Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:39:33 -0400
From: "Sean Gallagher" <sean-AT-iwkbaltlab.com>
Subject: Welcome to Machine (a.k.a. United News PLC)


Hey folks-- here's the latest anarchist
dispatch from the capitalist  world. My
company, CMP Media, was bought today for
920 million US dollars by United News
and Media PLC, a multinational based in
Britain (more familiar to you folks on
that side of the pond as the company
that owns the Express and the Star
newspapers--so now those page 3 girls
are colleagues). The spokesfiend for UN
(an ironic acronym) said that he
expected CMP to generate a 20 percent
profit margin under the new management,
and that would probably come via $40
million in "cost and overhead savings."

"Overhead savings" sounds suspiciously
like "getting the axe" to me. I'm
starting to get just a little gunshy of
British corps now, as this is the second
company I've worked for that got
absorbed by one (last time it was
Reed-Elsevier).  Plus, I've been
checking out the web links of my new
feudal lords, and, well, they're even
more unpaletable than the business
rah-rah that has made up the majority of
the pap my company turns out.

Of course, everyone above me in the food
chain at CMP is thrilled. Mostly, it's
the fact that they'll be getting $39 a
share for their stock in the company
(after holding it for less than a year
in most cases and getting a 120% return
on its initial value). Of course, the
stock "gift" I was given by the company
when we went public is now worth a
whopping $884.00--enough to make a
serious dent in my Sears account.

So I'm looking at my alternatives, in
this, the "Long Boom" economy. They're
not horrible, but they're not as good as
they used to be. Most of my choices now
seem to fall into two categories: (a)
some similar corporate vassalhood, or
(b) a job with a make nothing, earn
nothing, do nothinng  Internet start-up.
Then, of course, there's the route to
"Free Agent" that that pathetic Fast
Company Magazine keeps touting--A.K.A.
freelance contractor, no health
insurance, no benefits.

Sure, it could be a lot worse. I could
be out on my ass with nothing but debt
and two kids and a significant other to
support on whatever I can scrape up,
plus Maryland unemployment and an
"Independence Card" (aka electronic food
stamps). It's that kind of uncertainty
that keeps most schleps in shackles
their whole lives, unwilling to risk
change.

Suffer, the poor petty bourgoise . . .

Anyway, I've got 25 days before the
transaction goes through. Maybe the
revolution'll come before then.