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Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

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Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#351

Post by bsanr2 »

mardifoufs wrote: post #143
bsanr2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistically-speaking, this will disproportionately effect women and minorities (low performance reviews !necessarily= low performance when implicit bias is present, which again, statistically-speaking, it is). Certainly these times suck for everyone, but there go the careers of black, brown, and female millennials with yet another black mark on their CVs before they've hit their 40s.

I'm sorry but I (as a minority myself) genuinely feel a little bit insulted by your assumption that minorities score worst in performance test. There's no basis for that belief, a part from your personal biases and they are shockingly regressive even if well intentioned. Are you yourself a minority?

I included the parenthetical to make it clear that what you're asserting was not my intended meaning.

I am a gay black man.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#352

Post by bsanr2 »

fooker wrote: post #122
bsanr2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistically-speaking, this will disproportionately effect women and minorities (low performance reviews !necessarily= low performance when implicit bias is present, which again, statistically-speaking, it is). Certainly these times suck for everyone, but there go the careers of black, brown, and female millennials with yet another black mark on their CVs before they've hit their 40s.

When you claim to be speaking statistically, shouldn't you also cite some statistics?

It's generally a well-known phenomenon, but here:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/success/layoffs-women-minorit...

https://hbr.org/2019/01/why-most-performance-evaluations-are...

Links to the research cited are in the articles, which provide a basic overview.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#353

Post by Kiro »

jazzyk wrote: post #344
Kiro wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No-one could have predicted this pandemic and the drastic measures companies have to take. When they paid the bonus they had no idea they would have to cut salaries a few months later. The timing is essential since one event happened before the pandemic and one afterwards. We could argue about bonuses in general but that's a whole different topic.

But perhaps, just perhaps, the CEO could take $2M as bonus and save $28M for a rainy day? A rainy day will arrive sooner or later - whether it is a pandemic or an economic crisis or a dry spell in additional funding, etc.

I agree but that's a whole different discussion. We can criticize bonuses in general but making this company a particular scapegoat is just wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#354

Post by Kiro »

buckminster wrote: post #320
Kiro wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not at the same time. The bonus was paid in December, before the pandemic.

So the bonus has been returned?

Maybe? The discussion has derailed from a misrepresentation of facts to people holding on to their anger and finding unrelated ways to slander the company. They gave a bonus, then corona hit and they had to cut salaries, like so many other companies have.

If you ask me I think all bonuses should be returned but again, nothing uniquely evil about this company.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#355

Post by gigatexal »

mathattack wrote: post #294
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, severance is also mandatory in Argentina and many other "under development" countries. I'm absolutely amazed at how people in the US are so against severance being mandatory.

The theory of weaker led on severance is: 1 - If you make it too hard to let people go, companies will be less willing to hire. (You’ve added a cost to the employee) 2 - If you make the cost of severance too high, it will kill companies that might otherwise have a chance to squeak through. There are plenty of good arguments on the other side (companies offloading social costs to the govt, etc) but these two are consi…

I agree. There has to be a balance. Companies need to be able to let people go who are hurting the company overall. The balance comes in in making it expensive enough that they won’t go firing people without cause as it now being expensive means it has to be worth it to do so.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#356

Post by mardifoufs »

bsanr2 wrote: post #351
mardifoufs wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I (as a minority myself) genuinely feel a little bit insulted by your assumption that minorities score worst in performance test. There's no basis for that belief, a part from your personal biases and they are shockingly regressive even if well intentioned. Are you yourself a minority?

I included the parenthetical to make it clear that what you're asserting was not my intended meaning. I am a gay black man.

Okay thanks for the clarification, but still if anything I find the tech sector to be one of the industry with the least amount of racial prejudice even in promotions. I totally understand that personal experiences can be different and are still valid, but I think the data tells us that there isn't any widespread systemic racism in tech. The proportion of people of color in C level exec/higher management levels is huge and the efforts made to increase diversity have been intense. I just don't see how that could happen if lower performance reviews were generally biased against us.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#357

Post by fulldecent2 »

Pacific Medical Training is hiring. And now is a time where more people are available for remote work, and that's what we want.

- Medical author / reviewer - Front-end designer + sales copy expert - Phone sales

Hiring worldwide. Send resumes, portfolios and salary expectations.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#358

Post by devin »

jazzyk wrote: post #340
mathattack wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory of weaker led on severance is: 1 - If you make it too hard to let people go, companies will be less willing to hire. (You’ve added a cost to the employee) 2 - If you make the cost of severance too high, it will kill companies that might otherwise have a chance to squeak through. There are plenty of good arguments on the other side (companies offloading social costs to the govt, etc) but these two are consi…

Yeah, but because it is o easy to fire, some companies (especially startups which just got some VC money) over-hire and then are forced to let people go. This creates a never-ending hamster-wheel of hiring-firing - not good for the employee and not good for the company. Also, if paying 1 month of severance is too much for a company, then perhaps it is not run well and should be allowed to fail?

Too reductive on your last comment. I want to agree with you, but the world is complex. Money doesn't grow on trees, and there's only so much that even a well run business can do. Particularly in the early stages of a company.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#359

Post by twunde »

catacombs wrote: post #328
onychomys wrote: post #136

Hospitals are having a surprisingly tough time of things. I work for a very famous hospital in a small town in the American midwest, and we've (our IT department, that is) laid off all our contractors and the rest of us have mandatory furloughs coming up too. They're doing everything they can to not let us go, but some of us will probably end up getting sacked. And this is maybe the richest and most well-connected ho…

For-profit hospitals are a stain on the American healthcare system. I worked for one of these facilities years ago, and elective surgery was the only thing the administrators cared about.

It's not just for-profit hospitals, non-profits are very focused on elective surgery as well. Why? Because elective surgery is the money maker for the business. Healthcare systems typically have profit margins between 1-4% with 4% being on the high side. For comparison SAAS businesses typically have profit margins of 70-95% [1]. 1 - https://www.lightercapital.com/blog/calculating-gross-margin...

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#360

Post by downerending »

danesparza wrote: post #119

God this brings back memories of fuckedcompany.com Right after September 11th, that site got very popular among engineers like me -- seeing (on a daily basis) which company bloodbath was next. It was kind of fun, until it was our company.

Kind of, though the main draw for me was all the stories of hubris and ineptitude, and it was largely just the money of the rich being burned up in the process.
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