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Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

mcsweeneys.net

21–30 of 333 posts

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#21
I'm pretty sure a lot of this is connected to the bond market. Companies are running out of operating capitol. When they try and get an operating loan the terms are onerous. Rather than refinance they are electing to perform layoffs to maintain solvency.

It does not matter how good you are doing in contrast to previous years. If your loan comes due and you can't afford another one to keep that revolving credit going you need to free up the capitol to pay.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#23
Isn't this kind of weird? Some try to blame capitalism, but AI is not capitalism. It is technological progress. Every president and dictator, no matter what type of economy or political system they have, are trying to develop AI right now. It's something that goes beyond any economic system and is a fact and force that can't be stopped and one must simply reckon with.

What we have in the US today is not capitalism. It's cronyism, soft socialism, and an increasingly government-led economy.

Capitalism defined: "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit." When the government gets its paws out of the economy, then we can blame our ills on capitalism. Until then, don't call it capitalism.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#24
post #10

If the company fires hundreds or thousands of people and there is no visible dip in the productivity, is it really a bad thing? One thing that is baffling to me is that these companies can fire 10% of their workforce and they just keep on chugging without a hitch. The bullshit job phenomenon is the problem here.

“I stopped changing the oil and my car runs fine.”

Sometimes problems take time to present themselves.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#25
post #10

If the company fires hundreds or thousands of people and there is no visible dip in the productivity, is it really a bad thing? One thing that is baffling to me is that these companies can fire 10% of their workforce and they just keep on chugging without a hitch. The bullshit job phenomenon is the problem here.

Productivity inertia is a thing. It's common for things to keep rolling in the short term after a big layoff. Over time, though, the little things that so many faceless now-gone people were dutifully keeping going the whole time start to degrade and the cracks get bigger. It's not like these people were all working line jobs where there's an obvious productivity falloff like a now-unmanned conveyer dumping product on the floor.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#26
Side thought I had: I've met a lot of software developers that will say "I'm trying to automate myself out of a job". It feels a lot different when you actually do lose your job. I know that isn't what's going on here, it's other economic trends, but this just made me think of that.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#27
post #10

If the company fires hundreds or thousands of people and there is no visible dip in the productivity, is it really a bad thing? One thing that is baffling to me is that these companies can fire 10% of their workforce and they just keep on chugging without a hitch. The bullshit job phenomenon is the problem here.

If only a handful of people are capturing all the profits, and everyone else is unemployed, homeless, and hungry... that's how you get a decline in society.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#29
post #10

If the company fires hundreds or thousands of people and there is no visible dip in the productivity, is it really a bad thing? One thing that is baffling to me is that these companies can fire 10% of their workforce and they just keep on chugging without a hitch. The bullshit job phenomenon is the problem here.

For the sake of argument, does that mean all those employees were useless or does it mean the management isn't doing a good job of allocating them to effective work? I've been at a few companies that were rudderless and yeah, letting go of people wouldn't have made much difference because the leadership didn't know what to do with them anyway.

If the company is rudderless and unable to allocate effective work to employees, it won't be doing well. This is about companies that are doing well. At least, that's the premise of the article.

Re: Our Company Is Doing So Well That You're All Fired

#30
post #10

If the company fires hundreds or thousands of people and there is no visible dip in the productivity, is it really a bad thing? One thing that is baffling to me is that these companies can fire 10% of their workforce and they just keep on chugging without a hitch. The bullshit job phenomenon is the problem here.

If you have a project/company that's already running well and you fire almost everybody except a skeleton crew, you'd be amused but things don't crumble down instantly. Technical debt piles up and everything goes to maintenance mode, when you need the insight of the good people who left is when you realise that going to the previous state will cost you a lot more time and money than you might possibly predict.
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