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Layoffs Don't Work

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Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#711

Post by kelnos »

milesrout wrote: post #672
genewitch wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage, fairly, should have been around $32 in 2019 or so. I haven't run numbers lately because it's depressing, but I bet it's worse now. You can't go off mcdonalds sandwiches, and you can't use the economic indicators that ignore food and fuel. I've heard wild numbers from "the dollar is worth 50¢ compared to 20 years ago" to "the dollar has lost 98% of its value in the last N years." I'm not an economist, bu…

There is no such thing as what minimum wage should be "fairly". What is the minimum amount you should be able to pay someone an hour? Surely it is the amount where if you didn't, someone else would pay them more. There are many people who do jobs worth much less than $32/hour. That min wage would just make them illegal to employ. >You can't go off mcdonalds sandwiches, and you can't use the economic indicators that i…

> There is no such thing as what minimum wage should be "fairly".

Sure there is. It's the amount you have to pay someone such that they can work a reasonable amount of hours (40/week), such that they can afford all of life's essentials while having a little extra to save for a rainy day, as well as have a little fun.

But certainly some people's poilitics ignore the human aspects of the world we live in, and think that the "free market" (something that doesn't actually exist) will sort it out.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#712

Post by kelnos »

milesrout wrote: post #671
musicale wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> massively overpaying its workforce As I understand it, tech employees are typically paid a small fraction of the revenue that they bring into the company. Outside of tech, employees are underpaid, and wages haven't tracked productivity growth since the 1970s. Profit growth has greatly exceeded wage growth since the early 2000s, with the exception of the 2008 recession.

The labour theory of value that you allude to here makes no sense. People are paid at the market price based on supply and demand, just like other goods and services. Tech employees don't "bring in" the company's revenue. That makes the mistake of attributing the products and services of a business to its workers. >wages haven't tracked productivity growth since the 1970s. Propaganda. Productivity growth literally is…

> Tech employees don't "bring in" the company's revenue.

Sure they do. Every employee contributes to the revenue a company brings in. If they don't, then they should be fired.

> Productivity growth literally is just wage growth, by definition.

Completely false. You accuse a commenter in a sibling thread of not having a good grasp of economics, but that feels like the pot calling the kettle black, here.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#713

Post by kelnos »

bb88 wrote: post #576
tocs3 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, I mean time off and returning to the same job. Shouldn't we be aiming for a future where we do not have to work like dogs to earn enough to struggle at home?

How do you do this? Taxes? Increase worker salaries? Government funded health care? Access to cheap labor is what really drives economies. Market forces are what drive labor salaries. More people cheaper labor. It used to be in the 60s, 70s, and to some extent the 80's a single wage earner was enough in a family. By the end of the 80's it became clear that 2 wage earners was how people got ahead in life.

I'm not sure how we do this, but our current economic system is garbage. As the saying goes, the other systems we've tried may have been worse, but that doesn't make this system good.

A significant portion of the world population works themselves to the bone while barely scraping by. This is not the mark of a successful civilization. It's gross.

Maybe as a start, we put limits on the ratio of executive compensation to the lowest paid jobs in a company. And require that a significant percentage of profits be distributed to employees rather than shareholders.

Yes, that will slow economic growth. But even as someone reasonably well off, who depends on investments for his future, that seems much more fair than what we're doing now.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#714

Post by gknoy »

SR2Z wrote: post #708
genewitch wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the minimum amount you should be able to pay someone an hour? Surely it is the amount where if you didn't, someone else would pay them more. A livable wage in the geographic jurisdiction they are in. Including stuff like transportation, healthcare, food, heat, housing, and insurance. Glad you asked. oh, the company can't compete without exploiting workers? oh well.

> A livable wage in the geographic jurisdiction they are in. This is called the Iron Law of Wages. As its name implies, it's neither prescriptive nor pleasant - but it is guaranteed to be liveable. > Including stuff like transportation, healthcare, food, heat, housing, and insurance. The thing that trips people up is that the word "liveable" is a synonym for "subsistence," not "fullfilling." A wage that's only liveab…

The intention of "minimum wage" in the US is not merely subsistence level. FDR said, "by living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living." [0]

The "iron law of wages" is instead an economic principle that wages tend to trend downwards until people are paid the minimum possible for subsistence. It's not meant to be a goal.

0: http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#715

Post by bluedino »

lr4444lr wrote: post #254
lumost wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech interviews tend to be daunting. Many long term employees lose the skill, and fear the impact of work interruption on their resume as well as their ability to get in again. Anecdotally, the LC bar for many firms has risen to the point that passing requires at least one through of the question before. If you Time bound your practice per question to 20 minutes, this means that you can solve most LC problems at…

I agree, but I look at it like trying out for an athletic team. Once you're on the team, you are mostly practicing plays, doing clinics, and simulating competition, but to get on the team in the first place you have to prove your general fitness by running, say, a 6 minute mile. You may not be able to do that again easily right away once you've been on the team for a while because you don't practice running for pure…

> I agree, but I look at it like trying out for an athletic team.

Pro teams have scouts, draft based on college performance, trade or poach players from other teams. They don't even have tryouts 99% of the time. You have to be a proven performer for a team in a developmental league.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#716

Post by kelnos »

musicale wrote: post #568
tocs3 wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not passing any judgements on any life choices here, but occasional months off sounds like a good thing. I would not necessarily need to go anywhere to enjoy (make use of) the time. The notion of getting a month off with pay sounds good.

If a layoff were actually a real layoff, you could get your job back once business conditions improve. Tech "layoffs" are something of a euphemism for terminating (rather than pausing) employment for business reasons.

That seems unrealistic. Laid-off workers need to find a new job long before their former employer could hire them back.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#717

Post by kelnos »

andrewlgood wrote: post #343
giantg2 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha you must be young. It's entirely possible young people will make the same choices and face the same realities I currently do. They just havent gotten to that stage yet. Even comparing my life now to my life 10 years ago would show the younger me had an easier life. However, having a disability is not a choice, and in general makes life harder than those without a disability. Don't get me wrong - I believe life i…

Actually, I am not young. I just retired and have been thinking about my life, career, etc. I do not have a disability (my wife may disagree) and I agree it makes life more challenging (wouldn’t be called a disability otherwise). I also agree with you that life can be hard, children are born with health challenges, children make poor decisions with terrible consequences, spouse dies, you get cancer, etc. We all need…

It sounds like, by and large, you've had a pretty good life. But please understand that, while you've made good decisions and have taken advantage of the opportunities in front of you, a large chunk of your success comes down to random chance.

Many people do not fall on the good side of that random chance.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#718

Post by kelnos »

andrewlgood wrote: post #702
margalabargala wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do disagree with your assertion that “Life is much harder for some of us.” It sounds like what you think you wrote, is not in fact the words of yours that everybody has been reading.

Hmm.. I think we are talking past each other. In my initial comment I said "I do disagree with your assertion that “Life is much harder for some of us.” I still maintain that comment. In my follow up comment I attempted to clarify my comment in response to giantg2's reply. "I do not have a disability (my wife may disagree) and I agree it makes life more challenging (wouldn’t be called a disability otherwise)." I comp…

> I think we are talking past each other. In my initial comment I said "I do disagree with your assertion that “Life is much harder for some of us.” I still maintain that comment.

It sounds like you have very little experience with people outside your socioeconomic class. (Or you do have that experience, but have drawn the wrong conclusions from it.) It is an obvious, proven fact that life is much harder for some people than for others.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#719

Post by guappa »

bbqfog wrote: post #296
lumost wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech interviews tend to be daunting. Many long term employees lose the skill, and fear the impact of work interruption on their resume as well as their ability to get in again. Anecdotally, the LC bar for many firms has risen to the point that passing requires at least one through of the question before. If you Time bound your practice per question to 20 minutes, this means that you can solve most LC problems at…

This is a persistent myth in our industry. If you're a good manager, you can tell within minutes if someone is "for real", if you can't, you aren't qualified to be hiring people. Have you even looked at their GitHub?

> Have you even looked at their GitHub?

Lol, considering most big projects are not on github, you're just showing your own lack of clue.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#720

Post by guappa »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #446
yodsanklai wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first year was serious ego boost, having Google on the resume opened doors all over the place. Before I worked in FAANG, My subjective view of big tech SWEs was they were very skilled, in a different league. My current view is that it "just" takes very good preparation and a decent resume to get in. And they've hired so many people that it's not so special anymore to be an "ex-Google". There are just a lot of t…

Competent, yes. Intelligent, yes. Productive, not necessarily. Google is not a "produce a lot of code" place. It's a careful and deliberate and systematic type of place. One thing I think ex-Google does bring especially to the table is a disdane for over-complicated and overly trend-driven solutions. For one Google's internal review culture is (or at least was when I was there) very stringent. Pointless complexity an…

> my ego wants us to use this new shiny new-coloured tech

lol. Nothing newer than a brand new framework created at google!

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