91–100 of 162 posts
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.
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 heard it as coldly professional. What, do you think they'd want a hug? I object to your use of "appalling". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7zkd0kRS4
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was the context there? Was abel part of the group being fired in the call? Or was he fired on the spot with that remark?
It seems that Abel was part of Patch and Tim Armstrong is CEO of AOL. This second call was from some time last year and not related to the OPs link other than it's the same set of companies, and another dubious action made on a conference call.
I guess it must be the latter, or the clip wouldn't be so interesting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I heard it as coldly professional. What, do you think they'd want a hug? I object to your use of "appalling". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7zkd0kRS4
You say "coldly professional" like it's a good thing.
I'd rather have it straight quick like shots at the doctors office.
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 heard it as coldly professional. What, do you think they'd want a hug? I object to your use of "appalling". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7zkd0kRS4
The fact that those cold hard facts were disseminated via conference call, however, is not something that I find professional unless we are talking about the layoff of remote workers etc. - and even then I'd prefer a personal phone call.
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.
If you have hundreds of employees who can find the time time to work for you day-in and day-out, every week, you can find the time to let them go in person.
It's not like they do it out of good will. They get paid for it. That said, I agree that it should be done face-to-face.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should have used text 2 voice software. That would have made it seam a bit more personalized.
Agreed, I would have preferred: $ 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"
This kind of behavior (promoted by HR/Legal) needs to stop. Period. 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,…
>May be I am overreacting but this is when Capitalism starts to bite what on earth does harsh layoffs have to do with capitalism?
The fact that it was over the phone is a legitimate insult. The fact that it was 100 seconds long is a mercy.
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…