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

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

#31
post #19

In addition to the "firing people by conference call is a douche move", her voice is an excellent argument against hiring any non-Australian with the high rising terminal mode of speech.

I would say "American" (edit- instead of "non-Australian"). It's pretty common in other English dialects. There's a great series called "The Story of Film" which is narrated by an Irish guy who uses rising inflection on nearly every sentence. It's difficult for me to get used to but I wouldn't give anyone a hard time about it.

edit2 - fixed title. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Film:_An_Odyssey It's available on Netflix

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

#32
post #19

In addition to the "firing people by conference call is a douche move", her voice is an excellent argument against hiring any non-Australian with the high rising terminal mode of speech.

I'm an American and I can't stand the mode of speech you've described. Unbelievably grating and disingenuous.

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

#33
post #23

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 insi…

I was confused to whether this was real or in fact just someones audition tape for the George Clooney movie "Up In The Air".

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

#35
post #23

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 insi…

I've often heard that apologies in various contexts can be used as evidence for litigation (eg, saying "oh sorry" after an auto accident) . Its a sad state of affairs, but people have to protect themselves from idiots and the courts they convince.

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

#36
post #12
post #3

What is Patch?

Site that the CEO of AOL founded before joining AOL. Then bought once hired at AOL and poured millions into before being forced to cutback/sell to keep his AOL job.

Tim Armstrong is the current CEO of AOL and former senior Google Executive. He is reputed to have been the driving force behind the success of Google's Ad Words business.

He seemed to become less effective at Google as his responsibilities expanded and moved on to AOL.

Patch was his big play to make AOL relevant again and has proved to be a complete economic failure.

Highlights an unfortunate reality of the Silicon Valley that past success can sometimes just mean a longer rope to hang yourself with.

The reality is that running AOL is thankless job.

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

#38
post #23

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 insi…

"Best of luck!"

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

#39
post #28

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...

At least that guy later apologized and didn't actually fire Abel.

Edit: I guess he was actually fired.

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

#40
post #39
post #28

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...

At least that guy later apologized and didn't actually fire Abel. Edit: I guess he was actually fired.

I didn't see that anywhere, is there a source?

Edit: Found one: http://jimromenesko.com/2013/08/13/aols-tim-armstrong-apolog...

Edit again: "Tim Armstrong has publicly apologized for the firing of [Abel] since then, but did not offer to reverse the firing or any compensation"

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Armstrong_(executive)

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