I confess, I'd never heard nor read of Solid Cactus, a company that builds Yahoo stores, before the following cri de coeur dropped into the inbox a few minutes ago. I have no idea if any of the accusations in this email are true. But I liked the part where the CEO blogs his vacation pics. "Time to Get Away," indeed.

Hello, Solid Cactus, an e-commerce development company and Yahoo Small Business partner laid off 40 people last Thursday. This is in addition to about 35 or so others that have been let go over the last 6 months. They say they still have 150 employees, but I'd guess it to be more like 110. They've axed about 40% of staff (very, very quietly) in the last 6 months. What is very frustrating is that there is no accountability on behalf of their management. They lie and spin everything and the public and remaining employees believe everything their fed. The owners take weekly vacations to florida and brag about it to the company and then come back and lay people off blaming the economy. One week they ask everyone what they can cut, the next week they add a soft serv ice cream machine and hire people to work in the cafe. They temporarily cut the entire staff's pay by 10% and then took on additional office space and hired executive assistants at the same time. Its terrible...if you can get any of the current or ex-employees to talk to you...there's a real story here. They control the local media and the only coverage this has gotten is here: http://www.timesleader.com/business/Economy_pinches_Solid_Cactus__40_laid_off_11-07-2008.html There were several negative comments from ex-employees talking about how it wasn't the economy, but management errors - but since they "own the media" they had their friends at the paper take down all of the comments. Personally I think the TimesLeader should be called out on this for restricting free speech and calling themselves responsible journalists. You won't get a straight answer from the CEO or management on what's really going on, but if you pick enough, this can turn into a really good story. Think about this quote: "It's 100 percent due to the economy. If our customers were still spending money with us, this would not have happened." The company services 3500 e-commerce business - who didn't just stop spending money. They stopped spending money with them because they keep cutting staff and downgrading service...competitors have been flourishing despite economic concerns. I know you at valleywag has utter disdain for CEO's that overspend and then lay people off...and this is exactly what is happening here. If you look at the reviews on GlassDoor you can see some of the sentiments (although the site is also loaded with shill posts from the owners and execs). You can also see the CEO blogging about the cruise he just took (look at the size of the suite): http://blog.solidcactus.com/news/reflection-on-boot-camp-time-to-get-away/ and the pictures to boot: http://picasaweb.google.com/ssanfilippo/MsEudoram101508101808# (more cruise pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60073743@N00/) Please don't let them coninue to pull the woll over everyone's eyes. And please don't disclose my information. Thank you.