Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta and Google are cutting staff

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 408 posts

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#91

Post by ejb999 »

rosywoozlechan wrote: post #41
nafix wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it. I really dislike working with under-performers and people who just refuse to do due diligence on their end. I dislike working with people who always want you to come over to their frame of mind rather than trying to get into yours or meet in the middle. I saw a ton of people coasting during Covid. People need to get negative feedback when they deserve it.

The arrival of Covid was a period of great stress and change in people's lives. Maybe they were dealing with some things and not really coasting? Just maybe needed some more support? This way of thinking about people, coworkers, without understanding the situation in their lives and what they've been talking to with their managers about, is just alien to me and I don't understand it. I don't think it's a good way to…

IMO, it is not awful to state the obvious.

Every company - especially every company over a certain size, knows there are a certain percentage of people that just 'phone it in' and aren't pulling their weight relative to others - pretending that isn't true, really doesn't help anyone.

More importantly, it is demoralizing to the people you want to keep - to make it seem to them that putting in the extra effort doesn't do anything for you, so they start looking for the exits to find a position where there effort and talents are better appreciated; retaining the best people, at the end of the day is more important than a low-performer's hurt feelings.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#92

Post by jejeyyy77 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #67
jejeyyy77 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's been a new reason for why "this time is different" for the past 2 decades.

The boom of the past two decades was fueled by low interest rates!

and before that it was the other thing. As I said, I'll believe it when I see it ;)

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#93

Post by baq »

29athrowaway wrote: post #8

They are probably trying to avoid the WARN act and staying under the radar. A goal of 10% sounds like vitality curve/rank and yank/stacked ranking. If 10% of employees get promoted at the same you will know.

It’s just accounting at this scale. 10% equals however many billion dollars per year ‘saved’.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#94

Post by yuan43 »

> Among some Meta employees, the process of reapplying for jobs within a limited window internally is known as a sort of human-resources purgatory they call the “30 Day List.”

> Meta, as of last year the name of Facebook’s parent company, has long had a practice that employees whose roles are eliminated are subject to termination if they can’t find a new job internally within a month. Many other companies also make efforts to reassign employees whose groups are closed or restructured. At Meta historically, it was usually only employees deemed undesirable who failed to land new positions. Now, affected employees and managers say, workers with good reputations and strong performance reviews are being pushed out on a regular basis.

This sounds like a recipe for achieving rock-bottom morale of the remaining employees at warp speed. If anything, it seems worse than just firing people. By shunting high performers into the traditional dead-end path, the company simultaneously calls the employee's reputation into question while placing their professional short-term future in limbo.

Why not just fire?

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#95

Post by rosywoozlechan »

karmasimida wrote: post #59
rosywoozlechan wrote: post #26

Some of these comments mentioned in the article coming from Meta's leadership about there being people who shouldn't probably be there or to get rid of coasters seems so inhumane and demoralizing. What kind of leadership is that? I mean it's understandable that businesses have to cut costs, but have some empathy, and understand how words affect people. Just wow. It's so cynical and depressing.

Empathy is anti-capitalist. I think the executive getting rid of their usual fake friendly corporate talk, reflecting the degree how bad their bottom line is hurt.

Right, I wasn't suggesting fake friendliness, just like something better than making generalizations that bring up the spector of hidden bad people working at the company and nobody knows whose head is going to roll. It creates uncertainty, fear and just general demoralization in the ranks if you ask me.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#96

Post by walthamstow »

tempsy wrote: post #22
jejeyyy77 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people have been saying this for 2 decades. I'll believe it when I see it.

You haven’t noticed a bunch of multi bil tech cos down 90% in less than a year? Carvana is the poster child of zombie tech co that only made sense in a zero rate environment. Many others like it.

I see your Carvana and raise you a Klarna

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#97

Post by bluGill »

confidantlake wrote: post #70
AlotOfReading wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're still reaching out at least. I got contacted yesterday.

That is pretty lame unless it is for a very specialized role. But for whatever reason it seems like many companies go through the whole song and dance even if they have no intention of hiring.

It looks good to investors to see a lot of openings, so some companies that are not growing (that is they are in a great market that is small and won't grow) will go through that act of looking for people without hiring anyone. That is they get the job description of existing people, and post ads for that job, collect resumes, (they might do an initial phone screen interview for practice) but never hire anyone.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#98

Post by battery_glasses »

znpy wrote: post #90
battery_glasses wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Meta managers can't really get away with hiding low performers. Your performance review isn't finalized by your manager, but rather the manager submits your review to a calibrating board that tries to ensure fairness and maintain quality standards. They will refute at all cost that this is stack ranking but you are absolutely graded on the curve of the other engineers in your department and level.

I was contacted by meta just less than a month ago, and I declined the offer of an interview… I guess i dodged a bullet?

The pay is near top and the engineers are talented. There are a lot of systems in place to get you to work near max capacity all the time with little slowdown time. There are lots of processes and political upheavals that make it hard to ship code. Some people love it.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#100

Post by lesuorac »

johncessna wrote: post #99

This seems at odds with the great resignation. Was that actually a thing? If so, do folks think it was encouraged by companies who saw that the great freeze and now great rif were coming?

My understanding of the great resignation was it was mostly an older population who had put off retirement that decided they'd rather be retired [1]. Sure a lot of people not 55+ also quit but they came back while 55+ did not.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Resignation#United_State...

Post reply on HN