A Sign Of The Times; Maybe Just Bad Luck
It doesn’t take much to explain the current financial crisis or the current job crisis. This is news everyone hears on a regular basis. So when I was laid off from work this week it didn’t come as a huge surprise. I am a graphic and web designer. I was brought on to design a website, get it SEO’d, ranked and showing up on the first page of Google as well as upkeep and other graphic materials used for the company. Well besides the company’s internal issues the financial issues were greater. I did my job. I designed an awesome site, got it ranked ORGANICALLY on the first page of Google for specified search terms… unfortunately this only took me a few short months to complete which put a huge hole in my schedule… no site, no work… basically. I did do plenty of print materials as well, however, the folks who control the budget wouldn’t budge to get some new materials… excuse me, ANY materials. With the failing sales department it became evident fairly soon that my job would soon be on the block. The company is old school… and by that I mean that they rely heavily on basic marketing strategies (if you can even call them that)… newspapers, phone book…etc. So the idea of “Internet Marketing” was completely foreign to them. Why do we need a website? Why do we need it ranked? What’s a Google Adwords account… The ignorance was certainly there, I understood this and accepted it early on… what I don’t accept so quickly is that fact that the short time I was there, not one… NOT ONE SINGLE SALES PERSON made their projected numbers… not even close… (ultimately for 5 months) no one performed to their expectations. So instead of doing something other than threatening their salaries… Oh I don’t know, like starting an internal sales team who actually knew how to sell or just getting new sales people in house… they decide to cut cost and since I “had no work” now decided to cut me. It’s not a big big deal, sure it sucks… I cant say that I loved the job but it was a job and right now in this economy it’s a big hit.
Some bittersweet info that came on the same day was the nomination to the Sammy Awards for the site I designed for the company. MY nomination stated that MY site was a finalist in the awards and while it may not win the whole show, it’s nice to finally be recognized, even if my name isn’t on the award.
Lancaster, PA
