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The Layoff

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Re: The Layoff

#131

Post by xena »

samatman wrote: post #127
xena wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that got pruned from the final draft was the manager also being there to monitor the call, but also an AI duplicate. I thought that was too creepy and it would make it too realistic, so it was left on the cutting-room floor.

I enjoyed the story, and want to offer some mild feedback. I found the reuse of "Hooli" from Silicon Valley distracting, spent the next few paragraphs wondering if this was supposed to be SV fanfic. I can think of a number of fake company names which would immediately suggest Google to the reader, without having that effect, as I'm sure you can as well.

Oh, that was left in? It was supposed to be E100. Oops! Fixing.

Re: The Layoff

#132

Post by tchalla »

yetanotherdood wrote: post #128
kyrra wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has had a very visible tool internally for this for years. It lists every single person that leaves on a given day. It even has a system set up where the person leaving can email it, and the note would be attached to their leaving notice. You can also search the system and see anybody that's left at any point. So I could look for people that left 15 years ago. The layoffs the last 2 years have been interesting…

Boy do I miss go/epitaphs; you could actually sort by departures based on tenure as well. But I've heard you could get into trouble for scraping epitaphs or specific ganpati groups to figure out who has left specifically around layoff seaon.

Ganapati? Lord Ganesh is called Ganapati.

Re: The Layoff

#133

Post by generic92034 »

euroderf wrote: post #17
KronisLV wrote: post #12

That was interesting. I'm reminded of the sci-fi story called "Manna" that I read a while ago, which explored a bit of a dystopian future, where advancements in technology eventually made a lot of people unemployed: https://marshallbrain.com/manna Actually, the Wiki page has more info on it, for those that don't have the time to read it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_(novel) The story is from 2003, but hearing…

SO where is the near-real-time country-wide system that ratchets down the standard (statutory) work week in sync with the overall decline in aggregate work ?

First there would need to be signs of greatly increased productivity where it counts (customer facing). Somehow I have my doubts we will see that with the current crop of LLM.

Re: The Layoff

#134

Post by [deleted] »

tchalla wrote: post #132
yetanotherdood wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boy do I miss go/epitaphs; you could actually sort by departures based on tenure as well. But I've heard you could get into trouble for scraping epitaphs or specific ganpati groups to figure out who has left specifically around layoff seaon.

Ganapati? Lord Ganesh is called Ganapati.

[deleted]

Re: The Layoff

#135

Post by Centigonal »

tchalla wrote: post #132
yetanotherdood wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boy do I miss go/epitaphs; you could actually sort by departures based on tenure as well. But I've heard you could get into trouble for scraping epitaphs or specific ganpati groups to figure out who has left specifically around layoff seaon.

Ganapati? Lord Ganesh is called Ganapati.

Google's access management database is called Ganpati - think ActiveDirectory or LDAP.

Re: The Layoff

#136

Post by lijok »

bruh2 wrote: post #83
joelegner wrote: post #72

Is that really how these layoffs go? The HR person is belittling ("I need you to focus") and the employee passively takes the belittling. Here's a script the employee could have used. "Excuse me, I need to pause. I have never met you before this call. We are strangers. You demand my attention because you say you need it. To be fair, your needs are no more important than mine. One of my needs is to be treated with res…

You might enjoy this TikTok video of an ex-CloudFlare employee getting laid off by people she has never met, and responds as fiercely as your text. Except she's also trying to extract the actual reason she's being laid off, to no avail – yet still impressive how hard she's pressing those random HRs. https://old.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/194v9y8/ae_at...

I think I would drop from the call and contact the security department. What’s to distinguish these two randos from a spearphishing attempt?

Re: The Layoff

#137

Post by netsharc »

kgdiem wrote: post #31
vasco wrote: post #13

"We won't share a list of the affected employees because some of them might not want the information to be public" was the biggest bullshit I've heard recently - no fiction needed. Discovering that people you worked with for years have been laid off only because you randomly notice their slack is deactivated has to be one of 2024s gifts to humanity.

My previous job never told us who was laid off —- once I had a meeting with a woman later that day and I only realized after she didn’t show up. I too found slack to be the layoff lookup tool.

Hah, is Slack doing anything with this data, it sounds like Salesforce has a good intel on a lotttt of companies. Things like re-orgs (bunch of new Slack channels, archival of old ones) who's working with whom...

Re: The Layoff

#138

Post by alemanek »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #82
alemanek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t get why companies won’t allow limited access to email at least to send a goodbye message and contact details to their colleagues. You could spin up new email boxes if you are worried about them downloading emails even. It just seems really cold to not let people say goodbye and point their colleagues to their LinkedIn so they can get some recommendations and such. For the companies that allow this I sa…

Could be they want to avoid the remaining employees getting emails saying Turns out the competition pay much better anyway .

Could be but the few that will send out nasty grams on broadcast just hurt themselves. Professionals will inform their colleagues privately so as to not burn bridges.

I guess I just wish the US borrowed some parts of European work culture when it comes to stuff like this.

Re: The Layoff

#139

Post by sitzkrieg »

vasco wrote: post #13

"We won't share a list of the affected employees because some of them might not want the information to be public" was the biggest bullshit I've heard recently - no fiction needed. Discovering that people you worked with for years have been laid off only because you randomly notice their slack is deactivated has to be one of 2024s gifts to humanity.

my employer did this last year. randomly laid off 100s of top contributors and project champions then spent the following year wondering why everything is slipping. that company and this entire market is so incredibly stupid.

Re: The Layoff

#140

Post by adastra22 »

franciscop wrote: post #24
vasco wrote: post #13

"We won't share a list of the affected employees because some of them might not want the information to be public" was the biggest bullshit I've heard recently - no fiction needed. Discovering that people you worked with for years have been laid off only because you randomly notice their slack is deactivated has to be one of 2024s gifts to humanity.

This has been one of my most surprising/weird experiences working for US startups. In the other two countries I've been, at the very least my manager sat with each of us, or in group, or some sort of announcement when someone I was working with would stop (either voluntarily or involuntarily). Seeing names and 1-1 conversations just disappear from Slack without anyone saying anything is very bizarre. But I had to lea…

I haven't had a US-based office job since 2018. I'm as thrown by it as you. It always used to be the norm that at the next standup or meeting it would be acknowledged. I don't know what changed in the intervening years.
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