Here was Ned's response (with stuff in blue to not reveal too-sensitive information or to explain certain details):

Re Status:According to Rich (CEO), the current burn rate* is lotsofmoney/month, previous to downsizing it was hugemoney/month. Our revenue is less than lotsofmoney/month, so we're still going in the hole significantmoney/month but we have resources to cover that for awhile. Rich did not rule out further lay offs, it depends on sales. Hoping stuff in pipeline closes in Q4 or Q1 /05.

RE: Proceed in sales- no real word yet, Joe Depalo and Brian Tom were laid off, three territories, East/Central/West, Fed Gov group is untouched, opportunities are being redistributed for RSMs**, focus on closing business in pipeline, blah, blah, blah.

Most of what we have sold is non-server product/services in Fed Gov.

South Africa à la Steve was not mentioned as part of Q3-Q4 pipeline. Maybe they just don't believe it will ever really materialize despite having a signed agreement (apparently the S. African rep reneged on a similar contract last year)

Joe Depalo and Brian Tom are being allowed to close deals they have near completion, although they lose their jobs after that. Not sure why Steve couldn't have worked out same deal for his South Africa 1.2 mil. Normal procedure is for sales reps to get paid for business already under contract.

Rich has said management group would not entertain questions as to why one person was laid off over another.

The mood is quiet acceptance, R&D seems to blame sales for failure. One of them asked if changes in sales procedures were being implemented. Rich said no. Some asked what cost cutting measures were being instituted (other than lay offs) Rich said none really. Fucking figures.

Mood in sales from RSMs is "too bad, so sad but life goes on.

The company has arranged a line of credit and some of the executive team members are kicking in their own money to keep things afloat, also some old investors are re-upping cash.

I'm sure Arlene must have called in by now and discovered the good news. I wonder if Antoine (customer support guy that left the company two days before the bloodbath) knew anything we didn't?

Besides that nothing new.

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Recall when I said that I was going to go back into work for a meeting with my boss to discuss how I was doing with respect to the problems encountered earlier. I was supposed to start the meeting at 9:30 a.m., last Tuesday, September 21. Actually, I was supposed to start 24 hours earlier, but these mortgage people showed up at the last minute and ruined her day. Anyway, I got there with 10 minutes to spare, so I started chatting with people in the company. Turns out that my boss was barely seen since the layoffs as she's been in meetings for days. Even my meeting with her was thirty minutes late.

in waiting, I noticed a lot of changes. First, the company used to have two wings or the North and South. Now there's only the South wing. They moved the survivors from the North wing to the South. Ned is now sitting in my cube, Giorgio is now sitting in my original cube, Chantal is all alone, and the surviving marketing women are untouched (the only one to get the axe was the student). There was definitely a weird vibe. It was during this time that I was told that I was due to receive 8 weeks severance instead of just two. Not bad.

We talked about some other things first, such as whether or not the company was going to honour their commitment to me regarding them paying for my classes this term. She thinks that it should be no problem, but she has to get back to me. She still hasn't. But I really wanted to talk about the salient points of our meeting on August 17^th.

• WRT Initiative and organizational skills: My ability to listen carefully to what was going on and contribute in a meaningful fashion increased 100%, back to the levels they were in back in April. I was able to bring to their attention things that they would not have been able to see. My workday was more logical and better organized and I got more done.
• WRT Attendance, Tardiness:A fairly easy solution: come in on time or earlier, and alert her when late. Easy, and I was 100% effective.
• WRT Respect and Inappropriate comments:This was the one I really cared about. Since then there were no complaints, no incidents, nothing. Frankly, she wasn't even sure if these complaints were legitimate since they were all hearsay from her point of view. Quite often, these complaints came in second- and third-hand. There was one case, however, in which I knew exactly who is was that complained. It was the industry market research woman who now works out of Vancouver. She hated it whenever I noticed when her hair was different, or if she got new shoes.
  To explain, she seemed to have been in a bit of a decline since around January. She was in a serious rut. She just looked miserable, and it was sad. She also had a scare with her father suddenly needing serious surgery. In my experience, people like that often perk up when a kind word is sent their way, something as simple as "you look nice today" in addition to the one time when I asked are how her father was doing. So I complimented her a few times in a few months. Not weeks or days. Months. Like maybe five times in five months. But I guess it was too much. Looking back, I can see why I should have focused more on her work than anything else.

All in all, my boss completely agreed with me that the people with the problem should have simply come to me to get it all straightened out rather than involve her. They blew it up out of proportion, forcing her to do the same. I feel somewhat exonerated.

Now that that was taken care of, I simply had to sign some documents and lleave. I asked the HR woman what she knew about my inappropriate comments thing, and she said that she knew nothing other than that I got a formal warning. She also noted that she complimented me more than once in September, and found that interesting.

Well, there's more information, but I'll cut this entry off here.

* Burn rate: how much money a must company spend, or burns in a given time period.
** RSMs: Regional Sales Managers