Sign Of The Times I Guess

Picked up my morning Free Press and thought some of it must have blown away, it was so light - Haven't gone through it yet, but must be a lot of businesses aren't advertising.

Some disturbing news on the front page regarding rumors of IBM Layoffs, however, they are only rumors and many times the layoffs are those of Temporary Employees.

In the old days before the manufacturing process got so complicated, IBM used to subcontract a percentage of its work load, so when times slowed down, they would bring the work back into the plants. They are a company that works very hard at maintaining steady employment. I remember back in the 1970s or 80s when work was really slow and employees were asked to volunteer to do a number of things around the plant to keep busy like changing the flourescent bulbs and other low skill maintenance type tasks on the buildings or grounds.

It was better than a lay-off and the employees, or I should say most of them, didn't seem to mind as long as they had work.