Free At Last – Laid Off
Almost 7 years to the day I started with Atex I was laid off. Not a big deal, but I’ll admit it’s hard to leave the people you’ve worked and suffered with over nearly a decade without a bit of remorse.
This means that I’m finally free to speak. Long time readers of the Blog have probably noticed that details about who the heck I am have been obscured, as I always feared that my corporate overlords would find it and I’d be fired. Alas, no such worries anymore.
I’m Mark Cahill – I have been Corporate Webmaster for Atex for the past 7 years, and prior to that I was Webmaster for Pegasus Satellite Television. I have been a Webmaster since 1995, which is pretty much the dawn of the Internet. I am also the Managing Editor for Reel-Time.com – The Internet Journal of Saltwater Fly Fishing since about that time, and I also used to have a site called “Mark Cahill’s Fishing New England” which could be considered one of the first blogs ever created, in 1995.
While at Atex I was product manager for Internet Content Management for a product which was eventually killed, called “Omnex” – it was to be a truly revolutionary editorial content management system, and even though it was shelved in late 2001, some of it’s features are still not rivaled in any content management system available today, and I have evaluated many of them. Particularly, the product had an easily managed scriptable workflow that which would even today be considered state of the art.
Even though I continued on as Corporate Webmaster, I did have the privledge of evaluating and initiating a partnership with Ektron, developers of the CMS400.Net Internet Content Management system – a truly incredible CMS.
I used to write for the Worcester Telegram as an entertainment critic, and have about a decade of experience in Construction Project Management with The Stone Company, part of Dimeo Construction of Providence, RI. At one time, I owned a company called Markets Unlimited, Inc. in Hingham with my ex-wife. We manufactured a product called a scarf tube, which we sold primarily through QVC Network.
It’s been a bit of a stretch for sometime blogging in stealth mode. From this moment, that long dark night is now over. Oh, and if you need web design/development or content management work, I’m available.
6 thoughts on “Free At Last – Laid Off”
Mark, Sorry to hear you were laid off, but happy to hear you’re free to blog without shackles and that you can start bigger and better things.
Not sure if you heard, Jay left Helium. A shame because he was a good egg.
Keep on truckin’…or bloggin’.
– Paul
Mark – Getting laid off is such a mixed bag, practically and emotionally, but I’ve rarely known anyone for whom it wasn’t a good experience in the long run. By the time the pink slips start coming, a place is usually is disarray (and in a death spiral: I’ve seldom if ever seen one layoff not beget others, and seldom if ever seen one layoff “solve” a company’s fundamental problems). Still, there’s the loss of colleagues and that darned money thing.
Fortunately, you live in a state with good unemployment benefits: make sure you sign up and collect. If you do have consulting gigs during the time you’re collecting, you can hop off and on of unemployment pretty easily. (At least you could 3 years ago when I was collecting unemployment insurance, but taking an occasional small consulting job.)
Good luck.
Yeah, things should be okay. The truth is that 7 years is a long stretch, and we’d crossed the line where they stopped listening some time ago.
Mark,
When one door closes, a thousand more open. Trust me on this one. 😉 Make sure you look forward to see it and not back.
Also, when you are ready, send me your resume. 🙂
Best,
Judah
Yeah, I’m definitely not looking back. I’ll have my resume up todate on Wednesday and over to you. I’m hoping to take a little time, but opportunity waits for no one.
Thanks to all for the kind words!
Welcome to the Atex Alumni world Mark. It’s gratifying to hear that you still feel so highly of our Omnex baby after looking at other CMS’s.
You know where to find me. Take a look, there might possibly be something here in Cambridge that would interest you.