Does Your Company Do Employee Reviews? I Think I Know.

When was your last employee review? Now, I'm not talking about some pat on the back for a job well done, or a passive aggressive comment from your boss at the water cooler, I'm talking about a sit down, face-to-face, knock-down, drag-out, employee review. I doubt it was anytime soon.

In my brief (but eventful) tour through the working World, I have found that construction and engineering folk would rather slice off their fingertips with a diamond-blade grinder than give an employee review. I even had a six month review written into the offer letters with one of my employers and when six months was up they kept saying that they'll get to it next week until they finally told someone else in the office to tell me, "I didn't have to worry about getting fired". Incidentally, I was fired five months later but they told me I was getting laid off. That was so nice of them.

I personally love employee reviews. I like sitting around having discussion about improvement - it's so much damn better than sticking your face in an Excel spreadsheet or counting square feet of drywall. I think of it as more of a discussion about how the operation is going and what improvement can be made to the situation.

So why are bosses so deathly afraid of giving employee reviews? Well, I don't know. Perhaps they are afraid of what is going to come out in the review, if they'll be painted into a corner about something they said during the year which will make them look bad in front of their boss. Seriously, this is the crazy stuff that runs through people's minds. Regardless, employee reviews are also a rare opportunity for employees to look their bosses in the eyes, ask some real questions and come up with a plan about where things will be heading.

It may also be because they simply don't know what to say. I've seen far too often the modus operandi for companies is to hire someone, give them little direction and no feedback and then fire them when they decide they don't like them. This is by far the laziest style of management possible. It's really not that hard to list ten to fifteen bullet point responsibilities of a particular job. Then, at the annual employee review, go over the bullet points and talk about what is going well and what needs improvement. It's also good to try to make the positives outweigh the negatives. Some people think there should be three positives to every negative, but in construction, when young employees are treated like chimpanzees who just escaped from the zoo, a fifty-fifty split will suffice.

Employers and employees both benefit from reviews, it's a win-win and people avoid them like a room full of airborne asbestos. Reviews also act as good opportunity to document performance in case of a necessary dismissal, and also keeps someone from firing an employee just because they don't like them (at least it can help). So let's be men, and women about this and give your employees reviews. If you have a job then ask your boss for a review.

It's a win-win.

Does Your Company Do Employee Reviews? I Think I Know.

Stimulus Package - Where Are You?

Many professionals in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, employed or otherwise, are wondering when this federal stimulus money appropriated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is going to start making it's way to the pockets of designers and contractors.

Well, this answer is unfortunately difficult to nail down, however, it is rather clear that the great majority of this money has yet to be released. I'm not exactly sure why, six months after the signing of the ARRA, we are still wondering when this money is going to start flowing. The most recent report from the Government Accountability Office shows that only 5.1% of the $27.6 billion appropriated for highway infrastructure projects has been spent.

While the government is probably partially to blame for some of this, shall we say, sluggish release of stimulus funding, the nature of the construction industry is partially to blame as well. While the funding was at least partially intended to fund "shovel ready" projects, the reality is that a truly shovel ready project is kind of like the study of micro-economics - it doesn't really exist.

The term, "shovel ready" is misleading, and certainly over-used. If plans have been shelved for several years, in the very least the existing conditions have to be verified and brought up to date. What construction has taken place since these plans were generated? Has there been erosion, or effects of weather? What maintenance issues from existing structures have arisen and now need to be dealt with? What code requirements have changed since the initial design? Are the LEED certification requirements the same as they were when the plans were generated?
All of this stuff takes time. So even with a project that was shelved for several years, we can't just pick up the plans grab, our shovel and hard-hat, walk out the door, rev up the bulldozer, and start digging.

The majority of the federal stimulus money is schedule to be dolled out in 2010, so this coupled with perhaps an improving private sector economy could bring more clients in the doors of design firms and more plans in the doors of contractors - and just maybe a collaboration of designers and contractors on new projects.

So once we push this massive snowball down the hill and get it rolling it will pick up steam and could perhaps start rolling out of control.

Stimulus Package - Where Are You?

Michael Moore's trash talk on capitalism certainly raises some questions

"Capitalism: A Love Story", is the tongue-in-cheek title of Michael Moore's latest film that trashes the people who run our country. But honestly, he's tough to argue with - very tough.

Larry King tried hard Wednesday night to catch Mr. Moore off his guard and paint him into a corner, but the goofy kid from Michigan was having nothing of it.

Larry took a shot with, "Are you saying the investor is more important than the employee?"

Moore, like a prime of his career, Mike Tyson, fired back with,

"Yes. The investor --and the investor, these days, they want the short-term, quick profit and they want it now. But in the long-term, here's what happened. When I was on this show 20 years ago, 20 years ago this week, I was here with "Roger and Me".

And General Motors, that year, made a profit of $4 billion. And yet they had just laid off another 30,000 people. Now, why would you lay people off when you're making a record profit of $4 billion?

I mean that was totally insane. But they thought, well, you know, we can make a
bigger profit. Maybe we can make $4.2 billion if we move those jobs to Mexico.
And so they're always, you know, we can make a little bit more money if we do
this. By firing those workers, Larry, they got rid of the very people who buy
their cars."

Moore's words sting harder than seeing a pink paper on your keyboard when you come back from lunch. They sting, because he's so damn right. Nobody can really argue with him, and the only reason he has the guts to say it is because he's already a millionaire from making documentary movies. It's not like some unemployed nobody is going to start ranting about how much our economic system sucks on a blog or something...ahem.

From what I gather about Moore's overall theme is that our economic system of capitalism has gotten very far away from democracy. He's saying that the majority, while under the illusion of having some control over what goes on, actually has none.

Now, I'm not sure if this is true in a political sense, because we still elect officials and that system seems to be relatively fair. However, I do know that the majority of organizations in which we work are so far from a democracy that we might as well have red flags flying high outside every office building. For profit organization are straight up dictatorships where a small group of elite officials run the whole thing while the rest fight like hell to break through the ceiling and rub elbows with the CEO and his son-in-law on the corporate jet. If you speak up about how the little guy is getting the shaft in an organization, just wait and see how long it takes to be shown the door. You have two options, you can stay and put up with the way things are run, or quit.

Moore says,

"It's set up like a pyramid, so that the richest 1% at the top have more
financial wealth than the 95% beneath them. But the trick here is to get
the 95% believing that if they work hard and slave away, they would get to the
top of the pyramid. Of course, as we know, only a few people can stand on top of
a pyramid."

I guess the rebuttal to Moore's little rant is while there is clearly BS going on in large corporations nobody is forcing you to work for them. He grew up in Flint, Michigan where GM was only show in town. Factory workers in Flint had little choice about who was going to sign their paycheck. But in the rest of the country, darn near the majority of people work for small companies, and while smaller organizations can certainly show signs of beating up the little guy, the hierarchy can be much less brutal to navigate.

The construction industry can be looked at as a rather accurate cross section of the overall organizational picture in this country, however, the major difference being that the overwhelming majority (over 90%) of construction organizations have less than fifty people. And while the sneaky tricks pulled by business owners are still evident, there is often plenty of opportunity to jump ship within the same town or even street, which may place a little higher premium on keeping employees. But really, who the hell knows.

Oh well, reinventing the economic wheel in this country probably won't happen, and it will almost certainly not be started by a filmmaker, but it definitely makes people think about what is going on and allows them to make more informed choices about what they are going to do with their life. At least the freedom to choose is still here.

Michael Moore's trash talk on capitalism certainly raises some questions

Guess What? LEED Is Not Alone

Do you ever wonder if we are are all alone in this big Universe? With all those solar systems, galaxies, planets, dwarf planets, black holes, stars, suns, and supernovas, its seems hard to believe that we are the only folk flying around on a big blue marble.

While I can't tell you for sure if there is extraterrestrial life (although I have a pretty good idea), I can tell you that LEED is not the only rating system for the certification of green buildings. I learned this while taking a gander at the Construction Informer blog by Duane Craig. Duane made note that there is another green rating system called Green Globes. With a similar method to giving buildings a tiered system of rating their green building initiatives.

While allowing LEED to be the only kid on the block probably doesn't do too much benefit for the cost of green building certification, learning and applying another rating system makes my stomach start to turn and my face being the only thing turner brighter shades of green.

According to a study by the University of Minnesota, "nearly 80 percent of the categories available for points in Green Globes are also addressed in LEED 2.2 and that over 85 percent of the categories specified in LEED 2.2 are addressed in Green Globes." The same study indicated that there was only moderate dissimilarity between the rating standards, but that LEED has a slightly greater emphasis on material choices and Green Globes has a slightly greater emphasis on saving energy.

Green Globes also has a lower cost at about $500 per assessment. LEED certification can cost several thousand dollars just for the assessment and the USGBC can tend to have their nose up in the air about how quickly they get to your project.

And believe it or not there are more green building standards such as BREEAM, the GBC tool, and the Minnesota Design Guidelines, but I really hope we don't have to start playing a game where we select what system to use and then have to select all the green initiatives. Honestly, one is enough and two at the most, but let's just stop there.

However, nobody knows how big the Universe actually is.

Guess What? LEED Is Not Alone

Bernanke says recession is over - Can we get that in writing?

"The recession is likely over."

These are the words of Fed Chairmen Ben Bernanke, however, his use of elusive words like "likely" worries me and bit. Maybe I'll tell the credit card that I will most likely pay them this month depending on the growth of our economy that has most likely emerged from recession. I'll ask them to hold the finance charges and late fees until the third quarter GDP numbers are finalized.

Bernanke also said that interests rates will stay "exceptionally low" for an "extended period". Well, the stack of unpaid bills on my kitchen counter is getting "exceptionally" high and I'm a little worried about spending an "extended period" in debtors prison.

This declaration of independence from the worst recession in 80 years comes at a time when the majority of the federal stimulus money is getting dolled out in the country's 2010 fiscal year which starts this month. So by this time next year, we'll be rolling in jobs and money. Well, in the spirit of nebulous discussion, I will go on record and say, perhaps.

I will also say that in my observation of Bernanke since he took over for Alan Greenspan in 2006, he has been "exceptionally" careful with what he says publicly. It seems like the whole World hangs on his every syllable, so I doubt that he would make statements like this if they were not "relatively" close to being accurate.

So the US is likely out of the recession however unemployment is still rising and construction billing continues to decline. The problem, is that construction, of course, shows lagging response to the growth of the economy, so we may have to wait until Bernanke removes the tricky adjectives (or are they adverbs?) from his prepared statements before we're seeing real-life improvement before our eyes.

Despite Mr. Bernanke's aversion to commitment, I think we can all feel very optimistic about America's resilience and our ability to emerge, alive and kicking from a horrific economic state. However, this is only likely to be the case.

Bernanke says recession is over - Can we get that in writing?

I'm looking for Bond, Construction Bond

In the eyes of an owner of a construction project a payment and performance bond is like that warm and fuzzy security blanket that takes all their troubles away. Bonding is one of those construction issues that I never fully understood. And I guess I still don't, but my knowledge probably quadrupled when I actually tried to obtain one for myself.

We've all heard of the requirement for contractors to be bonded and insured and this is especially the case when public entities are using a low bid method of selecting contractors. But really, what are they?

Surety bonds provide financial security and construction assurance by assuring owners that contractors will perform the work and pay subcontractors, laborers, and material suppliers. It's basically a risk transfer mechanism where the surety company assures the project owner that the contractor will perform a contract in accordance with the contract documents. If the contractor defaults or goes bankrupt, the bonding company comes in and finishes the job on their dime.

Bonds are actually a lot older than I thought. I read an article about the first known bond to have been etched in a clay tablet from the Mesopotamian region around 2750 BC. According to the contract, a farmer drafted into the service of the king who was unable to tend his fields. The farmer contracted with another farmer to tend them under the condition they split the proceeds equally. A local merchant served as the surety and guaranteed the second farmer’s compliance - a brave man.

However, even in 2750 BC Mesopotamia, payment and performance bonds were tougher to find than an exploding money clip, and without a code name like 007, it's still tough to get one. I was in hot pursuit (sans Alpha Romeo) of a payment and performance bond this week while putting together a bid for a public repair project. After days of discussions and filling out forms of financials, I was told about two hours before bid time that I would have to put 30% of the contract value up as collateral in order to get a bond. Thanks for the notice.

Just like a municipality doesn't want to take a risk on an unproven contractor, a surety is similarly cautious. This kind of leads me to wonder what good they are anyway; they won't bond you unless the risk of you defaulting is next to zero to begin with. The owner could just as easily write joint checks or contract directly with the sub (who are also bonded by the way) and hire the general contractor as a consulting construction manager.


In private projects however, this is how most work is done. In an effort to avoid doubling up on security (and wasting money), the subs are bonded and the general contract either goes unbonded or acts as a consulting manager. This is the more practical and cost effective way to do it, but when tax payer dollars are on the line, I suppose logic, practicality, and certainly cost effectiveness are all thrown into a BMW Z8 and shredded by a helicopter.


So without a bond my bid was forced to spontaneously self destruct (no, that's Mission Impossible) and I'm back to the drawing, err bidding board, and another trip to the Casino Royale of public works request for proposals.

I'm looking for Bond, Construction Bond

Revel Casino finds interesting partner to finish construction

Atlantic City is kind of like a paradise that never quite came to fruition. It was a good idea - in fact, a great idea. Beach, gambling, shows, what more could you want from a vacation? But instead of becoming the multi-day destination for wealthy executives from New York, Philadelphia, and DC that Mr. Trump and others were anticipating, it became a somewhat seedy mecca with lots of retired bus trippers. Atlantic City was eclipsed by a much more remote destination in desert of Nevada.

But now, in the midst of a financial crisis and stiff gambling competition from Pennsylvania and now Delaware, AC is making a comeback. A comeback that begins with the opening of the $2.5 billion Revel Casino and is slated to be followed by several more mega-casinos that will bring Atlantic City to the overnight destination status once envisioned by its earliest pioneers.

However, in late 2008 a credit crunch put a halt to the project and the hopes for Atlantic City revitalization seemed less likely than beating the guy who built hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place. So where does Revel Entertainment turn when they are out of money and they already have about a billion dollars sunk into the shell of a hotel and casino with no get out of jail free card? Where else, but the Chinese government. The get out of jail free card finally surfaced, and hopefully the bank error card is not about to rear its head.

Evidently, Revel Entertainment has entered into a $1.7 billion deal with China State Construction Engineering Corp. and Tishman Construction to finish out the mega-project intended to resurrect AC from the ranks of gambling town wash-ups.

The chief executive of Revel said, "This is not about financing...It's about a construction management agreement." It's not about financing? C'mon.

Apparently seeking international investment partners is becoming more of the norm for casino owner since MGM Mirage has had a partnership with the Dubai government to co-finance the $8 billion CityCenter casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip.

I suppose China feels that the economy in the US will have passed Go a couple of times by 2011 to warrant such a monstrosity of excess. However, I doubt they'll be paying many change orders until then.

Revel Casino finds interesting partner to finish construction

What really happened on September 11, 2001 and do we really need to know?

On September 11, 2001, the World shifted from what it was to what it is.

Of course, like most people on this planet, I remember it like it was yesterday when it was actually eight years ago. I remember walking out of my car at about 8 am eastern time from the parking lot of the engineering firm outside Philadelphia where I was working. I remember taking the steps up to the back entrance of the office. I also remember pausing for a moment. With obviously no knowledge of what was about to occur and forever change the World, for some reason, I paused and looked up at the sky. I thought to myself, what a beautiful day.

And it was. It was a spectacular day. Now, I'm not one to stop and gaze in wild wonder of nature too much, but something was just a little bit different here. The sky was crystal clear and it was one of those summer days where you could feel the fall air starting to creep its way in. We rarely get days that clear in the northeast, but if it would happen, September is probably the time.

By about 9 AM an admin came up to the upstairs office and asked if we heard what happened to the World Trade Center in New York. She said a plane hit the building. My first thought was that it was a private plane that went out of control, which does happen from the time to time, but once I clicked on CNN.com and saw the inferno that was the World Trade Center tower I knew this was far from a miscalculation by a private pilot.

Shortly after watching two of the most famous and symbolic structures in the World crash to the ground, all I could do was stare out the window in sadness and disbelief about what was happening to our country.

Since that day our World has never been the same. But I feel like by now people are finally starting to get over the shock and terror of the situation and start to think about what exactly happened, why it occured, and what we can do about it. This has certainly been done before but now there are several websites like http://www.ae911truth.com/ that are pushing for more answers about what happened.

But does it really matter? Does it really matter what technical reasoning is behind the near perfect collapse of the two towers as well as WTC building 7? I'm not sure, but there are people out there that feel that they deserve the truth and will not stop until they get it. And frankly, there are probably enough unanswered and poorly answered questions about what happened on 9/11/01 to warrant some furthur explanation.

So let's assume that all the planned demolition and explosive theories are hogwash, and two jetliners did in-fact bring both towers perfectly to the ground even though the melted steel theory probably could not have happened - but say it did. There is a question that still burns hotter than any jet fuel could.

Building 7, evidently greiving from the loss of his two big brothers, decides to collapse pefectly into its own footprint. Building 7 was located clear across the street with WTC building 6 in between. The National Institute of Standards and Technology attributes the collapse to fire melting a "critical" column that sparked a cascade of floors pancaking on one another bringing the whole thing violently to the ground.

If there is some kind of cover-up going on and it someday becomes exposed, building 7 will be the kicker that foiled anybody's diabolical plans. It would be like those meddling kids on an episode of Scooby-Doo, because the explanation of its collapse makes less sense than the BCS bowl system.

Heck, maybe the owner of the building, Silverstein Properties just thought the building would be too much of a pain in the ass to repair and decided to "pull" it, to collect insurance money.

The conspiracy theories going on about 9/11 are vast and they range from somewhat legitimate to completely absurd. Some unanswered questions I have, beyond how the towers in New York fell, are as follows.

-How does a plane crash harmlessly into the farmland of Pennsylvania after some apparent "struggle" in the cockpit?

-Why was the WTC cleaned up so quickly leaving little steel for testing?

-If we can see in your bedroom window from outerspace, how can we not find Osama Bin Laden in some Batcave?

-Why did the US start a bizarre search for WMD and an invasion of Iraq shortly after 9/11.

-How did cell phones work on the planes?

-What were the details of the hefty insurance policy bought by Silverstien properites when they aquired the WTC buildings in mid-2001?

The bottom line is that we will probably never know exactly what occured that day or what occured leading up to that day, and at this point, I don't really care that much. I may sign the occasional petition and tune in to CNN when somebody makes some confession on their deathbed, but otherwise I'm going to live my life, be grateful for what I have, and hope to hell nothing like this happens again.

For those that feel they deserve more answers and in-fact deserve the truth, I cannot blame them. While any answers provided will do nothing to erase what went on and could be more hurtful than satifying, in many, the curiousity burns. Those who want the truth have the right to seek it - and it should probably be provided.

What really happened on September 11, 2001 and do we really need to know?

The best way to keep tabs on your kids

Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

The best way to keep tabs on your kids

Construction unemployment declines to 16.5%, but it may not be as good as it sounds

A recent ENR article reported that the construction industry unemployment rate declined in August to 16.5% which is the lowest in eight months. This was a relatively large improvement over the 18.2% rate for July; however, this is still over twice the 8.2% rate from last year. The funny thing about these numbers is that they were not seasonally adjusted and we all know that the employment rate in construction is more seasonal than ticket sales at the Six Flags water park.

Ok, maybe not that seasonal, but there is certainly significant seasonality in overall construction unemployment and for ENR to disregard this is a bit on the amateur side. Heck, they might as well be writing a blog...The below table shows construction unemployment for the last thirteen months and seasonality is certainly evident.

Construction Unemployment Rate, past 13 Months
2009

Month / Rate in %
August 16.5
July 18.2
June 17.4
May 19.2
April 18.7
March 21.1
February 21.4
January 18.2

2008
December 15.3
November 12.7
October 10.8
September 9.9
August 8.2

Note: Rates are not seasonally adjusted.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics

Another little confusing report was that the construction industry lost 65,000 jobs in August which was better than the 72,000 lost in July but certainly far from an increase in overall construction employment. Now, I'm not a genius, but I do find it a bit hard to believe how you can lose jobs in an industry and yet the unemployment rate decreases. This is hard for my idle mind to understand. It seems like the only way for that to happen is if the total number of people in the construction industry, either employed or not, decreases. Which I suppose is possible (and maybe even probable) if folks decide to bail on construction entirely to become massage therapists or something, but I certainly think it should be made clear somewhere in the article.

There is also some speculation from not only myself, that ENR may try to sugarcoat the employment data in an effort to avoid panic from sponsors and advertisers of the magazine. Plus, since they are a very popular industry magazine, they probably prefer to go light on the doom and gloom. I would.

Oh well, we'll see what happens, I suppose. But the reality of this situation is probably not as bright as some may lead you believe.

Construction unemployment declines to 16.5%, but it may not be as good as it sounds

Can we blame our economy on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act?

What better time, than the day before a long Labor (or lack of Labor) Day weekend to start blaming others for the problems we have.

A commenter on a recent post of mine mentioned that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act is the cause of the World economic crisis. My initial response to this was, what the hell is the Glass-Steagall Act?

Well, in a nutshell, the Glass-Steagall Act was actually two acts sponsored by two Democratic Senators Carter Glass and Henry B. Steagall back in 1932 and 1933. The first, passed in 1932 allocated paper currency for the Federal Reserve System, so I think it was the first step in moving off the gold standard which we eventually did in 1933.

Then the more influential Glass-Steagall Act came in 1933 which basically separated, for the first time, commercial and investment banks in reaction to the failure of a large number of commercial banks in the early part of 1933.

But then, in the middle of a gangbuster economy of 1999 two (you guessed it) Republican Congressman introduced a repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and it was eventually signed into law in November 1999 by Bill Clinton. By repealing this Act the lines between loans, securities, and deposits were blurred and banks were allowed to pull their tricky games of bundling mortgages and selling them as mortgage backed securities. Basically, they were allowed to be the greedy crooks they are.

Before the Act was repealed, sub-prime mortgages were five percent of all mortgage lending and by the time 2008 rolled around they were approaching 30 percent. And this makes perfect sense because a bank could afford to take more risk if they could sell the mortgage and make profit that way as well. Was Bernie Madoff in on this deal?

There is actually a lot of heated debate (at least on the web) about what caused this massive downturn and there will certainly never be a clear scapegoat, but it's always fun to sit in our armchairs and blame people other than ourselves. What better way to spend Lack of Labor Day?

Can we blame our economy on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act?

China's Response to the World Economic Crisis

China's Response to the World Economic Crisis

Running a company is like being the captain of a sinking lifeboat

I really like analogies for some reason. When people ask why something happens or what it is like to be in a particular situation, I much prefer presenting a situation that others can relate to rather than get into specific details that nobody is going to understand anyway.

Not everyone may understand what it is like to run a company since they have never done it. And nor have many been the captain of a sinking lifeboat. However, I think it is pretty clear what you need to do when you are sitting in the front of a boat with water pouring over the sides and you have a couple of five gallon buckets in your hands. You start bailing water (costs) out of the boat, of course, until the buoyancy of the boat is greater than its weight and the weight of the passengers (employees).

But what do you do if you can't keep up with the onslaught of water and even with everybody bailing endlessly with five gallon buckets, the boat keeps going lower and lower into the freezing cold waters (bankruptcy)? You guessed it. You throw somebody off the boat!

But who? The heaviest? The least able to bail? Men? Women? Children? People you aren't friends with? The last one to get on the boat?

It may make sense to throw the biggest liability to the boat off first. In the case of a company this would be the one with the highest salary who doesn't produce enough to justify their cost. On the boat, this would be the person whose bailing to weight ratio is very low.

However, on the boat, like in a company, there are little alliances and politics going on. This guy is buddies with that guy, and this guy has done so much over the years, and this one is young enough to deserve some time to prove themselves. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

But we all know who will not be thrown off the boat. The captain!

There is no way the captain (business owner) is going to be taking a dive in the freezing cold waters to save those on the ship. No f'ing way! He or she will be the last thing with a pulse on that boat before it goes down. So the captain may have some tough choices to make about who gets tossed, but recognizing how to keep the boat afloat is really not that hard.

Of course the captain has to worry about a mutiny and such which may have some similar comparison to a company, but when the business owner holds the money, they might as well have access to the eject button on everybody's seat.

So what is the point of this somewhat peculiar diatribe? The point is that if you are the captain of the boat, you've got a much better chance of survival. Honestly, its really not that hard to keep a company alive during a recession as long as your company is big enough to just drop employees until you are profitable again. In organizations where the majority of costs are in their staff, like construction companies, you can easily drop the dead weight, or pick off the low hanging fruit until your boat is back above water.

It's just not that hard - as long as you're the captain.

Running a company is like being the captain of a sinking lifeboat