“Survivor”-- The Silicon Valley Episode
Story by Elizabeth Gonzalez // art by Fernando Amaro Jr.

For workers in Silicon Valley, the four years of economic recuperation since the dot com crash have been marked by the one constant, realistic fear – layoffs.   While similar culprits are blamed for lay-offs – off shoring and corporate mergers, what is different now in 2005 is the new way workers are strategizing to save themselves from the unemployment lines.

One technician, going by the name of   “Jared,” works at a local company that does contract engineering and manufacturing.   His ongoing struggle to keep his job, is an account of the chess game that workers are playing to stay employed. Jared has chosen not to disclose his real name because of fear of jeopardizing his job.

Jared is one of those exceptions that were believed to be the rule in Silicon Valley. He didn't finish high school, but he ended up with a great career as a mechanical technician, moving into being a supervisor on the production line with a local high tech company.

When the economy came crashing down in 2001, he didn't loose his sense of security and he didn't feel the burden like many of the others who were left jobless. He had already taken a break to run a restaurant with his family, but after a few years of that work he yearned to return to high tech. He says, “High-tech was my environment, although it is stressful at times, you feel alive. “ He heard about a position open at the same company he spent many years at and applied. He came into a whole new world from the one he had left recently. The “game” (a term he uses to describe the way workers jockey to keep their job or move up) was full of secret conversations, hidden agendas, and plenty of feelings of betrayal.            

He still knew many people at the company and was told that the previous applicant didn't get the job only because he knew too many people on the site. “As I walked onto the floor during the interview I looked straight ahead paying attention only to the interviewer,

completely ignoring the friends I felt were watching me,” Jared says.  

He got the position and his good friend in management let it be known in not so many words that from then on they didn't know him, so that it wouldn't hurt their employment status either.   

An announcement came through that the company was shutting down and reducing personnel shortly after Jared started working. Within a week, Jared noticed that the chain of command broke down.

“All of a sudden the ‘suits' were starting to come out to the production floor to ask questions,” Jared recalls. “They had never made it onto the floor before, they're considered ‘on the other side of the wall', ” he says.

One day Jared received an email from the VP saying that he should meet him the following day for lunch. He thought it was strange that the VP would email him and not his boss, as the chain of command would dictate.   Meetings between workers and the VP are virtually unheard of .

At the lunch meeting, the VP had asked Jared to give his recommendations of who should stay and who should be voted out – essentially a cut list. Jared didn't want to be the cause of anyone's firing so instead he chose only to say things about those he knew were doing a good job.   “I did feel some kind of loyalty to some people, but eventually I did what was best for the company,” Jared states. He gave his recommendations of who should stay and who should go.

Although his gut told him it was wrong, he was also given an incentive to cooperate. Jared says, “They let me know that they are going forward and that I could be part of the crew or look for another job.”

That's when it started feeling more and more like a Survivor finale. It turned into the elimination rounds where contestants vote their competition off the show.

Jared started talking to more people, making friends and trying to feel everyone out. He says he was thinking about who was most likely to still be there when it was all over, although he knew no one was safe.   He had been asked what he thought of different people and making rounds was his way of getting to know who was actually doing their job on the floor so he could get that information back to the VP.  

Before Jared had a chance to tell one friend about the meeting with the VP, word had already gotten around about the meeting. His friend felt backstabbed as if Jared had tried to keep it from him. Years of friendship and loyalty suddenly meant nothing because the guy refused to even acknowledge Jared. Jared looked really saddened and lowered his eyes as he said, “It was no more ‘good morning buddy,' it was silence.”

The final list ended up being small—only 20 people made it out of 130 workers as of the end of June. One of Jared's co-workers who didn't make the list, a woman named Linda Tran, remembers,   “I didn't go to lunch, and didn't take breaks sometimes so I could stay on with the company. I went in when they wanted -- and for what?”

The workers who didn't make the list are angry and frustrated; some of them worked there for years and now have nowhere else to go Jared says.   “I attended about 10 last lunches, where people where given their exit interviews and then were walked out by their superiors.   Watching that felt like it was cold, but it's what happens in this environment. When things are good it's cool, but when it's ugly, people start changing,” Jared recalls.

On their last day workers simply have to walk off and go home as the losers in another round of eliminations, with no million dollar prize and not even a thank you.