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Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

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Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#121

Post by jkp56 »

hiram112 wrote: post #113
mtnGoat wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the idea is promising, 250 a month is too high. At 100k, your bring home is roughly 70(varies greatly by state). And then you'd pay almost 5% of that to a union to help insure your job. My mom's Union fees were well below 1% of her bring home.

Should be deductible at least. Unfortunately, I did Google it, and they are not, though they were before the recent tax law (though they were counted employer expenses which meant almost no 'normal employee' would be able to do so). That being said, we're a smart group. We should easily be able to find some loophole just like all the big corps do. Couldn't we form a LLC, all become members, and use the fees as an inv…

I think a union is a different structure than LLC and plays by different rules. Regardless, the first step should be talking to a proper attorney who can explain what requirements need to be met to make this organisation a union.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#122

Post by lsc »

I've been working in industry since '97... and I've dodged so many layoffs. That doesn't mean I wasn't impacted, though. There's always at least as much work to be done, and fewer people to do it, and a a lot of people get super stressed out and hard to work with (or work for... this is especially bad with management. Working for someone who is afraid of getting fired is miserable.) Usually, there's a lot more work 'cause the boss expects me to figure out how to make the systems work just as well without spending as much money on them.

Several times, I've quit after the layoffs because work became a lot more stressful. At least once, I quit without another job lined up, just 'cause it was too much. (In my defense, I was like 21, I was the only technical person who hadn't been laid off (or left for greener pastures) and my boss, I think, was driven insane by the stress of keeping things going during the brutal dot-com bust. It was not a situation a reasonable person would expect a child to be able to deal with.)

In a lot of ways, I think the people in the first round of layoffs have it best; that's when the severance packages are sweetest, and in my experience, after the first round of layoffs, the people who have the best options (which aren't necessarily the best people at doing the job? but there is some correlation) jump ship, and that makes things harder, too, just 'cause you have lost all the people management thinks are the worst, and all the people that management (at other companies) thinks are the best, and you have to then do the job with just those in the middle. (the downside, of course, to being in the first wave is that it's a lot easier to get a new job while you have a job, vs getting that new job right after you got laid off.)

My own personal rule is that when the first layoff hits, start looking hard. I mean, if it's an industry-wide downturn and you happen to be at a company that is well-placed to weather it better than most, maybe you stay? but usually the best thing to do after dodging a layoff is to find another job at another company, one that isn't in as much trouble.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#124

Post by khrbrt »

mtnGoat wrote: post #93
jkp56 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you said it - "join a union" - made me think that unions may be a good idea in software if anyone can join and leave any time. This would be like insurance that funds a big nonprofit with very motivated (and well paid) lawyers. 250 usd / month shouldn't bankrupt a software dev and 100k such devs (a large corp) would bring 250 M/year. There's definitely a room for a few unions in the US with 200-500 m/year bud…

Although the idea is promising, 250 a month is too high. At 100k, your bring home is roughly 70(varies greatly by state). And then you'd pay almost 5% of that to a union to help insure your job. My mom's Union fees were well below 1% of her bring home.

Rule of thumb I head somewhere is that union dues should be around half hour of wage per week, assuming full time employment. Not sure what it would be for part timers.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#125

Post by sifar »

error417 wrote: post #18

I lost my job in January because the company closed the office in my country, haven't written a single line of code since then, looking for motivation to start again but I feel like an absolute failure and don't know what to do now. The fact that I stopped coding 10 months ago and wasn't even a good developer, to begin with, isn't helping. I guess I need therapy.

Create an urgency to deliver. Use that as a motivator.

1) Promise someone you value/respect to deliver some program

2) Join an interesting coding competition

3) Help teach kids programming.

4) Figure out if you can solve a problem in your current scenario with any program.

Concentrate on the process/act of doing it, rather than the thing itself. Learn to enjoy doing it. Also if you are not doing it already, I would suggest to start exercising or playing a physical sport which would put you in better frame of mind.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#127

Post by mkhpalm »

edent wrote: post #42

Yup. Happened to me. Big corporate decided most of our floor were surplus to requirements. Got an email on Sunday telling us to be in early on Monday for an off-site meeting. Got handed my redundancy / compromise agreement and told not to return to the office. And, the kicker, told my non-compete meant I couldn't work for a competitor during the redundancy process. It was devastating and emotionally wrecking. It was…

Non-compete usually don't hold up in court in our field. You have to remember that somebody has to prove damages somewhere. Who do you think every court sides with when you're the only one who can demonstrate damages and they were the ones who let you go?

So unless you worked for a car wash and then go open a car wash across the street. Its not even worth thinking about.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#128

Post by tangent0 »

It happened to me. My employer was in Ad network business and gradually it went out of business (mainly due to Ads business is consolidating with big 4) and filed chapter 10 bankruptcy. We all were let go. Miss my team sometime. We had a great time working together

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#129

Post by chadcmulligan »

I was laid off last week :-). Got a nice little payoff, spending a few months finishing a side project I was working on. I'll probably go back to free lancing, I have been for years, I went staff as a bit of an experiment - there is no difference between it and contracting, everything people say to lure you into a staff position is nonsense, just a way to save pennies.

Edit: I started there as a contractor, then went staff after a break in between, little annoyed by it, but oh well. A couple of people I've known for years - hard times they say, losing customers etc, no more development, yada, yada. They're moving everything into support, hoping that will stem the tide, hope it works for them, time will tell.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#130

Post by mkhpalm »

massung wrote: post #31

Personally, I haven't been laid off, but wanted to recognize that a layoff also affects those who weren't: morale drop, worry, survivor's guilt, stress leading to physical symptoms, etc. Sometimes, this can quickly lead to a downward spiral effect at the company. Productivity falls and whatever issues the layoff was intended to remedy end up being magnified instead. This is usually the case when - before the layoff -…

I went through a site layoff where of all the developers only me and another guy got relocation packages instead of severance. I would have much preferred the severance since I had to put in my resignation to avoid moving.
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