Layoffs, Nikki Sixx, Edwin Outwater, Yuja Wang, Bleach
It was not a good last week – layoffs. Hopefully temporary, but still not good.
I counted up the other day, and I’ve now been through 7 layoffs (yes, I worked in the software industry after Y2K and during the dot com bust). Three times as one of the people laid off, three times as the manager laying people off, and now twice as a survivor.
As we all know, the economy is “challenged” right now, and one of the industries hit really hard is advertising. Study after study after study that proves that those companies who market themselves when times are tough typically get much better than normal increases in brand recognition, and are the ones who do really well when things rebound. Part of the reason however is that in tough times, marketing is seen as an unnecessary expense, a cost that can be quickly cut without real impact to the core of the business. Most CEOs do not realize that their brand is the core of being anything more than just one more middle-of-the-road / who-has-the-best-price-today option. Or don’t care.
In most of the layoffs I’ve been through before, there was at least some dead weight, or some people who just were not a good fit for their role. This time that wasn’t the case, it’s a small firm, and nobody who was affected deserved anything other than keeping their job. Having said that, when multiple customers decide to not advertise for the year, it kind of impacts your work load.
This led to a definite “TGIF” end of the week, and a need to relax. Thought I would share what I considered relaxation last Friday, it was a nicely eclectic mix ranging from sort-of-punk rock to classical piano to anime…
1. Nikki Sixx. I needed a little “high energy” music on the airwaves on the way home to air out the head first, and happened to pick Sixx: A.M. featuring bassist Nikki. And who is this clean, upstanding exemplar of music, you might ask? I think this picture, the Questionable Content cartoon, and following Wikipedia quote, say it all. Hmm, he’s even older than me.
Wikipedia: On the night of December 23, 1987, Sixx was declared dead for two minutes after a heroin overdose, only to be revived by paramedics with two adrenaline shots to the heart
2. Edwin Outwater. Our local Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony has seen this youthful California native, who has been awarded for his success in music outreach especially to youth, join as music director, and I have to say he’d doing a great job. He finally admitted Friday night that “okay, it’s colder here in Canada than he’s used to”! The program for the evening was “Prometheus” featuring works by Beethoven and Brahms.
He’s a very busy person, and is involved with many more symphonies than ours – his schedule (available on his blog) for this month alone includes New Jersey, Kitchener-Waterloo, Chicago, Columbus, and of course his time at home in California.
3. Yuja Wang. This very talented 21 year old Chinese pianist was the soloist for the evening. Her youth is so evident in her playing … very energetic in the strong passages, a lot of emphasis on technical finger work. Very good reviews in the paper the next day. We heard that evening that she has just been signed to a Deutsch Gramophone recording contract.
Every year when I first go back to the Center In The Square for the season, I’m reminded at how great the acoustics are in this building - you could hear every single note from every instrument so clearly. For the relatively small population of area we live in, we have a truly world-class facility. It’s not huge, it’s not great looking from the outside, but it definitely gives us the ability to hear and enjoy concerts and events in a way many in much larger cities world-wide cannot.
4. Bleach. End of the evening, time to view the weekly subbed episode of Bleach – number 202 this time. Kurosaki Ichigo and his friends, in a parallel world battling the evil monsters. A good old-fashioned storyof good vs evil, with typical Japanese anime perspective (Ichigo is the red-headed guy in the middle of the picture below). Fun mindless entertainment (with no commercials!).
At the end of the day, thanks to musical and comic creation by people from around the world, some peace.
