Surviving at Sun

This was my first course: Surviving at Sun. Almost 9 years ago. I forget what it was about. I just remember the title. Almost every year I have been at Sun there have been layoffs. Sometimes it felt as frequent as every quarter. Every quarter that Sun didn't make it's numbers, there was a layoff. It seemed to be going along, not really growing but it would never regain the stature that it had during the dot-com boom years more than a decade ago.

But then the financial meltdown of 2008. The greed and risks that the financial institutions took finally caught up. It was a serious time. Business made the necessary cutbacks and adjustments. There were layoffs, but the situation felt very different from any other time in the last 10 years. Call it intuition, but I smelled smoke. Then in March of 2009 the rumours of IBM acquiring Sun. But the deal fell through, and within weeks Oracle came into the picture and the deal was done. But then it took 9 months to get worldwide approval and finalize. On Jan 27th, Sun finally went down. Oracle officially acquired Sun.

Working at Sun has been a lot of fun and great experience. It will always be a big part of my life and the people I've had the pleasure of working with have helped shape my career.

And today was my last day as a Sun employee. It was a tough day, watching emails pour in from all over North America. The farewells from folks that had been with Sun for 20+ years. I'm going to miss the friends and colleagues that were laid off today. All of them very smart and capable people and I wish them all the best. Take it easy, enjoy your much deserved break. Re-energize and I'm sure another door will open.

Business is business. A job is a job.
What can you do? You can only control what is in your power to control. You can't worry about the stuff you can't. What happens now for me? Going to wait for the dust to settle and move on. Look for the positives and opportunities, in this next era without Sun Microsystems.

Come Monday, I am an Oracle employee.