Layoffs

As most of you know, I have a job outside of being a pastor at church. I have worked at Novell for almost 15 years now and almost every year we have had a series of layoffs. When I first started, we had a layoff about 30 days after I began and I was very worried. I worked for almost a year with people I knew to get a job here and I was so worried the new guy would be the first on the chopping block.
I was wrong.
Novell did a great job of a yearly layoff that really weeded out the chaff. Sure, there were some good people that were laid off, but generally they were usually the ones that we could afford to go ahead and lay off.
That ended a few years ago. In my opinion, they were making decisions that caused some of our products would be removed rather than laying off others. Since then, layoffs have been a lot more tense. Just being good at what you do is no longer enough to ensure you continue to have a job.
So now we are in the midst of another layoff. The executive management generally does not tell us grunts much about what is going on, and they usually tell their VPs who tell the directors who tell the managers that they are not to tell us much. And the managers do not tell us much. But it appears there will be quite a few people being laid off this round.
It's tough. It doesn't matter if you are laid off or not you are affected by this. Your friends will either be out looking for a job and worrying about how to feed their families and you empathize and work with them to help find a job. Or it's you out looking for a job. It's emotionally rough.