Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call • Hacker News Board

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#21

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:09 PM UTC

badman_ting wrote: post #15

jere wrote: post #2

I had a recruiter send me an email exactly 5 months ago today claiming "I've placed ten folks with AOL in the past year, and Patch is the most profitable and exciting division especially for the engineers." First time I've ever had to respond to a recruiter to tell them they were full of shit. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/08/09/layoffs...

Well, I guess you could call this exciting.

May you work in interesting times /s

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#22

Post by Touche » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:10 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #9

I had to lay quite a few people off in 2002 when the company I co-founded in '95 was acquired (post IPO) by another company who then tanked. I was the only founder/exec who stuck with the acquirer and I got the dubious pleasure of laying off everyone in our office before I was myself laid off by the roving HR manager. One thing that I'm slightly proud of is that when I had to lay people off at least I did it myself t…

Wait, did you know you were going to be laid off too?

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#23

Post by pvnick » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:11 PM UTC

Wow. That was incredible. The monotonous way in which the message was delivered, the complete lack of emotion and empathy, is appalling. Notice she did not apologize nor express any condolences beyond declaring the new unemployed state of those people to be "unfortunate." Without knowing much about the situation (I only listened to the recording), and leaving myself wide open to be corrected by someone with more insight into the background, I believe the word cowardice would be a pretty good description of what's going on here.

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#24

Post by omegote » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:13 PM UTC

Could any of you transcript the call? My english is not good enough for <48kbps transmissions.

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#25

Post by czbond » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:13 PM UTC

To do it via a conference call? What a piss poor leader and dick move.

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#26

Post by knodi » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:13 PM UTC

Laying people off is never easy. I'm sure many people will poopoo this call but this is a clean and a clear message.

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#27

Post by snydeq » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:13 PM UTC

"Hello, and welcome to AOL Moviefone. To be acquired and laid off, please press 1."

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#28

Post by wlll » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:13 PM UTC

The next one is a gem too:

~1:55 in: "Abel, put that camera down right now. Abel, you're fired, out."

https://soundcloud.com/jim-romenesko/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-8...

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#29

Post by sergiotapia » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:14 PM UTC

This made me sick to my stomach and I don't even work there.

"Hey you're fired tomorrow, thanks for your work!"

Re: Patch's new owner lays off staff in 1:39 conference call

#30

Post by Frostbeard » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:14 PM UTC

It seems pretty harsh to do it this way, but from the sounds of things these were pretty sweeping layoffs ("hundreds" is what's being said). Doing it on a personal level probably wasn't even remotely viable, even just in terms of time.