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

Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 112 posts

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#61

Post by cycrutchfield »

not-chatgpt wrote: post #29

Worked at a couple FAANG companies and from what I've seen, management is absolutely right that remote work, overall, is inefficient. There was a Blind poll and I believe half the people admitted they were slacking off more frequently while remote. However, being laid off is just a completely different matter. Depending on the company, the motivation for the layoff could significantly differ. Some did it to save cost…

Don’t base any opinion off of something you see on Blind. That’s a very self-selecting group who participate there, and probably the majority of responses were just trolling.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#62

Post by bartwr »

dartos wrote: post #51
bartwr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they sound horrible? This is a serious, non provocative question. :) I personally loved working for Google. Low workload, great work-life balance, amazing perks, mind blowing salary, potential to do really cool stuff that hundreds of millions will use, doing really cutting edge things that almost noone else can do, ridiculously good internal infrastructure and tooling so I can focus just on my tasks, kind and…

Many people would not like the cognitive dissonance of working for an organization that does many things they disagree with. But from what I hear, it really depends where in google you work. I hear juniors/new grads are worked to the bone

I agree with both your points. The experience varies and depends a lot on the manager.

And about the cognitive dissonance - but to me, personally, it's not like there is one Google, but it's many companies with completely separate goals and ways of acting. And it's not just a metaphor; different orgs really do operate on sometimes opposing goals (like Android vs Pixel vs Research - I was in the middle of that, but won't elaborate publicly). I think long term it should be broken up by regulators, but that's a different and polarizing/political topic.

But back to my original point - a lot of people have amazing experiences there, so my question to the person posting it remains - how is everything about those jobs horrible? This brings me a huge cognitive dissonance, as it's so different from my and my colleagues experiences.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#63

Post by lelanthran »

gardenhedge wrote: post #19
afavour wrote: post #12

The only real answer here is "who knows?". It's often said that tech workers have no need for unions and (not to reopen that box yet again!) this is exactly the kind of scenario where tech workers could benefit from union representation, even if they're highly paid. Absent that these companies can do more or less whatever they want with remote workers, they're not a protected class.

I'm in a union and got a 1.5% raise, benefits have decreased and we're forced into hybrid working. I'm in a country where I can't just be fired without notice so that union doesnt do much for me there either. I'm just pointing out that unions don't mean you get everything you want.

> I'm just pointing out that unions don't mean you get everything you want.

Maybe not, but if the companies can band together and collectively decide what is best for employers[1], then it's only fair that employees should be able to band together and collectively decide what is best for employees.

Unions are for collective negotiation; getting what you want is a nice side-effect of collective bargaining.

[1] Yeah, don't tell me that they don't collude. Actual communications between them is not required for collusion.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#64

Post by StableAlkyne »

gardenhedge wrote: post #19
afavour wrote: post #12

The only real answer here is "who knows?". It's often said that tech workers have no need for unions and (not to reopen that box yet again!) this is exactly the kind of scenario where tech workers could benefit from union representation, even if they're highly paid. Absent that these companies can do more or less whatever they want with remote workers, they're not a protected class.

I'm in a union and got a 1.5% raise, benefits have decreased and we're forced into hybrid working. I'm in a country where I can't just be fired without notice so that union doesnt do much for me there either. I'm just pointing out that unions don't mean you get everything you want.

Well of course they aren't! Unions are there as a way of leveling the power balance between the owners and workers. That unions still terrify big companies to the point of firing organizers or closing entire locations should be telling. They're not around to prevent every inconvenience, they're around to prevent abuse of the workforce.

For example, if the Games Industry (using them as an example because they're notoriously the worst work-life) unionized, a shop could tell their management "No, we will not engage in crunch for a month."

Like how a fire suppression system doesn't prevent you from burning your food, unions are there to prevent bigger issues.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#65

Post by toomuchtodo »

nsxwolf wrote: post #55
eropple wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in a country where I can't just be fired without notice so that union doesnt do much for me there either. In most countries, this didn't happen out of nowhere.

Point out the underperformance of unions and the response is always yeah but they got us weekends off 100 years ago. What have you done for me lately?

Working on the 4 day workweek in the US at the moment. Progress takes time, it's impossible until it is done.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#66

Post by gspencley »

bartwr wrote: post #46
gspencley wrote: post #16

I personally don't care what FAANG does. They all sound like horrible companies to work for, and I don't care for the products they produce either. I was working remotely before the pandemic and will continue to work remotely in the future. It's great that we have more opportunities now than before, but they always existed. So what the "mainstream" or "big tech" world does in current year is their own business. I won…

Why do they sound horrible? This is a serious, non provocative question. :) I personally loved working for Google. Low workload, great work-life balance, amazing perks, mind blowing salary, potential to do really cool stuff that hundreds of millions will use, doing really cutting edge things that almost noone else can do, ridiculously good internal infrastructure and tooling so I can focus just on my tasks, kind and…

I've just heard a lot of horror stories from colleagues about every single one of them. To be fair a lot of the complaints are typical of working for any large corporate machine. I'm not anti-corporation or anti-capitalist but the bigger a company gets the more bureaucracy, red tape, polices, layers of middle management and overall inefficiencies and burdensome "structures" get put in place.

I'm happy to hear of a counter-example with respects to Google. Since I've tried to de-Google my life as close to 100% as possible (though I do watch YouTube and I own a Pixel so I can use GrapheneOS so there's that, sigh) I don't think I could bring myself to work for them on the sole basis that job satisfaction suffers when I don't like what I'm making. But that's separate from toxic company culture, which is what I hear from these places (but to be fair these companies have so many employees that individual experiences can't NOT vary).

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#67

Post by highspeedbus »

I don't believe it will be as a wave, but more like fewer and fewer new job offers being offered as remote.

At some point, workers will feel the pressure as remote offers become scarce. This will affect everyone. Even the best have bills to pay.

Then when ~50% of workforce comes back to office, the remote ones will loose a lot of influence on the market. Is possible that we'll see a wave of layoffs on that moment.

I have no odds to bet. But maybe is time to think about were we want to live in the next 5 years.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#68

Post by scruple »

gspencley wrote: post #66
bartwr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they sound horrible? This is a serious, non provocative question. :) I personally loved working for Google. Low workload, great work-life balance, amazing perks, mind blowing salary, potential to do really cool stuff that hundreds of millions will use, doing really cutting edge things that almost noone else can do, ridiculously good internal infrastructure and tooling so I can focus just on my tasks, kind and…

I've just heard a lot of horror stories from colleagues about every single one of them. To be fair a lot of the complaints are typical of working for any large corporate machine. I'm not anti-corporation or anti-capitalist but the bigger a company gets the more bureaucracy, red tape, polices, layers of middle management and overall inefficiencies and burdensome "structures" get put in place. I'm happy to hear of a co…

You're hearing from people who had negative experiences and allowing it to color your perspective of the experience of, like, well over 1,000,000 (? I don't really know, just spit-balling here) people who currently collectively work for these organizations. That's kind of short-sighted, right?

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#69

Post by scruple »

Justsignedup wrote: post #52
bartwr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they sound horrible? This is a serious, non provocative question. :) I personally loved working for Google. Low workload, great work-life balance, amazing perks, mind blowing salary, potential to do really cool stuff that hundreds of millions will use, doing really cutting edge things that almost noone else can do, ridiculously good internal infrastructure and tooling so I can focus just on my tasks, kind and…

to echo your response: I know people who worked at Amazon and hated it. And facebook and loved it. Google people did the google world tour (transfer offices every 6-9 months and live everywhere in the world). Pretty great experiences at Dropbox. The life-changing salary is also pretty great. I also know people who got so bored at those jobs working on the same one tiny thing all day long. So many varied experiences.…

I know some folks (all Senior+/Staff level) who worked at Amazon and, while they would never say they loved it, they also won't say they hated it. The common denominator they all share is that working there had such a deep impact on how they operate today that they would absolutely work there again, even knowing what they'd be walking into.

I would never work there, personally. I will (and have!) walk from any employer who regularly demands more than 40 hours a week out of me.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#70

Post by kevinsync »

sime2009 wrote: post #54
kevinsync wrote: post #30

While working for an agency full-time (software), somebody asked me what I do. I said "My job is to make you feel good about whatever it is I may or may not be doing around this place." This is applicable to all jobs in all industries, full-time or remote -- produce, and make your employer feel good about you being there, and sometimes even that's not enough to avoid the chopping block... but you know what? That's ju…

This idea that your top priority as an employee is to make your boss feel good at all times, is a thing in the US, but it is not universal to every where in the world.

100%, I have family from Russia who often cannot comprehend the cultural workplace nonsense endemic to America.

Meanwhile, to me (guy from Midwest), the maneuvering and relationship management is second nature. Exhausting at times, yes, irrational, always, but in most cases people just want to get things done, and IMO simply being patient, present and available to reduce friction for all involved goes a long way towards success in your chosen field.

Post reply on HN