Hasta La Creative!

Numbers have not been revealed but all day, we’ve been hearing from multiple tipsters that anywhere from 50-100 staffers have been affected by reductions today at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. But from what those familiar with the matter tell us, the numbers skew to the lower side and are not in the realm of the Sprint cuts. Anyways, read the San Francisco agency’s co-founder Jeff Goodby‘s note that was just sent to staff verbatim:

“You’ve heard the financial reasons for reducing our staff.  I just want to talk a bit about the human side of it all.

Please be assured: No one takes this process lightly.

As we often say, advertising is all about people and accounts.  David Ogilvy wrote, ‘The assets go up and down in our elevator every day.’  It is so true.  We value our people, and our humanistic environment, more than anything.

Strangely, that’s why, when we lose business or have cuts in fee, it is important to react thoughtfully, but expeditiously.  Companies that don’t are not prepared for the future, and they don’t serve the people who are still on staff.  They endanger present and future jobs.

We are optimistic about our plan to move forward, in terms of serving present accounts and getting new ones, and will share details next week. But we are also thankful for and deeply appreciative of the contributions of people who are leaving.

We will do everything to find them new situations.  And if history is any indication, we will find ourselves welcoming some of them back in the future.

Thanks for your patience about all this.

JG”

Perhaps JD Beebe can create a follow-up to this?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

And now, your ideal Friday item courtesy JD Beebe, the former Saatchi LA copywriter who over the last couple of years has helped launch dating sites for liberals and conservatives, has a side career in beard-selling, tried to help out laid-off Goodby staffers and is now on a mission to cut the word “awesome” out of the creative’s lexicon. Beebe tells us that “as many copywriters and creative directors can attest, [the word] is the bain of the English language,” adding, that “awesome” is “a lazy fall back phrase to describe anything that has an ounce of positivity.”

So, Beebe along with fellow writers  Andrew Vuilleumier and Daniel Blaser came up with 100 or so alternatives to the apparently dreadful word. Play around on the “Instead of Awesome” site if you have some time to kill as the week winds down. We’ll always fall back on “rad.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.