111–120 of 345 posts
Referring to people as "Plaids" is dehumanizing. 260 talented people were let go.
It’s the silly cutsey name they give to themselves, like metamates or googlers. So it makes sense to consider them “part of the family” until the end
No on in their right minds are giving these names to themselves. It's the HR "we are all a big family" playbook since forever.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Narcissists think the worst punishment in the world is having to admit they were wrong about something. Not cleaning up their messes, of course. That’s still on everybody else. They’re too busy contending with this harsh reality of not being right all the time. Which means if anyone says they take full responsibility, they’re either saying “I’m a big fat narcissist” or that they imprinted on narcissists, so all of th…
> Which means if anyone says they take full responsibility, they’re either saying “I’m a big fat narcissist” or that they imprinted on narcissists, so all of their mentors were. Kind of a stretch, no?
When it’s a teen pregnancy or injuring a pedestrian, we know what “taking responsibility” means. For layoffs there are no actions, no alteration of life paths. Even the money for severance really comes out of someone else’s pockets. It means nothing for the person saying it. Everyone else suffers the consequences, not the speaker.
Claiming you’re to blame is the only penance. That only makes sense to people who won’t normally do that. Which is people who think in narcissistic personality traits are normal. IE narcissists and people they groomed.
[1] https://www.ajnisbet.com/blog/this-startup-acquisition-annou...
Dear Floofernistas, This is the hardest thing I have ever done. The market changed - I thought we would make more money, now I think we will make less money. Therefore we have discovered that we don't need all of you. If you aren't needed, here is some money. I hope this is enough money that the internet isn't too mad at me. Remaining Floofernistas, please be kind to the ex-Floofernistas, and help them. Again, I am s…
In the chimpanzee world, this would be handled differently. In chimp world, when alpha chimp causes chaos that brings down the community, a group of beta chimps will tear apart alpha chimp limb-by-limb, then they elect a new alpha from the group of beta subversives. This also how the organized crime works - leaders get a lot of benefits, but they also get the downside accountability when they fuck up ("skin in the ga…
What delusional playbook does every tech leader get the idea to refer to their employees by cringey names like "Plaids" or "Metamates" in serious memos like this? Imagine if your physician did this... "Hey there KaiserPermanientoid! You have cancer!"
Dear Floofernistas, This is the hardest thing I have ever done. The market changed - I thought we would make more money, now I think we will make less money. Therefore we have discovered that we don't need all of you. If you aren't needed, here is some money. I hope this is enough money that the internet isn't too mad at me. Remaining Floofernistas, please be kind to the ex-Floofernistas, and help them. Again, I am s…
I get that layoffs seriously are terrible but a lot of these tech companies are providing some pretty seriously nice exit packages. I fail to understand the amount of acid in the comment thread? Layoffs suck, corporate speak is always cringey. What would people want as alternatives outside perfectly executed business plans that don't have layoffs? Handheld individual exit goodbye packages? Im seriously asking for leg…
> Im seriously asking for legit solutions. A few months of director+ level pay cut before layoffs. A few C-level folks taking pay and stock cut to retain employees before layoffs. When layoffs come, fire the bad decision makers before rank and file.
Lets say they average $100k in salary.
The rule is generally that the cost to a company is 1.4x the salary, so $140,000 per employee.
That is $36.4 million dollars. At a place like Plaid, I am guessing even cutting C-level salaries to zero wouldn't put much of a dent in that amount... and you still need someone to lead the ship.
It's fascinating to me that this individual at once acknowledges he made a hard decision and then couches that very statement in euphemisms and weasel-wording. You are not "saying goodbye", you are laying people off. Full stop.
There also seems to be this new corporate-weasel playbook where you don't refer to the people being laid-off as people but instead by some cringe-worthy corporate branding of employees. In this brave new playbook it's not people that are being laid off but rather "Plaids", "Tweeps", "Elasticians" and "Stripes"
I think this intentional. It seems as this is really an attempt to build corporate-culture at the same time you are showing the people who got to keep their jobs just how tenuous and capricious being an employee there really is.
The other notable feature of this new weasel-playbook seems to be that the CEO always "takes responsibility" but yet can not be responsible for actually calling the thing that they're accepting responsibility for what it really is. Nobody was let go they were simply "impacted." And there were no layoffs just "goodbyes being said."
If the CEO can't speak the hard unvarnished truth during the bad times, I would question their capacity for doing so during the good times. I hope that message is not being lost on those remaining "Plaids."
laid off + paid off = Plaid off
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Signed, guy who - is trying to build a useful product - thought he might be rich by now - turns out to be worth nothing until profit turns black - is facing the downside of a free market economy - is having one of the worst days of his/her life - will be forgotten by the internet (again) in about 2 days
> is having one of the worst days of his/her life Oh no, how sad. Pretty sure the people being laid off are having far worse days than the person who gasp had to write a letter.