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Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

rachelbythebay.com

201–210 of 392 posts

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#201
post #9

Layoffs in the WFH era are weird. Back in the day you had a pretty good idea of who got laid off because you saw them walking out the door with a box of their stuff. You could go up to them and say, "hey let's meet at $local_watering_hole and hang out". You could swap contact info if you didn't already have it. You could get closure. Now, one day a bunch of people just stop replying to email. You have a to wait a whi…

Office layoffs are weird too. A friend worked for Oculus. One day they went to lunch and the manager muttered something quietly about the whole team being laid off then ran off. A team of like 10-15 people had to stand outside and wait for security to bring out their stuff. Sounds pretty awkward.

Another large company I worked for sent out random meeting with the CIO, if you got the meeting you were laid off. At least the CIO did it himself.

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#202
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. My takeaway is that I should probably delete my slack account before leaving the company.

The takeaway is that no message on Slack should be considered private.

Why would anyone consider a company provided messaging service as private? Or even a company provided laptop, cellphone, etc.

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lockout always struck me as dumb and I didn't do it as a manager. If I trusted them for the 3 years they worked for me, I can trust them for another week or two. Tie up loose ends, take your time. We're all adults here. I understand that under the worst circumstances bad things can happen but that's always the case.

I worked at a large web dev company and for years they had this attitude. Then one designer put in his two weeks and spent the majority of the time downloading all the site files for all of the sites the company had built over the two years he was there. We're talking hundreds of static sites where he took the all the design docs and static HTML/CSS/JS files one would need to recreate them somewhere else. Instead of…

Get a DLP system in place for god sakes. I’ve even seen off shore people work from VMs only where they can’t download or store any file locally, much less dump everything to a USB stick.

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#204
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One company I worked for used to have an unofficial “ex-company” slack setup, where people would get invited to by others that have already left and were in there, it was kinda nice since you form bonds with people and suddenly they’re just gone. You might have not managed to connect with them in any other form. But you login to “ex-company” slack workspace and here they are - everyone that went through the company.…

I am a part of one such group! It started as a WhatsApp group for all ex-employees, but has now morphed into a discord server. It's a great way to remain connected to friends you make at work, and recently, it has also become a way to share job openings to your network to help laid-off people.

Anybody have connection to the ex-google one if there is? I just left and didn't see it referenced in any of the leaving guides.

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had some DM’s which were of personal nature that were rifled through after a contract ended. How do you "clearly mark a DM as personal"? It was creepy, and further illustrated that anything you say in Slack can and will be viewed by the whole company. If not literally, then that’s how you should treat it. You might be right that it’s not illegal, but it would be nice to have those kinds of protections. Trying to ta…

> anything you say in Slack can and will be viewed by the whole company. If not literally, then that’s how you should treat it. Anyone thought otherwise?

Most large companies will tell you two contradictory things:

First of all, they'll tell you that even the most junior helpdesk workers can remote onto your machine, reset your password, disable your 2FA, and monitor all your web browsing and chat history.

Second of all, that this unannounced product, this not-yet-filed patent, this big planned layoff, this prospective hire background check result, these upcoming financial results, this employee's reason for needing medical leave, this pentest result document, and this forthcoming change to pricing are Strictly Confidential. You shouldn't discuss them even with your own boss, unless you've first confirmed they're on the need-to-know list, and that certainly doesn't include level 1 helpdesk workers.

Most large companies, to address this contradiction, will say access is possible but rarely used, tightly controlled and carefully audited.

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP is wrong and reads too much reddit - US bad, EU good. It is definitely possible to get fired "effective immediately" in EU/Sweden and 100% legal. I've seen it myself. (The company would just pay the 3 months salary)

Yea, but getting 3 months pay without having to work sounds even better for the employee. Now, there will still be the issue of dropping off Slack and hand off etc. I do read too much Reddit, but I also live in Sweden lol

Absolutely better, if I get fired I wish I will be fired immediately as well - 3 months of vacation sounds awesome :D

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#207
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss that too. Some of my best friends are former co-workers. Especially from when I was younger and we spent nearly every waking hour together either at work or at a bar after work. I don't miss it enough to want to go back to an office though!

The way I see it I go to work to exchange my skills for money. Often that involves working with others, but I’m not there to socialize and make friends. I have friends. So given that outlook, WFH seems just kind of more “pure.” It’s distilled work, unencumbered by phony pseudo-friendships and awkward water cooler chit chat about sportsball. When we start a zoom meeting I can just launch right into the agenda without…

So when you've earned your f-u money you stop showing up for work?

That's not what we see in practice. Most people with a sudden windfall (stocks, lottery winnings etc.) keeps showing up for work. Because how else would you stay socially meaningful in our society? Nobody really wants to sit at a beach sipping drinks the rest of their life, accomplishing nothing.

There is clearly a social aspect of work, at least for the majority that we can call socially functional. And it's at least as important as getting paid. Work is also a social role, and it hurts many people if they are left out of it. It's not easy.

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#208
Is it common in the USA that employees just disappear without getting the chance to say goodbye to their colleagues? At most places I worked, people tended to send a goodbye email to everyone@company and got a chance to say personal goodbyes, even when there was a negative reason for them to leave.

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#209
post #208

Is it common in the USA that employees just disappear without getting the chance to say goodbye to their colleagues? At most places I worked, people tended to send a goodbye email to everyone@company and got a chance to say personal goodbyes, even when there was a negative reason for them to leave.

It isn't the usual way for an employee to depart a company. It is common in layoff situations, though.

Note: don't ever depart with public criticism, you have little to gain and potentially a lot to lose with the burned bridges.

Re: Figure out who's leaving the company: dump, diff, repeat

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a part of one such group! It started as a WhatsApp group for all ex-employees, but has now morphed into a discord server. It's a great way to remain connected to friends you make at work, and recently, it has also become a way to share job openings to your network to help laid-off people.

Anybody have connection to the ex-google one if there is? I just left and didn't see it referenced in any of the leaving guides.

Leaving guides? I imagine a pamphlet.

"We wish you well on your departure; as you embark on new adventures your about to open your eyes for the first time.

This may be a shock to some of you as you may discover that the world is more dystopian than you've may of seen from your altered reality mind-implants.

We would like to thank you for your service as a tool at the corporation."

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