"Creative chief drives Imagineering"

[Werner Weiss]

See Creative chief drives Imagineering, by Richard Verrier, Orlando Sentinel, posted September 21, 2002. It's about Marty Sklar.

Any reaction from the DIS Disney Rumors and News board?

 

[Mooobooks]

The two imagineers I know, one in California and the other in Florida, both got sacked the other day when 50% of the Research and Development sector of WDI was canned with little warning.
Not happy times at WDI.

 

[Luv2Roam]

PR lip service. It is as if they are saying, 'See, we ARE too following in Walt's footsteps. Doesn't THIS convince you.?'

Boosted by Eisner and former Disney President Frank Wells, the group's payroll grew from 400 in the 1980s to more than 2,500 by the late 1990s. Employment has since fallen to 1,600, as the pace of work has ebbed but another growth spurt is expected as Disney builds a theme park in Hong Kong and plans a second park in China.

If Disney is expecting another growth spurt, why were so many let go?
Of course what compnaies do now, are let LOTS of people go, cutting everywhere. That way they can't get singled out as much in lawsuits for firing people. Then once the dust settles, they bring some back under different titles.

 

[manning]

Except in most cases they don't get the best ones back.

The good people are not going to have a hard time, relatively speaking, getting a new job. Also in times of massive cut backs, it's the cream of the crop that is lost. The cream looks around and wisely decides to get out before the shoe drops, giving them the advantage of not having to compete for jobs with those that are going to be let go.

I worked for the same company for over 30 years. Every time a cut back happened we lost the cream of the crop. They didn't wait for the incentive package. And just about every time they got better jobs than they had.

In the short term cut backs worked for the company. In the long term they paid for it, sometimes dearly.

 

[Luv2Roam]

manning -- very true.
I have seen this over and over. From my experience, it has been the employees who were close to retiring, set in their ways and/or had nothing else happening were those who returned. But nothing is ever the same.
Even those who return know from personal experience there is no loyalty, so none comes from them either. Their motivation is very different from before.