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Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

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Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a "jetty" a defensive barrier to protect a harbor against storm tides? Dumb move to accidentally invite everyone to a meeting with a codename, but not a dumb codename as you protect a company from a storm.

I think it meant Jettison (throw or drop (something) from an aircraft or ship).

I’m not sure where you got that idea from but I assumed it was a typo. The lawyer was trying to type “layoff plan” and autocorrect worked its magic.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#132
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else do you propose during a "lockdown" "shelter-in-place" situation? IMO it's only the name of the meeting that is (potentially) the problem.

A phone call? Ending the employment relationship isn’t all too different from ending a romantic relationship. How would you feel if your significant other called and dumped you? Not good. How would you feel if your SO notified you of your new relationship status via text? Probably worse. Now how would you feel if your SO sent a mass text message dumping you and several other people at once? Probably a lot worse. Some…

If my SO had elected to break up with me while she had a super-contagious disease with high mortality rate that could be transferred to me by being in her presence, I would definitely prefer that she do it by phone or vidchat, yes!

As the parent (tomp) noted, the risk profile is basically that with the SIP situation, so this is an exception to the general rule.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the current economic situation plays a role in the decision to layoff. But, i wonder, in general, if all these layoffs are to some degree something overdue that companies wanted to do anyways and are now just taking the opportunity to do it whilst still saving face.

This entire situation is going to allow for a lot of, arguably, necessary house cleaning. I think you're also going to see management at surviving businesses exploit the downturn to their advantage. Lots of rationalization as to why you won't see raises, why you'll need to work more to pick up the slack, lots of "be greatful" (there's some validity here), lots of pay/hour cuts, etc. that will likely perpetuate long a…

There are also hiring ads run just to convince potential customers that you are not dieing. I know a few people who saw a job ad seeming to target them, with no response to their resume despite having a very unique skill set. Only by talking to insiders did the truth come out : they have enough people with the unique skill set but they need to appear to be growing even when it obviously is a dieing area. (mainframes in this case, they still exist and sell well but everybody has known they are on the way out)

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#134

> Lyft is laying off 17 percent of its workforce and furloughing 5 percent. This is after an employment lawyer at the company accidentally invited much of the workforce to a weekend meeting called "Jetty" in what workers took to be a reference to jettisoning jobs. https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1255526352813535232

Isn't a "jetty" a defensive barrier to protect a harbor against storm tides? Dumb move to accidentally invite everyone to a meeting with a codename, but not a dumb codename as you protect a company from a storm.

> but not a dumb codename

The whole point - the only purpose of a codename is that it doesn't give the game away.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#135
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This case sounds like an unfortunate mistake, I’m sure they intended to present the material in a somber manner. The tone of the presentation is far less important than the tone in the minds of the people doing the presenting. You can present as somberly as you want, but if a laugh track is secretly playing inside their heads, they can fuck all the way off. Workers deserve actual compassion, not the facade of it.

>>This case sounds like an unfortunate mistake, I’m sure they intended to present the material in a somber manner. That said, it begs the question on if what should be expected behind closed doors. Which OP sort of implied the sentence right after. I'm pretty sure if most people heard the discussions that go on in management meetings, especially at high levels, they'd be pretty irate. I've been in a few at different…

Is this based on actual experience or are you just imagining villains here?

I don't have that experience, but my suspicion is that the cartoon bosses in peoples' heads might not be an accurate picture of actual bosses? Laying people off doesn't seem to be easy for most managers, or at least those who talk about it.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#136
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think people reasonably expect that when a company makes a serious decision that affects hundreds of people’s livelihoods, that they effect a pretty somber tone. This case sounds like an unfortunate mistake, I’m sure they intended to present the material in a somber manner. That said, it begs the question on if what should be expected behind closed doors.

I think that falls under the saying: "Integrity is how you behave when you think nobody is looking".

Sort of OT but "integrity" is one of my favorite words. Imagine everyone you interact with has a small, slightly different picture of who you are. If those pieces could all be combined, they should form a consistent, accurate and (mostly) complete picture of the real you.

And even then, the only person who fully knows the real you... is yourself.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#137
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to get too far on this tangent, but, for me, "jetty" doesn't evoke "jettison" but either: 1) Those little docks like in Venice (cf. "Let me off at this jetty" in The Last Crusade ). 2) The jetty server library that Jenkins uses which shows up in error messages.

3) A plank that pirates walk people off of into the water to be eaten by sharks.

Source? Never heard that, and not seeing it in cursory internet searches. IME it's just called "the plank."

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the current economic situation plays a role in the decision to layoff. But, i wonder, in general, if all these layoffs are to some degree something overdue that companies wanted to do anyways and are now just taking the opportunity to do it whilst still saving face.

This entire situation is going to allow for a lot of, arguably, necessary house cleaning. I think you're also going to see management at surviving businesses exploit the downturn to their advantage. Lots of rationalization as to why you won't see raises, why you'll need to work more to pick up the slack, lots of "be greatful" (there's some validity here), lots of pay/hour cuts, etc. that will likely perpetuate long a…

> I love many aspects of technology but am really growing to hate industry practices to the point of looking at career changes.

Agree with your post (and upvoted) but wanted to point out that these labor practices common to capitalism and so you're likely to find it just as bad outside of tech. In some industries, worse than others, for sure. But this is the Faustian bargain that we signed up.

(Personally, having worked some really terrible jobs outside of tech, I wouldn't leave it.)

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#139

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft. Amazon could bundle rides with package deliveries and get the pre-existing driver and passenger network from Lyft. Lyft was actually telling drivers to work with Amazon when the pandemic started (1). Waymo could take Lyft’s aggregated rider demand. They already have a partnership to transfer autonomous rides from Waymo to Lyft during bad weather situation…

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft Or maybe Apple. Apple has been pouring millions into improving its street views in Apple Maps. It should buy Lyft. Pay the drivers an extra $x/mile to clamp the Apple Maps image gathering device to the roofs of their cars. The drivers win because they get a bump in income in an industry that's already hurting. Apple wins because it gets up-to-date informat…

> Pay the drivers an extra $x/mile to clamp the Apple Maps image gathering device to the roofs of their cars.

Scenario 1 (buy Lyft): So if Lyft has around 1 million drivers in USA [1], and Apple will pay them an average of $50/month to use the device + the cost of the device/installation (around $100) that would cost around $150,000,000 on top of the acquisition price. And you cant really be sure that they covered all roads.

Scenario 2 (hire drivers): US total road length is about 4 million miles, average driver can cover about 160 miles a day (8 hours * 20Mph). If you want to drive through all of the US in 30 days you would need around 800 drivers. If you pay them $5000/month to do that, that would cost you "just" $4 million.

[1] https://investor.lyft.com/news-releases/news-release-details...

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#140

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft. Amazon could bundle rides with package deliveries and get the pre-existing driver and passenger network from Lyft. Lyft was actually telling drivers to work with Amazon when the pandemic started (1). Waymo could take Lyft’s aggregated rider demand. They already have a partnership to transfer autonomous rides from Waymo to Lyft during bad weather situation…

love that this is the top comment on HN and not the fact that 1k people just lost their ability to pay their rent/mortgages, take care of their families, deal with medical costs.
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