hours per week overtime policy in effect- so I was doing just fine.

Then in November their stock started to drop.

The overtime was cut, and then they started letting go of some of their higher priced contractors- the guy from New Mexico, for instance, who was getting paid for housing and meals as well as his hourly wages. Nothing too surprising.

Then they took away our coffee.

The next thing they did was to start turning out half the lights in the office areas of the building. They also got rid of most of the rented printer/copier/fax machines.

Then, just around Christmas, they got rid of their contractors. Bastards. Merry fucking Christmas and a fucking grim New Year.

I managed to land okay in the contract job I currently hold, thank god, but they're not so lucky. Recently they laid off 1200 employees from that plant.

And as of this morning their stock is worth $0.29 per share.

Somehow I feel like Indiana Jones running in front of the boulder...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 22 Jan 2009, 16:20, 2 replies)

Bastards
Wage freezes are one thing.

Falling stock another.

When the coffee is taken away, you know the shit is about to hit the fan.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 22 Jan 2009, 16:42, closed)

No-one
But *no-one* takes away an engineer's coffee and expects work to be done.

Wankers
( VandenPlas can't think of anything clever - no change there!, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 12:25, closed)