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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.
Yeah, so, like, we're firing you? But you can check your email until 5:30? Today? And we'll let you use your computer until the end of this week? Starting today? Best of luck?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It is not about firing people by conference, phone or whatever. It is about the thanklessness and the attitude that sucks. Does it really hurt to genuinely feel and say "sorry we cannot keep you any longer. Hope you understand". No one is going to sit and whine about being laid-off but the manner of layoffs (in america at least) is getting shameful, appalling and disgusting.
However, not shocking at all. Companies have too become risk/lawsuit averse when it comes to firing/lay-offs that they all have scripted things to say because they don't want to risk a potential lawsuit. My friend was laid-off by my ex-boss (I referred him and left). I know that my ex-boss was a really nice guy who would at least apologize. During the lay-off, all my friend got was "Your position has been eliminated. Please do not use any company device and leave immediately. We will ship your stuff to you". He was even told not to talk to any co-worker while leaving. Poor guy was so heartbroken that he could not even say bye to people he worked with. You know what he was not sad about ? Finding another job.
May be I am overreacting but this is when Capitalism starts to bite. I am all in for profits, competitions, fierce business but if I ever have to layoff someone specially for no fault of theirs, you bet I will say sorry in person.It may not mean much but it is called "being human".
Love it. A great HR-scripted call.
They should have used text 2 voice software. That would have made it seam a bit more personalized.
$ say -v "Bad News" "Unfortunately your role has been eliminated and you will no longer have a role at patch. Today will be your last day of employment with the company"
Love it. A great HR-scripted call.
They should have used text 2 voice software. That would have made it seam a bit more personalized.
Even better would be if they hired Ellen McLain to GladOS it because at least that would have been funny.
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…
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…
There's a thing where it plunges right down in pitch and timbre at the end too, for a different kind of emphasis. I love welsh voices.
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.