Before people were getting fired in AI chats or Video calls, they were getting fired by voicemail - as featured in the track "Exciting New Direction"[0], by The New Deal.
Severance
71–80 of 105 posts
Re: Severance
#72Is this about the Apple TV+ show?
If only there was a way to find out.
Even if you don't want to click on the article, reading the other comments should give you enough context clues.
Re: Severance
#73One time when I was in one of these calls. It was pretty obvious it was coming, the company wasn't doing great and there were plenty of whispers. Still, I was pretty upset I was laid off, because it's just not a fun feeling. After the HR person explained the severance and COBRA stuff, I said something to the CTO like "I wish you all the best in trying to save this company, and for the sake of this conversation, let's…
Ha, that's a good one. At a job 10 years ago or so I had a similar premonition of upcoming layoffs—lots of closed door meetings between the execs, travel and expansion plans getting cancelled, etc. One day my immediate boss, who I genuinely like, walked into my office, closed the door, and told me he was gonna have to lay me off in two weeks. He said if I would handle x,y,z tasks (a few days of work) I could just sto…
I wish this were more common. For some reason, employees are expected to give employers two weeks or more of notice when they quit, while employers are expected to terminate employees with 0 seconds of notice.
Re: Severance
#74You can always get together, cleanse the code of any IP entanglements, and compete with the company that just laid you off. Calls like this one are a good time to suggest it--even if only to make them squirm.
If you do it, don't say so in front of witness or where a call might be recorded.
What if you don't do it, but you do say it, just to waste legal's time?
Re: Severance
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I took it more as the company being out of touch thinking tokens are valuable while people being laid off are wondering how they'll eat
Several interpretations: 1. All human, and interpreted like you suggest (out of touch company offering tokens as severance rather than something actually useful to people). 2. Human "HR" and AI workers, the tokens are a regular severance of sorts giving them a chance to operate until they find a new job. 3. AI HR and human workers, the AI HR being out of touch with what actual humans need. 4. AI AIR and AI workers, w…
i browse with an extension that helps figth the FOMO and replace some Ai marketing/buzzwords.
so they got Slop Rations instead of tokens and it was funnier
Re: Severance
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
COBRA can be effective (or is inherently) as of the term date so you have continuous coverage. That said, it’s expensive AF
It seems like it’s become a bit more common for companies to pay part or all of the COBRA premiums for a period after a separation, at least that’s been the case in my last two job losses (one company paid the company part of the premium for six months, the other paid the whole premium for three).
You must have worked at great companies. Lately, I’m personally aware of several companies having just fired large numbers “for performance reasons” despite folks having never been told of such “performance issues” and with no severance or health coverage for any amount of time despite over a decade’s worth of tenure and history of excellent performance.
Re: Severance
#77Impacted impacted impacted impacted impacted. You've all been impacted.
Re: Severance
#78Can someone make an AI agent to target automating tasks of upper management already so they feel the pain as well?
You don’t need to even replace them outright, just make your agent so effective that [big tech company] requires fewer VPs and GMs etc.
Modern frontier LLMs are incredibly good at all types of knowledge work - this should be possible with enough elbow grease
Re: Severance
#79I've been in a few meetings like this. In all cases it was because they, as business leaders, were not able to run a profitable company. That's the most irritating part.
It’s even more irritating when you’re laid off during record profits
Re: Severance
#80I know this is a joke, but this is why my coworkers and I were muted during the meeting we were laid off. I received a meeting invite the night before for 9am with two HR people and some middle manager above me that I never met. It was obvious what the meeting was going to be.
No meeting that has an HR person on it is a good thing.
I unequivocally disagree as I once conducted a training session teaching them what Gmail labels were - was very fruitful. ;)