Victims of the tech wreck: Life after layoffs for seven dot-commers

They came from all walks of life seeking all sorts of rewards. Some were risk-takers hoping to be a part of a business revolution. Others simply wanted to try something new. More than a couple were looking to make a quick buck in a hot industry.

Now, seven laid-off dot-commers -- a public relations director, software tester, salesman, office manager, technology guru, facilities manager and Web site editor -- talk about life after the Internet bubble has burst.

Losing your job is never easy. But the way it is handled varies from person to person.

Some, such as former HomeGrocer.com and Bidpath public relations director Stacy Drake, are rolling with the punches, enjoying their time off and looking for the next opportunity.

Others, such as Ken Wiens, a 48-year-old father of two, are struggling to find work and considering going back to school.

And others, such as 28-year-old Shelley Rossi, have retreated from the technology world altogether.

"I took my chance. I did my risky thing," says Rossi, a former Web site editor who turned down an offer at a second Internet company for a more stable job in real estate.

Since May, more than 7,200 people have lost their jobs in the state's technology sector. Here are seven of their stories.

Shelly Rossi
ePods.com
Age: 28
Position: Web site editor
Laid off: June

After being laid off from Internet appliance maker ePods last summer, Shelley Rossi was so distraught that she sat down at her personal computer and penned a 625-word essay about her experiences in the Internet industry.

Called "Easydot.com, Easydot.go," it was her way of dealing with the pain of losing a job she loved.

"So here I am, an ex-dot-commer, laid off in a companywide downsizing due to financial cutbacks," she wrote. "Am I bitter? Absolutely not. Do I regret it? Never. Even if it was for only a short time, I was an integral part of something new and exciting. Something that gave me as much, if not more, than what I was able to give it."

Being laid off was like a "family being split apart," she says. More than 100 people lost their jobs when the developer of handheld Internet appliances shut down last year.

But the 28-year-old quickly bounced back from the experience. Even though ePods did not provide a severance package, executives at the company helped her land a three-month contract assignment at Nordstrom.com a week after she was let go. She was offered a full-time position at the online retailer. But Rossi -- having cleansed herself of the Internet bug -- decided to turn down the offer.

"I feel great about what I did and that I took the risk," she says about her eight-month foray into the Internet world. "But you know how it is after you get burned. Even though I don't feel the experience was negative, I said, 'Do I really want to put myself in a position again where I could be laid off?'"

So in September, one month after getting married, she decided to find a job that was a little more "stable" and "structured." After several job offers, she settled on a public relations position at John L. Scott Real Estate in Bellevue.

Rossi, who filled out four W2 forms this tax season, says she is happy not to be working for a dot-com. "I guess you could say I was ready to join the real world again."

Stacy Drake
Homegrocer.com
Age: 32
Position: Public relations director
Laid off: Dec. 15

Stacy Drake has the unique distinction of being laid off from two dot-coms in 49 days.

"I think I might have some honor here," admits Drake, who was let go from HomeGrocer.com in December and then online auction start-up Bidpath in early February.

Despite what many would see as bad luck, Drake doesn't seem too worried about the strange turn of events. She has spent recent days completing her tax forms, reading books, sewing and weeding the garden. But she has cut back on at least one favorite pastime.

"My first instinct was to go shopping. But then I thought I better conserve my severance," Drake says.

She is trying to remain upbeat, distancing her personal situation from what she reads in the newspaper.

"(Being laid off) is not the worst thing that has ever happened to me," she says. "Do I feel good enough to join another start-up? Maybe not. But I am not so burned that I would never again look at an Internet start-up."

Anyway, there are benefits to being laid off by two companies in less than two months. Unlike many dot-commers, Drake is comfortably sitting on two severance packages. She now jokes with friends that it would be a great time to be nine months' pregnant.

Drake says the layoffs were handled well at both firms. But being let go from HomeGrocer.com was harder because most people knew the cuts were coming six months in advance.

"It was hard to be in that limbo. That was kind of frustrating," says Drake, who was one of hundreds of HomeGrocer.com employees laid off after Webvan purchased the company in June.

At Bidpath, where she was one of about a dozen people to lose their jobs, there was no warning of the impending ax. When Drake arrived on a Monday afternoon last month to clean out her desk, she says she was treated well by executives. "There wasn't anyone standing over me as I boxed up my stuff. I was able to log on to my computer. It wasn't an icky feeling, let's just put it that way," she says.

Now that Drake is moving on, she is cautiously optimistic about the future.

"Check back with me in three months," Drake says. "If I don't have a job, this won't be a good thing."

Ken Weins
Sierra Online
Age: 48
Position: Software tester
Laid off: December

Finding work has not been easy for Ken Wiens, who lost his job at Bellevue computer game maker Sierra Online a week before Christmas in a companywide restructuring that affected 54 people. The father of two grown children, whose wife works in medical records at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, has interviewed with half a dozen firms during the past four months with little luck.

Things seemed to be picking up last month when he received two calls from job placement agencies and had one lengthy interview with a local company. But he says nothing "concrete has come through yet."

"I turn 49 next month, and I am beginning to wonder if it makes a difference when (the employers) see the gray hairs," says Wiens, who is collecting unemployment and is coming to the end of his severance pay.

Getting laid off has brought out mixed emotions.

At times, the self-described poet says he feels like his 20-year-old son who works at Trader Joe's and is struggling to figure out his career path.

"You kind of feel useless, but then you think of all the different opportunities out there, too," he says.

While Wiens is a Microsoft Certified Professional and has spent more than 10 years in high-tech, he says he needs more skills to make it in the ever-changing technology world. He is especially interested in learning more about Visual Basic, one of the programming languages used in creating Windows applications.

So, on March 12, Wiens is going back to school through a government-supported program that pays for tuition, textbooks and certification tests. The five-month program at Bellevue Community College will retrain Wiens to become a network administrator with skills to maintain and oversee personal computer networks. It was not his first choice. But it is better than letting technology pass you by, he says.

Still, if Wiens was offered a job before the first class there is no question what he would do. "If something came up in the next two weeks, I would go for it," he says.

Kacey Hawker
Drivewire.com
Age: 38
Position: Office manager
Laid off: May

Undergoing back surgery is bad enough. Not having your company pay for it is downright frightening.

While Kacey Hawker only spent three months working in the Internet field, those 90 days have caused tremendous pain, emotional stress and financial setbacks.

Hawker's dot-com nightmare started a couple of months after joining Bellevue online automobile parts retailer drivewire.com.

Soon after being hired in March, Hawker was stricken with back pain and told by her doctors that surgery was necessary to repair a slipped disk.

A week before the back surgery, drivewire.com managers notified Hawker that she would be laid off for four weeks and recalled later in the summer.

What managers failed to tell her was that they had stopped paying her health insurance.

After a successful surgery, Hawker was planning to return to drivewire.com in August when on July 18 she received a letter from Premera/Blue Cross -- her health insurance company -- saying she was not covered at the time of the surgery. Facing a $25,000 medical bill and "financial devastation," Hawker panicked.

"That is when my world was rocked. I had to sit down. It was like the wind had been knocked out of me," she says.

Hawker later discovered that drivewire.com had not made health-care payments since April for her or her fellow employees. She also learned that Premera/Blue Cross pre-authorized the back surgery even though drivewire.com was past due on payments.

Hawker, who was never brought back to work at the struggling company, contacted a couple of lawyers but each wanted a significant retainer, something the unemployed single woman could not afford. She then turned to the Washington State Insurance Commissioner's office, which helped her sort out the mess and negotiate a deal with Premera/Blue Cross to pay part of the bill. Although she now owes $7,000 in medical fees, she is glad the ordeal is behind her.

Hawker returned to her original employer -- Bothell fitness equipment manufacturer Precor -- in August. She now says her short hop into the Internet world will be her "first and last" and the entire experience has left her feeling "kind of numb."

Jeff Coe
Docutouch
Age: 34
Position: Sales
Laid off: Feb. 5

Just a couple of months into his job at DocuTouch, salesman Jeff Coe knew the Seattle start-up was in trouble.

In December, the 3-year-old Internet company cut salaries by 10 percent, eliminated free parking and told staffers that the main service -- a digital signature technology -- was not gaining ground with customers.

"They were spending stupidly, spending $30,000 a month on airline advertisements before the (in-flight) movie," recalls Coe.

But it wasn't until the company shut its doors for two weeks around Christmas and asked employees not to show up for work that Coe, who just bought a house in Issaquah, saw the writing on the wall. He casually began searching for new work, spending hours on Internet job sites such as Monster.com. The job hunting process, however, took on added pressure in early February when Coe and 23 others were given pink slips and two-week severance packages.

The former salesman at RealNetworks and Xerox Corp. is stressed.

Most of Coe's personal savings went into remodeling his newly purchased house, including a $6,000 carpet. In addition to house payments, other bills are adding up.

His wife's salary as a teacher helps. But Coe quickly points out, "You know what teachers make." The couple also has a young child to support.

"What you have here is a highly motivated person who needs to find something now," Coe says.

The job-hunting process is somewhat clouded by thoughts of his past experiences at DocuTouch, his first time working at an Internet start-up.

"Here I am, a cocky, arrogant sales guy who is the eternal optimist," says Coe. "Being laid off does make you question your abilities."

Coe is not letting ego get in the way, however, and says that life goes on. He has met with several companies and has been called back for second and third interviews with a couple of firms.

Still, he says, "Until you get that job, it is certainly stressful."

J.P. Miller
Kindred
Age: 31
Position: Facilities purchasing manager
Laid off: Dec. 7

Dec. 7, 2000, is a day that will live in infamy for J.P. Miller.

OK. Maybe not that bad.

But the 31-year-old purchasing manager is still reeling from the bomb that was dropped on him and 11 other workers at Kindred Communications that day.

Called into one of the Internet consulting company's conference rooms, Miller was notified that his services were no longer needed at the Bellevue company. He was paid for 2 1/2 weeks of vacation, given a last paycheck and promised a week of severance pay.

Then, after a cordial meeting with the owners and a brief instruction session with the information systems director the following week, Miller packed up his gear and left.

Now, 2 1/2 months later, the Queen Anne resident is still waiting for the severance check to arrive.

"Last time I spoke to them, they said they were hoping to pay it before May," says Miller, who is collecting unemployment but says money is starting "to run a little low."

He is cutting back on expenses, going only to matinee movies and skipping restaurants.

"I am not going out to eat anymore. I am not buying any luxury items, and I pretty much walk everywhere," he says.

The job-search process has been slow with only one call from an employment agency in the past month and a half. That job, he says, was filled by the time he called back. A trip to last month's Pink Slip party at the I-Spy nightclub turned up few leads.

"It is kind of like nothing is safe," he says.

But, in one respect, Miller is lucky. About a half dozen of his buddies have been laid off from companies like Amazon.com, Nordstrom.com and HomeGrocer.com in the past six months, so he says, "At least I have a lot of company."

Peter Richards
Infospace
Age: 31
Position: Director of advertising technology
Laid off: Feb. 5

At 2:15 on Monday, Feb. 5, Peter Richards received an e-mail requesting his presence at the Bellevue DoubleTree Hotel fifteen minutes later.

Walking to the parking garage in the InfoSpace headquarters, Richards saw a group of security guards milling about. By the time he arrived at the hotel he knew he was losing his job.

"It was kind of like the gas chamber," says Richards, describing the mood at the hotel. "You walked in and signed your name. You knew what was coming."

Richards, one of the first 20 employees hired at the company, couldn't believe he was being laid off. He says he had positive job performance evaluations and was one of the few employees who understood the intricacies of the company's online advertising system.

Like the 20 or so other employees in the room, Richards was handed a severance package by the human resources director and then instructed to return to InfoSpace the following Saturday to retrieve personal items.

A total of 250 people lost their jobs in the layoff.

"It was a humbling experience. It was a slap in the face," says Richards, whose brother, also an executive at InfoSpace, filed a lawsuit against the company in December over a disputed stock option package.

Richards still believes his firing was retribution for his brother's lawsuit. He has hired a lawyer to explore his options.

An InfoSpace spokesman said the company does not discuss individual layoffs.

Meanwhile, the pink slip could not have come at a worse time. In addition to losing his salary, Richards forfeited stock options. His wife had a baby last week and a remodeling project at his home in southeast Bellevue is in jeopardy.