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Plaid Layoffs

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Re: Plaid Layoffs

#141

Post by sct202 »

boringg wrote: post #70

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…

I've been thru a lot of layoffs and these posts would honestly be the last thing I would worry about. The worst ones I've been thru are the secret layoffs where a handful of people just disappear one day and everyone left just whispers about it because if we were supposed to know details the overlords would have said something and no one wants to be next by speaking out.

Re: Plaid Layoffs

#142

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

jdnffjvnv wrote: post #128
game_the0ry wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you advocating for mob violence against CEOs for laying people off?

Parent may not be advocating it, but one would have to be willfully blind not to see a tremendous spike in related chatter online ('eat the rich' comes to mind ). If it is not addressed, it will only fester. Open discussion is a way to release some of that pressure.

Re: Plaid Layoffs

#143

Post by neilv »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #68
lxe wrote: post #28

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!"

At my company we called everyone Auxon, but then eventually figured out that engineers are way more expensive than livestock, so we replaced them all with oxen. Now it's just me, my co-founder, and a smelly barn with keyboards on the ground connected to Emacs terminals getting sporadically trampled by hooves. /s Also, I have no idea where this compulsion comes from, but I agree that it's peculiar. To me it has always…

This official cute naming of employees actually goes back to sometime before the Web, in software/hardware companies.

Re: Plaid Layoffs

#144

Post by dimmke »

monero-xmr wrote: post #19

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 hate Plaid as a company and I chortled at this.

The next tech boom may not include any sort of unionizing, but I feel like we should all agree that tech companies don't get to pick "fun" names to call their employees and make that the line we draw in the sand.

Re: Plaid Layoffs

#146

Post by soco »

cjglo wrote: post #99
dougmwne wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And BTW, I take full responsibility for everything, which means nothing.

In the words of Gavin Belson: “Make no mistake, though they are the ones leaving, it is I who must remain and endure the heavy burden of their failure.”

"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make." - Lord Farqaad.

Re: Plaid Layoffs

#147

Post by leviathant »

namdnay wrote: post #24
james_pm wrote: post #3

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

I honestly don't know why there's so much resentment over this point in-thread here. I do understand that in the context of a layoff announcement, it's a little cold.

I worked for a company called Weblinc, we called each other Weblincers - not because it was some cult, and there wasn't company "we're a big family" messaging, although there were many tightly knit social groups among colleagues that formed over the years and continue to exist outside of work. That said, when we productized the platform we'd built and rebranded as Workarea, no one made some tribalized adoption of that name. I hadn't thought of it much, but Workarean doesn't roll off the tongue, and becomes an unfortunate homonym, particularly in southeast Pennsylvania.

I'm sometimes called a number of things that I also call myself: a Philadelphian, a Pennsylvanian, a musician, and currently, a commercetooler. It's not my entire personality, but I think it's a little sociopathic to think the company of people that you work with does not contribute in some way to your identity.

Re: Plaid Layoffs

#148

Post by stu2b50 »

bombcar wrote: post #121
Calvin02 wrote: post #79

I know this feels trite but do other industries do a better job of messaging layoffs? I was laid off from a non-tech company in 2006-2007. There was no message from the CEO, no public admission of fault, etc. We knew the layoffs were coming. On the Friday of the layoff, my manager came around and took me to the HR office. I stood in line with others to sign some paperwork. I was then escorted back to my desk to colle…

Tech companies are valued on a house of cards (many of them) and so the investors are spooked by layoffs, so the CEO feels they need to say something. This isn't present in many other companies, though the largest ones will still say something to not spook the shareholders. Layoffs from small companies are rarely heard of outside the company, but we hear about small tech companies because of the investor aspect.

We hear about small tech companies because this is hacker news, the discussion forum owned by Y-combinator the tech incubator…

Also, small tech companies have >1b valuations, however paper thin, which is fairly unique.

Re: Plaid Layoffs

#149

Post by bombcar »

lxe wrote: post #28

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!"

Some companies would organically begin referring to themselves by a name.

This was noticed as an indicator of a good corporate culture.

So of course it becomes a metric and is then forced on everyone.

This is why the best "employee group names" are HR-unsafe. That's how you know they're real.

Re: Plaid Layoffs

#150

Post by trollied »

Calvin02 wrote: post #79

I know this feels trite but do other industries do a better job of messaging layoffs? I was laid off from a non-tech company in 2006-2007. There was no message from the CEO, no public admission of fault, etc. We knew the layoffs were coming. On the Friday of the layoff, my manager came around and took me to the HR office. I stood in line with others to sign some paperwork. I was then escorted back to my desk to colle…

When I worked for Lucent many moons ago, they hired an external consultant to do the layoffs. Word soon got round that if you got a desk call from a specific meeting room it’d be bad news, from 2 other meeting rooms it’d be good news.

I volunteered, so it was different for me, but the least they could have done was get direct management (in conjunction with HR) to do it. The working relationships & office culture were good enough to do it.

I guess it’s just one of those things that somebody will always complain about. Meta got a good kicking for laying people off, but that package they gave was amazing, for example.

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