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Laying off George

zeldman.com

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Re: Laying off George

#31

Post by [deleted] »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #22
adamsmith wrote: post #9

I'm sorry to hear how hard it's been for George. Flickr is a great product and has had huge returns for Yahoo. That said, my uninformed reaction is to consider this a good move. The last thing Yahoo needs is another project with no clear business model, regardless how cool. This is the kind of work that should be funded by massive donations like wikipedia. If it's going to be supported by a company, it shouldn't be o…

You know, if yahoo is unable to find a way to make money off something like Flickr, there is no way any number of layoffs will save them. And there's something else I don't get. Why are they not trying to outsource projects that they do not consider to be core? Why are they not asking people like George to enter into some other kind of contractual relationship with them that would allow the continuation of a good pro…

[deleted]

Re: Laying off George

#33

Post by mynameishere »

mynameishere wrote: post #4

Here's the real link (question to poster: Why did you link to an unnecessary reference?) http://george08.blogspot.com/2008/12/not-quite-what-i-had-in... My comment: Congratulations to the affected. A website that does little besides arranging "img" elements is fundamentally lame. I was hit in the 2001 blowout, and it was probably the best thing that could have happened. Find something good.....

Not sure why people are defending flickr. There are lots of equivilent websites, and have been long before it ever existed. I stand by my comment: It's fundamentally lame. If I was a CS professor, I would have sophmores make a clone of it for a 2-week project. Just because it's the most popular in its class doesn't mean it transcends the extreme simplicity of said class.

Frankly, I don't even like it. Whose aesthetic ideal is responsible for the decision to show pictures at a size other than the maximum (up to a practical limit)? Show me the full-sized picture. Just seems obvious.

What exactly does this have:

http://flickr.com/photos/mongol/515509897/in/photostream/

That this doesn't:

http://flickr.com/photos/mongol/515509897/sizes/o/in/photost...

(Obviously, you could put the various widgets next to and below the above picture with plenty of space to spare.)

Re: Laying off George

#34

Post by nostrademons »

potatolicious wrote: post #25
tsally wrote: post #17

You can't be fired without some sort of severance pay or package, correct? Or am I just crazy.

In states with at-will employment your job can be terminated - by either side - with no notice (hence no obligation for severance), with some exceptions against illegal discrimination (e.g. being fired because you're black). Most companies will offer you some sort of severance - or at least won't ask for their signing bonus/relocation/etc back, but that's out of goodwill, not legal obligation.

Self interest as well. Lots of companies want you to sign additional agreements on the way out (don't trash the computers, don't bad-mouth the company, etc.) and you have no reason to sign these if they don't give you something in return.

Re: Laying off George

#35

Post by andreyf »

gruseom wrote: post #10

Did anyone else notice the oxymoron here? "I'll just get straight to the point. You've been affected by the layoffs." I guess it shouldn't surprise me that a middle manager would call a weasly euphemism getting "straight to the point".

In his defense, he admitted he was reading a script provided to him by HR.

Re: Laying off George

#36

Post by nostrademons »

mynameishere wrote: post #33
mynameishere wrote: post #4

Here's the real link (question to poster: Why did you link to an unnecessary reference?) http://george08.blogspot.com/2008/12/not-quite-what-i-had-in... My comment: Congratulations to the affected. A website that does little besides arranging "img" elements is fundamentally lame. I was hit in the 2001 blowout, and it was probably the best thing that could have happened. Find something good.....

Not sure why people are defending flickr. There are lots of equivilent websites, and have been long before it ever existed. I stand by my comment: It's fundamentally lame. If I was a CS professor, I would have sophmores make a clone of it for a 2-week project. Just because it's the most popular in its class doesn't mean it transcends the extreme simplicity of said class. Frankly, I don't even like it. Whose aesthetic…

Missing the point. Sites that have been technologically equivalent or better than Flickr have been around since the first dot-com boom. The genius of Flickr was in building a community around it.

It's really easy for technophiles to say "Oh, I could build that in a week", and usually they can. The problem is, nobody will use it. Building a community is really fricking hard - it's the sort of task where everyone says "Oh, I can do that" up until they actually try it and then find out that there's a lot of subtlety to it they've completely missed.

Same goes for Reddit, and Twitter. Those are two other sites that are cloneable in a weekend, but nobody will use your clone.

Re: Laying off George

#37

Post by gruseom »

3pt14159 wrote: post #23
zaius wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George is a girl http://www.flickr.com/people/george/

That explains the crying, etc... Thank you for clearing that up.

That explains the crying, etc.

I can see this got downmodded into oblivion, yet I don't think it's so far from the mark. I noticed some cognitive dissonance in myself while reading the original post under the assumption that George was a he. It dissipated when I figured out she's a she. Such a clear little "experiment" doesn't come along very often so I think it's worth paying attention to.

Re: Laying off George

#38

Post by gruseom »

andreyf wrote: post #35
gruseom wrote: post #10

Did anyone else notice the oxymoron here? "I'll just get straight to the point. You've been affected by the layoffs." I guess it shouldn't surprise me that a middle manager would call a weasly euphemism getting "straight to the point".

In his defense, he admitted he was reading a script provided to him by HR.

We don't know whether that line was in the script or not. If it was, we can chalk the weasliness up to the whole company (which would surprise me a little - I thought more highly of Yahoo).

Incidentally, I agree with the commenters here who've pointed out that the cancellation of the project and layoff itself hardly seem unreasonable or tragic. It's the corporate culture I'm commenting on. If this vignette is indicative, Yahoo is in worse shape than I thought.

Re: Laying off George

#39

Post by joshu »

mynameishere wrote: post #33
mynameishere wrote: post #4

Here's the real link (question to poster: Why did you link to an unnecessary reference?) http://george08.blogspot.com/2008/12/not-quite-what-i-had-in... My comment: Congratulations to the affected. A website that does little besides arranging "img" elements is fundamentally lame. I was hit in the 2001 blowout, and it was probably the best thing that could have happened. Find something good.....

Not sure why people are defending flickr. There are lots of equivilent websites, and have been long before it ever existed. I stand by my comment: It's fundamentally lame. If I was a CS professor, I would have sophmores make a clone of it for a 2-week project. Just because it's the most popular in its class doesn't mean it transcends the extreme simplicity of said class. Frankly, I don't even like it. Whose aesthetic…

What does cloning some website have to do with computer science?

Re: Laying off George

#40

Post by noonespecial »

gruseom wrote: post #37
3pt14159 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That explains the crying, etc... Thank you for clearing that up.

That explains the crying, etc. I can see this got downmodded into oblivion, yet I don't think it's so far from the mark. I noticed some cognitive dissonance in myself while reading the original post under the assumption that George was a he. It dissipated when I figured out she's a she. Such a clear little "experiment" doesn't come along very often so I think it's worth paying attention to.

I knew a French guy in High School named 'Michelle'. He was like a walking sociology experiment. It was highly enlightening.
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