Ask HN: Who is firing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#241

Post by kchoudhu » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:31 PM UTC

throw1988_9121 wrote: post #107

hinkley wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much my experience. Once one useful person gets laid off, everyone can't help but think they're the next useful person to get laid off. And in small groups it feels personal. So now you're playing CYA instead of taking the good kinds of risks with big payoffs.

In your opinion what hurts morale more? One big round of layoff, or multiple smaller rounds? I've only seen the later happen, and personally I think I'd prefer the first one. If you know that after that large layoff round the rest of the company is safe, I'd venture that might be better for the morale of the remaining employees.

At banks I worked at, they did it once a year, HARD. Lots of loss of morale for two weeks after that...after which things stabilized again.

During crises, it hit in waves. That was another kind of drawn out hell: people wondering "am I next?" aren't terribly productive.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#242

Post by huac » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:31 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #200

orange_county wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the hiring is a facade. They have been sending out hackerrank tests to every new grad but never planning to follow up. As a matter of fact, they stated that they will "follow up" in December. Any serious company in the Bay Area wouldn't be this slow with hiring if they were not in trouble.

I don't disagree with your conclusion about Twitter specifically, but it always blows my mind how slow tech companies are to deal with candidates in a hot job market.

It's just Twitter. The new grad hiring at pretty much everywhere else is full throttle (or more accurately, pretty much done now).

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#243

Post by analog31 » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #222

walshemj wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come in a right to work regimen like the states how is it hard? you can just say "we have decided to cut back marketing head count by 20%"

Exactly. That's a layoff, not firing.

There are some nuances to the terminology. Companies avoid the term "layoff" because it implies that people might be re-hired once the slowdown is over. Growing up near Detroit, I remember layoffs where the status of the laid off workers was specified in the union contract. I have not heard of this kind of layoff in recent times, outside of unionized companies.

Laypeople like me usually reserve "firing" for people who are fired "with cause." When companies fire people "at will," they often use words like "reduction in force."

Perhaps a better way of thinking about it is the consequences of being fired. If you are fired "at will," then you are entitled to things like unemployment compensation, COBRA benefits, etc. If you are fired "with cause," then you lose those benefits.

If an employee is a klunker, they will often wait for business to slow down, fire them "at will," and pay the benefits, to avoid potentially getting sued for false termination.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#244

Post by gnipgnip » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

1474295912 wrote: post #96

VisualMeta GmbH in Berlin. They're a 'start-up' backed by Axel Springer, Berlin. They fired about 60-70 people recently, some of them on their first day of work. Most of their devs come from non-existent countries (China/Eritrea/Pakistan etc) and they're paid abysmally (€32-34k). It's a surprise that this news wasn't covered at all in Berlin start-up press.

"non-existent" ?

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#245

Post by imglorp » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

FuNe wrote: post #199

chrissnell wrote: post #8

Back in the first dotcom bubble, we had FuckedCompany.com. It tracked these sorts of things on a daily basis.

There is also glassdoor.com but it's not specially geared towards layoffs. But you can get a decent idea of how well a company does.

I love glassdoor. Sometime you see high level management on there giving frank plus and minus assessments of the business, often critical of higher levels. It's not just disgruntled departures but often current employees.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#246

Post by throwawayReply » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #215

hocuspocus wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social contributions are a much bigger part of your gross salary in Germany. 34k would be ~28k in France. My company hires new grads around 50k and I guess decent startups who make people relocate across continents should pay at least 45k.

Damn. That's more than I got when I started in London. Should have picked Berlin instead.

When it comes to software development, London (and the UK) certainly seem to have a low pay culture.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#247

Post by d23 » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

patmcguire wrote: post #46

Keverw wrote: post #5

Twitter is firing the people who worked on Vine. http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/10/27/twitter-strong-q3... Really love how you are doing the opposite for this thread. I guess It helps people get prospective on both sides :)

Twitter is a known tire fire. When I was out in San Francisco everyone who worked at Twitter had a shell-shocked look and talked about the experience the same way they would if they'd just gone to use the restroom and found a dead body.

Can anyone actually give any details here or is everyone just gonna do the "nudge nudge wink wink" thing?

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#248

Post by istorical » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

andy wrote: post #234

I was fired from Wickr.com a few months after their layoffs. I was fired from Wickr a few months ago. The given reason was they considered me not a Senior Android Developer and that was my title - I asked too many questions apparently. My manager indicated that if my title had been Android Developer there probably would not have been a problem. I don't care about titles really. I was hired in 2014 as a contractor for…

Nobody in this world is gonna fight for you other than yourself.

Don't bring up the termination without being asked if you were fired (in which case it may be better to just admit it), when you're talking about work experience just say after working there for some time you then decided to pursue other opportunities.

Maybe 3 out 4 companies will still figure it out, but all you need is that one success.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#249

Post by JamesBarney » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

andy wrote: post #234

I was fired from Wickr.com a few months after their layoffs. I was fired from Wickr a few months ago. The given reason was they considered me not a Senior Android Developer and that was my title - I asked too many questions apparently. My manager indicated that if my title had been Android Developer there probably would not have been a problem. I don't care about titles really. I was hired in 2014 as a contractor for…

First question is are you sure you were fired with cause and not laid off?

If you're sure it's the first you might want to consult a lawyer. Usually a company needs a pretty strong paper trail and a lot of evidence of you screwing up royally before they can fire with cause.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#250

Post by amyjess » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:49 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #189

kokon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because having a mass layoff is an easy way to reduce non productive people. Otherwise you have to go through a complicated process for each individual, with a higher risk to be sued.

How come in a right to work regimen like the states how is it hard? you can just say "we have decided to cut back marketing head count by 20%"

Right-to-work states still distinguish between firing for cause and a layoff for unemployment purposes. If you just get rid of somebody because you don't like them or whatever, that's legally considered a layoff because they did nothing wrong and thus can still collect unemployment.

If you let somebody go just because you didn't like them but you lied and said it was for performance reasons, they'll have to fight to get unemployment, and they may very well sue you for their troubles. On a similar note, if you do want to fire someone for performance reasons, you better have that lack of performance well documented.

Because of this, a lot of companies don't bother claiming cause: they classify all firings as layoffs and don't contest anyone's unemployment. I worked for a company like that once.