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Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

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Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#121

Post by Manuel_D »

librish wrote: post #114
Manuel_D wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the broader point is, giving 40+ hours per week to a company is already giving enough of yourself to the company. I think it's great for people to put in extra effort and time, if you're inspired to do it. Of course, you should care about your boss and co-worker as people and become friends with them. But never forget they're co-workers, not family. At the end of the day, labor demands change and if it's in t…

In the context of this post what does "But never forget they're co-workers, not family." mean? What should the author have done differently and how would that have changed things?

It means you need to be cognizant of the fact that if it's in the company's best interest to let you go, they will. And this is not unusual or peculiar. This passage stood out to me:

> The email said we'd lose access at 12:30pm. At 12:28 I decided, "I'll break up with you before you can dump me." I signed out and closed my work machine for the last time.

> And then I started to cry.

> I cried despite the generous severance package. I cried despite emotionally preparing for the moment. I cried despite being genuinely excited for what comes next. For nine years, so much of my identity has been wrapped up in my relationship with Twilio, and that relationship ended today.

It is abundantly clear that the author invested too much emotion and too much of his identity into his employer. Your relationship is not one of family. You can't fire your brother or child [1], but company can and do fire their employees. The fact that he had such a profound reaction means he needed to invest less emotion in his employer and adopt a more mercenary attitude. I've been laid off before, it happened to me when my previous employer was heavily impacted by COVID. I didn't cry, my attitude was "yep, makes sense - I'd probably do the same in their shoes." I don't want to sound mean or belittling, but it's just not healthy to have the author's reaction to being laid off.

I find it funny how people talk about a "mercenary" attitude in the workforce with a negative connotation. What's not ethical is when people treat military service like picking up jobs off LinkedIn, and apply the same attitude of the civilian workforce towards the profession of arms. It's totally normal to have a "mercenary" attitude in the civilian workforce. It doesn't mean don't be friends with your co-workers - I'm sure the dudes at Blackwater and Executive Outcomes are friends with their co-workers - but it does mean you need to be prepared for the day that the company decides your employment is no longer necessary.

1. to be pedantic, people do cut off family members, but usually for reasons far more serious than maximizing profit

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#122

Post by sys_64738 »

What the first exposure to layoffs (whether you are or not) teaches you is to never be exposed in such a circumstance again. Make sure you have an exit strategy when your current company either goes down the toilet or they bin you. Companies have zero loyalty to you just as you should have zero loyalty to them. Walk when the opportunity arises that makes sense.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#123

Post by Manuel_D »

danesparza wrote: post #64

Why in the world would Twilio take somebody who is this loyal to their culture and put them out on their ear? This person was a true believer. They stuck with the company for 9 YEARS. If you want to shift the company, then do that -- and take your true believers WITH YOU. This isn't leadership on Twilio's part. This is a scared company. They aren't making smart decisions. They're just cowing to investors.

Because companies aren't family, and they aren't welfare programs. Continuing to retain these employees would require increasing prices to pay for this glut of labor, and shift the burden on customers. And if customers drop because of increased prices, they might have to lay people off anyway. There is no "sacred company".

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#124

Post by sys_64738 »

Beaver117 wrote: post #116
twawaaay wrote: post #13

I wonder if large companies recognise they are shitting in the pond they are floating in. As somebody with over quarter of century of experience managing and hiring people I notice how candidates change over time (trying to adjust for how I change myself). I notice people care less about the company they work for and, honestly, it is more and more difficult to find arguments against. This whole trend of optimising ev…

I'm only 25 and have had 6 jobs. The longest I've stayed at a company was a year. Just the way we have grown up in the industry, all the smart people giving advice on the internet say to not bother getting raises or promotions, just go and interview and it'll be much more efficient. And it has, I've gotten massive pay bumps every time. How can you for stay loyal to a company when they give a measly 3% raise? And make…

Each to their own, but I wouldn't hire you - I wouldn't even interview you. You do get to a point where you earn enough and can't be bothered to prove yourself at a new place yet again. It does get tired and boring as you realize that working life isn't really a pursuit that is your most important life goal.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#125

Post by sys_64738 »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #18
twawaaay wrote: post #13

I wonder if large companies recognise they are shitting in the pond they are floating in. As somebody with over quarter of century of experience managing and hiring people I notice how candidates change over time (trying to adjust for how I change myself). I notice people care less about the company they work for and, honestly, it is more and more difficult to find arguments against. This whole trend of optimising ev…

I feel like there’s something weird going on in most companies above a certain size. I’ve worked at small companies with a wonderful culture and people put in lots of work to get a beautiful product shipped. But then when the company grows something changes and pushes those original passionate people out. Everyone else sees the passionate people get treated bad and react appropriately. Suddenly the large company carv…

I go to work for 40 hours then leave the problems there. Work isn't life.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#126

Post by flashgordon »

_vbnz wrote: post #61
wonderwonder wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really harsh. At the job I mentioned in the above they pip'd me because I delivered 8 points per week instead of 10 for 2 weeks right when COVID lockdown hit. They couldn't understand why the world melting down and my kids suddenly home schooling would have any affect on my productivity. Companies treat us as replaceable widgets. If widget A is broken just throw it away and use widget B. No reason to be loyal…

To the suits we're just a translation layer between the business requirements to deployed code. And they'll be happy to reduce the work to story points and neo-Taylorism, so they can try to treat each person as an interchangeable unit of production, and then minimise costs. In an era of trillon-dollar megacorps and multi-billionaire CEOs, Marx was ahead of his time: > He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is…

Ooh ooh ooh. I am unable to hold myself back but I'll try. The pipping system in most companies (especially "new age" faangs) is very very similar to the credit rating scheme. You are always captured, nay reduced, to a metric. All context is ignored/forgotten. And even worse it is a lot easier to drop on a metric than to rise back up again because when you drop it is purely objective but when you try to make up it is rarely ever objective. Only thing the faangs have done differently is lasted a bit longer in hiding their shadiness than their wall st counter parts! This unveiling could actually good be great for innovation again?

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#127

Post by flashgordon »

malfist wrote: post #48
kungito wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my first job our manager was fired around the time his partner died of cancer and he was left with 2 little kids. He was slacking but also they knew about the whole situation. He was there for over 10 years. That changed me forever

I have a friend who spent 30 years working for a factory building aircraft for the military. One year, a new lead manager comes in and decides he wants everyone on the floor to have a college degree and fires my friend and the six other people there without college degrees. It really messed up my friend, he was really close to a comfortable retirement, but had to borrow against his 401k to make it through until he co…

I wouldn't be surprised if the manager who came in with this edict was specifically brought in to "weed" out those who could "escape" into a comfortable retirement just to extract more labor out of them!

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#129

Post by drewcoo »

twawaaay wrote: post #13

I wonder if large companies recognise they are shitting in the pond they are floating in. As somebody with over quarter of century of experience managing and hiring people I notice how candidates change over time (trying to adjust for how I change myself). I notice people care less about the company they work for and, honestly, it is more and more difficult to find arguments against. This whole trend of optimising ev…

> shitting in the pond they are floating in

Spoken like a manager trying to conserve what remains.

That "shit in the pond" is just fertilizer. Enough senior-ish people from big-ish companies are being let go that there are bound to be some startups forming. And likely bootstrapped startups given how frightened VCs seem.

They know enough to eat the parent companies' lunches. But that's not the real threat. The real threat is that they know what those companies could have done and exactly how except that those companies were too frightened or conservative to do it. Those people can not just eat their parent companies' lunches, but all tomorrows' lunches. Nom nom nom.

All you recently laid off: find one another, band together, turn that spite into progress and kick some ass!

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#130

Post by icedchai »

abhnv wrote: post #128

I don’t understand why are senior developers getting fired. If over-hiring was the reason for the layoffs. Then shouldn’t the recently hired people be fired?

Often it is not individuals being directly targeted, it is whole teams. "Project Foo is not working out, let's cancel it and fire the whole team." Not saying that happened here. It is impossible to say what logic went into these decisions.
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