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Goodbye Auth0

joshcanhelp.com

11–20 of 281 posts

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#11
post #2

Join a Union. The bitter truth is your employer has a lot more lawyers than you do. For all the talk about how well-compensated and in-demand tech workers are, the reality is usually different. You need someone in your corner to help you fight for your rights. If you're a tech worker in the UK, you can get three months free membership at https://prospect.org.uk/join/

Join. A. Union. https://utaw.tech/join/ also good. Think of it as having an employment lawyer on retainer for £8 a month. Well worth the money.

In IT we have it pretty easy and can rebound without as much hassle as other domains, so we think we're kinda safe. We're not.

Join a union when things are good, to help you when things are bad.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#12
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

I think the answer is pretty simply due to the difference in laws. In the US no notice is legally required. As you noted, employees that already know their employment is shortly coming to an end generally don't perform to the same level. Therefore it is in the company's interest to give no advance notice whatsoever until employment is officially, actually terminated. In every European country, there's a legal require…

> In the US no notice is legally required.

Required or allowed? So in the US you can't give notice?

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#13
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

I think the answer is pretty simply due to the difference in laws. In the US no notice is legally required. As you noted, employees that already know their employment is shortly coming to an end generally don't perform to the same level. Therefore it is in the company's interest to give no advance notice whatsoever until employment is officially, actually terminated. In every European country, there's a legal require…

What bugs me: in most companies, especially ones where people do mostly knowledge-based work like Authy does, almost everyone has some kind of unique information on them. No matter how good your project management and code base, most people carry some kind of valueable knowledge in their head that only becomes apparant as soon as they are not there anymore: something like how to log into certain systems, backup schedules, currently pressing issues etc etc. In my opinion the most important thing that needs to be done during offboarding is transfering as much of this hidden knowledge as possible into the company.

How do they proceed operating after kicking people out without prior notice? Do those projects just get stomped and started over with new people?

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#14
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

I had that experience with a US mother company of a European subsidiary (of a subsidiary). CEO swings by, as he does once per year, and fires the whole dev team, including the local branch manager, because they'll take over in the US (they couldn't, and then bought a competitor instead; the original product is still running, 15 years later), and we were told to leave the building. I had a program building something for an unusual client project, but I had to close the laptop, and that was €60k down the drain, probably more if the project had been successful. Since then, I've avoid companies with US ties.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#15
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

This is not the "European culture", which I am not sure exists as one on this issue. I have seen many times people be quickly "locked out" when being laid off. A term for this in the UK is "garden leave" because you're still paid but you're told not to work or come to the office anymore. As the case may be this makes sense in order to avoid any issues (from bad blood in the office to actively malicious actions) and,…

Garden leave also happens in Portugal, but only when the relation between employer and employee deteriorated to the point of no return. As an example in the same company I had a co-worker layed off with 3 months notice, while in the previous year a different person in the same team was called to HR during the day, and let go - we all found out he was fired on the next daily stand up.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#16
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

Not sure which part of Europe you are referencing, but from the layoffs I've seen and heard of (DACH) the procedure was always to lock the person out immediately after the layoff call/meeting. If that's good or bad is rather subjective, personally I would rather walk out the door right after.

One might have enough time to send their farewells, but that's about it - you are still getting payed until the end of the notice period of course. (let's not talk about severance packages, they are either non existent or a joke - you often also have to sign an NDA prohibiting you to talk about the package and the layoff in general).

So basically companies pull the same questionable stuff in Europe as well, it's far from the fairytale you sometimes read about. (there are always exceptions ofc)

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#17
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Join. A. Union. https://utaw.tech/join/ also good. Think of it as having an employment lawyer on retainer for £8 a month. Well worth the money.

In IT we have it pretty easy and can rebound without as much hassle as other domains, so we think we're kinda safe. We're not. Join a union when things are good, to help you when things are bad.

> In IT we have it pretty easy and can rebound without as much hassle as other domains, so we think we're kind safe. We're not.

Seems even people in the US aren't actually that well off, as the author said they'd experience "acute financial stress" if it wasn't for the severance:

> [...] and was told that the severance offered would give me at least a few months free from acute financial stress [...]

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#18
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

I think the answer is pretty simply due to the difference in laws. In the US no notice is legally required. As you noted, employees that already know their employment is shortly coming to an end generally don't perform to the same level. Therefore it is in the company's interest to give no advance notice whatsoever until employment is officially, actually terminated. In every European country, there's a legal require…

Well, yes, but actually no: you can easily give notice then lock them out, you just have to pay them over the entire notice period as the law says. It's not commonly done but in special cases of really bad blood, it will. The law is there to protect the employee income, not to force the employer to give them work.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#19
post #17
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In IT we have it pretty easy and can rebound without as much hassle as other domains, so we think we're kinda safe. We're not. Join a union when things are good, to help you when things are bad.

> In IT we have it pretty easy and can rebound without as much hassle as other domains, so we think we're kind safe. We're not. Seems even people in the US aren't actually that well off, as the author said they'd experience "acute financial stress" if it wasn't for the severance: > [...] and was told that the severance offered would give me at least a few months free from acute financial stress [...]

Wait until America wakes up and reads this thread. The anti-union feeling over there is very peculiar to Europeans.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#20
post #3
post #2

Join a Union. The bitter truth is your employer has a lot more lawyers than you do. For all the talk about how well-compensated and in-demand tech workers are, the reality is usually different. You need someone in your corner to help you fight for your rights. If you're a tech worker in the UK, you can get three months free membership at https://prospect.org.uk/join/

Germany, IG Metal and Verdi are active on IT field.

Salaries in Germany are really low compared to Denmark and Norway.
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