Ask HN: Who has been laid off? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#291

Post by boltzmannbrain » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

SamWhited wrote: post #23

20% paycut here. This comes after being laid off a few months ago when Docker sold their enterprise version (sort of, the new company made us all offers but they have terrible benefits among other problems so most people didn't take the offer or only stayed long enough to find something else), so we're all a bit sad. There was then an immediate around of layoffs right after that (though thankfully my department wasn'…

> I wish the employees had a seat at the negotiating table for any of this

Perspective from the other side of the table: I can't speak for every company, but we've worked day and night for weeks to figure out a plan that puts employees first and gives us a fighting chance to emerge from this crisis. It may not feel like it, but damn we fight for every single person's job. Paycuts w/o layoffs is a win.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#292

Post by jdhzzz » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

silexia wrote: post #283

Souzana wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goes to show, companies don't give a damn, and people will start realizing this pretty fast. "Company family" my ass dude

Companies are like individuals. Some companies go far above and beyond to take care of their employees. I am the owner of an agency and converted our goals from profit to maintaining our team without layoffs. We are restructuring a bit to make this happen, but have not laid anyone off. We do not anticipate doing so unless we lose 2/3 of our revenue. Companies backed by finance guys are psychopaths. They only have one…

I remember how grateful I was when I received a 25% pay cut after the dot-com bubble burst and tried to take the small consultancy I worked for with it. Not everyone made it, there were some layoffs, but all survivors got a cut in pay.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#293

Post by Engineering-MD » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

zero_shift wrote: post #5

Just been put on furlough with likely redundancy at the end of the national lockdown period. Absolutely devastated. My job was hard and the pace relentless but the work was extremely stimulating and my colleagues were absolutely fantastic people. (It was also a Haskell gig, which is a real rarity.) Right now I'm just licking my wounds and waiting for the lockdown to end. I'm not sure if it makes sense to start a new…

It sounds like now is a good time to learn a new skill for a few months. It would be unwise to quit now as a new job would not qualify for furloughing and if the economy turns worse you would be let go without any income.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#294

Post by Gabriel_Martin » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 2:10 PM UTC

Yeah I finally moved from contracting roles to a fulltime salary, and this hits, and I'm laid off. Feels terrible.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#295

Post by kls » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

SeeDave wrote: post #185

jedberg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you cut everything , keep in mind that you're still a human being and have psychological needs. If that streaming service brings you hours of joy, it might be cheaper to keep it than the bills for your mental health treatment down the line. Don't just cut everything out of your life cold turkey. Keep something that brings you joy.

pluto.tv and coursera are great free alternatives that can entertain and educate :)

A second for pluto.tv

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#296

Post by iandanforth » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #269

iandanforth wrote: post #191

If many people at your company have been laid off it might be a good idea to check with a lawyer to see if the company has complied with the requirements to be exempt from WARN act compliance. Here's some relevant analysis from California: https://www.californiaemploymentlawreport.com/2020/03/govern...

The WARN act has been temporarily suspended: https://www.edd.ca.gov/about_edd/coronavirus-2019/faqs/WARN....

Did you read the link I posted? It's a legal analysis of that order because ...

"The Executive Order does not suspend the California WARN Act in its entirety, nor does it suspend the law for all covered employers. The Executive Order only suspends the California WARN Act’s 60-day notice requirement for those employers that satisfy the Order’s specific conditions. "

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#297

Post by kls » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

coupdejarnac wrote: post #181

erikbye wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you find HN compares to Slashdot?

Discussion on hn is higher quality. I'm an almost original slashdot reader, user id is 4 digits. I haven't browsed there in perhaps years at this point.

It's been at least a decade or more since I have been on /. . It really seemed to have went down hill when the Bush election was going on, they did a lot of political coverage and it just ruined the feel of the site. People started exposing their political bent and the site in general just became more snarky.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#298

Post by dominotw » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #45

adriancooney wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. It's a private document so it's hard to pull any stats out. I did manage to get the top ten companies (back of the napkin hack so take it with a pinch of salt): amazon | 13 thumbtack | 10 student | 8 wework | 8 wayfair | 6 google | 6 uber | 5 cisco | 4 oracle | 4 adobe | 3 Surprised to see Amazon at the top. I thought they were the best poised against this. Again, it may not be signal of a wider problem…

Amazon is almost certainly using this opportunity to "trim the fat." Not saying these people are bad developers, but Amazon seems to require a very specific personality type.

they have thousands of people. 13 layoffs is probably any given week.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#299

Post by kls » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

pbourke wrote: post #225

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found it interesting how many people have taught themselves programming. I was at a customer site a few months ago installing some test hardware and the guy I was working with was their welder, having been an auto mechanic before and we got into a discussion about programming in Python! The best interaction, however, would be the homeless guy I met who used to be a programmer.

I once met an unemployed software engineer who went door to door selling magazine subscriptions.

LOL might be too dated, for this crowd but man that movie was a classic to those that worked thru that era.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#300

Post by supercollision » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

adriancooney wrote: post #33

dominotw wrote: post #4

I found this forwarded layoff referral list https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HvI7axSIXsQRQH0IJ2GG... not sure what the source is.

Interesting. It's a private document so it's hard to pull any stats out. I did manage to get the top ten companies (back of the napkin hack so take it with a pinch of salt): amazon | 13 thumbtack | 10 student | 8 wework | 8 wayfair | 6 google | 6 uber | 5 cisco | 4 oracle | 4 adobe | 3 Surprised to see Amazon at the top. I thought they were the best poised against this. Again, it may not be signal of a wider problem…

fwiw most of the the Google rows look to be consultants, contractors or vendors. Amazon had fewer with details but tentatively had full-timers.

though IIRC at least a couple of the FAAMNGOs try to keep C/C/Vs from portraying their jobs as being employed by the contracting company. Perhaps Google doesn't or perhaps it's more for linkedin than arbitrary spreadsheets or resumes.