Dog Bites

 Okay, So the Choices are "No Pay" or "No Job"

It's hideously embarrassing, but we recently realized we're flat-out addicted to FuckedCompany.com, the dot-com deadpool. And before anyone accuses us of Schadenfreude -- it isn't that. It's the messages posted on the Super Happy Fun Slander Corner, where almost everyone is mean, most people are surpassingly immature, and the occasional crybaby misguided enough to point out the meanness and immaturity gets blasted with a post like this: "You come to a site called FuckedCompany and read postings on the Happy Fun Slander Corner and are surprised to read the abuse that is being handed out to the featured companies, who generally have pissed away more money than some Third World countries spend on health. What did you expect, a group hug and the posters here offering their commiserations to this bunch of losers?"

God, it's funny. Of course, you couldn't pay us to post to FC -- we're sensitive -- but the site is becoming one of our principal sources of information on the new new economy; bitter techies, we find, can be remarkably eloquent.

This week bitterness reached a new high when a disgruntled employee of Mission-based 415.com, a Web design firm, posted an internal company survey to the site -- a survey in which 415's 80-odd employees were asked a series of questions including:

"5. Would you stay at 415 if your salary was indefinitely reduced? This assumes no change in hours/week.

• No
• Yes, up to a 10% reduction
• Yes, up to a 20% reduction
• Yes, up to a 30% reduction

9. Would you be willing to defer salary payment?

• No
• Yes, I would defer 1 month payment (to be paid no later than the end of the year).
• Yes, I would defer 2 months payment (to be paid no later than the end of the year).

20. Are you in favor of enacting the layoffs as soon as possible? Note that this assumes a severance package.

• Yes
• No

Well, it certainly wasn't the kind of thing one hopes to find in one's email inbox, but the storm of responses on the FC message boards -- accusing the company's executives of management by committee -- started an interesting debate: If you were about to be laid off, would having a say in your layoff make you feel better?

Given the economy, this question could become significant, so Dog Bites called Barbara Pagano, managing director of 415 -- which Friday laid off 16 people. Pagano, who's voluntarily taken a 10% pay cut herself, explained the company had also conducted a series of meetings in which management laid out 415's financial position to employees. "I think the survey was taken out of context," she said. "During layoffs, most people feel completely out of control. Doing it this way, even if they ultimately get laid off, they feel like they were treated with respect."

Of course, we're not sure how many other local dot-coms will be inspired to be as up-front with their own employees; often, it seems, the carpetbagging young executives vanish in their TTs just before the Kool-Aid party for everyone else.

Still, it's the thought that counts.

It's Raining, It's Pouring

Waking every morning to the sound of rain spattering on the window, Dog Bites is beginning to wonder why Seattle doesn't actually have a higher suicide rate. Why even get up? Why not just lie there, consumed by thoughts like, "But we did say it was a cane. Does Rob Morse need new reading glasses, or what?" and "Hey, didn't we used to have a mayor? Whatever happened to him?"

Oh, and we'd just like to acknowledge those of our readers who called and wrote to point out that while we might have saved money on our electricity bill, we probably spent money going out to dance. Wow, thanks! We hadn't thought of that.

Then again, as our colleague Mark Athitakis commented, "I'd give money to PG&E if they had a big dance party."

Say, we can't be the only ones thinking benefit.

Anyway, Saturday night our friends tried to cheer us up by dragging us to the Hush Hush for -- "What is this music, anyway?" complained a member of our party.

"Samba!" we answered, and just the thing to make you forget you've apparently been unwittingly relocated to the Pacific Northwest, but oddly enough it was held to be hard to dance to, so that didn't last long, and we ended up at Loöq Hard, which for once wasn't packed to the rafters, probably because the driving rain was enough to persuade all but the most dedicated techno-phile to stay home with a nice mug of hot chocolate.

Scrubbing stamps off our wrist the next morning -- the ritual Sunday ablution -- we contemplated the options: Stay home, shivering in the heatless living room, or go in to work, where we can run the space heater on the company dime.