If the company does not survive, Glaser said he had 10 years of experience in advertising and brand management to fall back on. But that is not necessarily his first choice. "I've kind of looked at this," he said, "as an opportunity to take a left turn and do something completely different."
But one concern is whether his recent work experience will be attractive to prospective employers, as dotcom becomes the resume equivalent of last year's bell-bottoms. "When all of a sudden it isn't trendy anymore, it looks like the wrong thing to be wearing," Glaser said. "This is kind of along the same lines. I'm sort of quick to say we're not really a dotcom."
That sort of revisionism has even spread to the Web site that once chronicled the less glamorous aspects of working for an Internet company, Netslaves.com. The site recently changed its tag line from "Horror stories of working the Web" to "Undertakers of the New Economy," partly in response to changes in the industry, said Steve Baldwin, one of the site's founders.
Baldwin described what he sees as "a kind of cocooning going on" among laid-off Internet employees as they reassess their lives, live off their severance and perhaps take a break. "You're never going to see more backpacking former dotcommers in Europe," Baldwin said. "They're trying to figure it out, clear their heads and hopefully come back with a plan."
But coming up with that plan may require making some concessions to the reality of the post-new economy, which has reintroduced the workplace trade-off between making a lot of money and having a job that could be described as fun.
"Even though a lot of companies have been downsized, in a lot of cases egos have not been," said Bonnie Halper, founder of the recruiting firm SendResume.com. Halper, who primarily recruits for Internet and technology companies, said many laid-off Internet workers had not adjusted their expectations to the market.
"I tell them to be realistic. I say, `Listen, you have a year's experience; you're not going to go in with a VP title,"' she said. "They walk away disheartened; they still expect six-figure salaries."
But for those who have not yet given up on the industry, she offers some words of hope. "There are still jobs," she said. "There are actually profitable companies. It's just finding the right thing at the right time."
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