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To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (34389)	9/23/2001 1:24:35 AM
From: Lachesis Atropos	Respond to of 67928

Hi Harry, I am back in Colorado Springs at WCom. The dominant mood here are concerns about employment. The Springs was hit hard with layoffs from LSI, INTEL, Compaq, HP, Aligent and WCom. Some stores have reduced hours that they are open. Friday evening I had to go to CompUSA. The parking lot was empty. It services Pet Mart, Garts Sports, Circuit City ... Today I went to Home Depot and found many parking spots close to the entrance -- very unusual -- though I may have just had good parking karma? This weekend things look like they have slowed down. The market for existing homes has also dropped. Last months report on new housing showed strong demand; however I am seeing apartment advertisements with two months free rent after signing a one year lease. This is unprecedented in Colorado Springs. One never got free rent here before. I am still fearful of getting laid off. Over the last few months WCom has been steadily letting contractors and employees go. Rumor has it that WCom will announce another major layoff in October. WCom moral is at an all time low. My manager warns our team every meeting about being careful of what we say on bridge calls. Directors, senior managers and manager are under a constant attack of justify their existence and the maintenance and development of the applications they support. The Nimda virus took 3 days out of WCom's internal network. Service level agreements have been violated. Now we have code freezes and moratoriums in place. Due to low support staff this is expected -- though management has yet to realize the impact. Customers are complaining about poor service. The mood regarding WTCs is empathetic, compassionate and patriotic. WCom's employee mood revolves around cynicism and labor disputes about hours and days of work. If necessary, one is expected to work Saturdays and Sundays at any time of the day in addition to a normal day without compensation. WCom will not even pay for a hamburger after a 12 hour day. Work is not as bad as it looks in writing, WCom demands great flexibility from its employees.