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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

#41

Post by mitchty »

sp332 wrote: post #31
rdl wrote: 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 avail…

Its an american dialect, but its not quite right to call it american.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal

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

#42

Post by scrabble »

bchjam wrote: post #18
xutopia wrote: post #7

I didn't hear of Patch until today. This seems like a private call between employees and someone responsible for HR. Why is this news? Is Patch a big name?

In spite of the fact that some group of people lost their jobs, the audio track is kind of funny in the sense that this real HR department sounds like a parody of what tech people think of HR departments.

I don't know. I got laid off 18 months ago. HR did it to my face (bringing in a small group of people at a time). It sounded almost identical to this, tone and everything. More realistic than parody.

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

#43

Post by smackfu »

omegote wrote: post #24

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

"Hi Everyone, it's (HR person). Patch is being restructed, in conjunction with the creation of a joint structure with Hale Global. Hale Global has decided which Patch employees will receive an offer of employment to move forward in accordance with their vision for Patch, and which will not. Unfortunately, your role has been eliminated and you will no longer have a role at Patch, and today will be your last day of employment with the company."

The rest is just general termination junk like turning in laptops and turning off email.

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

#44

Post by kyrra »

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…

Working in a satellite office for a large company. Whenever anyone from HR was in the office we always knew someone was being laid off.

What was more fun, starting around 11am one day, all managers in the office (about 6 of them) disappeared. Around 2pm none of them returned and were not responding to calls/txt/email. One of them ended up breaking the silence and told someone the office was closing. Everyone left around 2:30pm that day, and when we showed up in the morning, we knew we would be laid off. It made the meeting a bit easier.

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

#45

Post by rdl »

skannamalai wrote: post #32
rdl wrote: 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.

The best way to wipe it out would be to do parody YouTube. Keeps of famous/consequential speeches or events recast into HRT. And hypothetical situations like HRT from an oncologist proposing treatment options.

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

#46

Post by vehementi »

rdl wrote: 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.

That has always enraged me, thanks for putting into words.

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

#47

Post by nols »

xutopia wrote: post #7

I didn't hear of Patch until today. This seems like a private call between employees and someone responsible for HR. Why is this news? Is Patch a big name?

It was AOL's (well, Tim Armstrong's) next big thing, until reality struck and they sold it a couple weeks ago.

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

#48

Post by untog »

xutopia wrote: post #7

I didn't hear of Patch until today. This seems like a private call between employees and someone responsible for HR. Why is this news? Is Patch a big name?

Patch was, at one point, heralded as the future of local journalism. AOL's CEO was an early investor in Patch and (presumably) played a key role in AOL acquiring it. Then it all fell apart.

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

#49

Post by tedivm »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #35
pvnick wrote: 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.

I hear this all the time but have never actually seen evidence for it. Can someone actually back this up?
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