Live data from Hacker News

Googler... ex-Googler

nerdy.dev

151–160 of 1001 posts

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#151
"The magic of first love is our ignorance it can ever end".

One of the most difficult realizations you must confront in this industry is that almost everything you build will disappear. It will be ruined, ignored, slandered, and then forgotten. Almost all of your late night epiphanies and bugs conquests will fade anonymously into the anonymous blackbody spectrum entropy demands planet Earth emit.

You must come to peace with this reality. You must accept the transience of glory into your heart. You must prepare yourself, deep down, for any reality of off-sites and planned presentations and electric roadmaps to disappear in an instant. It gets easier after the first few times, trust me. You emerge a sadder and wiser man.

The only thing we can do is create moments of excellence --- occasions on which we can reflect when we are old and gray and take solace, even pride, in knowing we put every bit of ourselves into a task and did it well. There's honor and nobility in excellence even when doomed.

And who knows? You can't predict what will endure. If we're lucky, once in our careers, if we continually apply the best of ourselves, we'll do something that escapes all this destruction and endures.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#152
post #110

Layoffs are a difficult thing for employees and their managers. I have seen people (one was a VP of Engineering) escorted out of the building, sent in a cab to home along with a security guard (this was in India), not allowed access to computer or talk with other employees. But, recently have had a very different experience. The current company I work for announced 30% layoffs. The list was made public within one hou…

Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else. Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. People are moved to different jobs, helped with training etc... Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay.

I have seen this in EU too

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#153

> But I was also immediately ripped away from my calendar, docs, code, and more. Layoffs are never easy. I've been through a few myself and it really takes the wind out of your sails. That being said, this sentence made me pause a bit. None of these things mentioned are actually yours. They are the property of Google. One thing that helped me immensely in my career is understanding that my relationship with a company…

> I recommended learning how to separate your value from your employer.

This is a very recent development. Through the entirety of human history you'd keep working for the same employer for your entire life, which means it was very much worth it to cultivate that relationship, it's only now that we change jobs every two years. A friend of mine has a company in a very small town, and was complaining about an employee being lazy. I suggested "just fire him if he doesn't do his job", to which I heard "and then what? I'll have a jobless bum walking around my town. Thanks but no". This really shifted my perspective: the situation where employer and employee have no moral obligations towards one another and it's "business only" is not how the society at large should function.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#154

Yep, it sucks. Speaking from experience - I was laid off a few years ago. I was sad my time ended, but my path forward was to leave SF with money and time to visit countries I'd always wanted to see. It's a trend away from the post-WW2 "promise of lifetime employment". Over the decades, companies have crept toward "human autoscaling" so slow no one noticed. You're far from alone - every other company is doing it. Go…

Human autoscaling. That's a good one. I mean it's not good.

We live in weird times. Companies are drowning in earnings. Their stock sky rockets. But they are unable, or not interested, to put people to work to grow their business. Because they are so big it distorts the entire economy. Because they are so big and so entrenched it's also hard to compete with them.

Less people makes the stock goes up?

And then AI too in the mix with many executives apparently believing it can just replace all the people. Who is going to buy the products then?

I have a feeling this is temporary. The wheel will turn and suddenly companies will hire like there's no tomorrow on some new shiny thing. It's gotta - right? Otherwise what?

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#155

my take on this is that "2 week notice" should probably apply to businesses as well?

For what? He’s probably getting fantastic severance so his time is best spent on the next thing. The employer isn’t going to get more work - it’s not wise or safe to let layed off individuals roam around the office.

it’s not wise or safe to let layed off individuals roam around the office.

I don’t really buy this. I take it you’re worried about vengeful ex-employees abusing their access privileges to break stuff on the way out?

It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Probably some people would feel vengeful if you do shitty things to them like removing all their access and firing them with no notice whatsoever.

Bad employees can already break stuff while they’re employed. They might feel more inclined to do stuff like that if there are chilling effects that build distrust in the work environment, like jump-scare layoffs.

Conversely, if people are getting “fantastic severance” and you treat them with dignity on the way out, aren’t both they and the people who remain more likely to feel more positively inclined?

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#156
First, this is pretty rough what happened to the person. My condolences.

Second, completely tangential to the content of the blog post: Was anyone else surprised by the number of comments/"mentions"/likes/reposts? I haven't seen so much activity on a single blog post in years. Normally, blog posts that accept comments have 10 or less comments. This one has hundreds.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#157
post #110

Layoffs are a difficult thing for employees and their managers. I have seen people (one was a VP of Engineering) escorted out of the building, sent in a cab to home along with a security guard (this was in India), not allowed access to computer or talk with other employees. But, recently have had a very different experience. The current company I work for announced 30% layoffs. The list was made public within one hou…

Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else. Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. People are moved to different jobs, helped with training etc... Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay.

that’s very business hostile tbh. I wouldn’t start a company there.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#158

> Googler... Whole things reads like someone leaving a cult. It's ok to be sad about leaving a job but your identity shouldn't be so tied up in it that you're crying in a blog post online. We all lose jobs and we all get on with it. Obviously they're talented and will land fine somewhere. I'm not trying to be mean but it's bad that a person can get upset to this point around a job. The corp isn't caring.

You're criticizing people for caring so much because you think the best that employment can be is transactional money in exchange for competent work?

Wouldn't you want to hire and nurture people who cared so much about what they were working on and who they worked with, as the author seemed to be?

(Not that you'd want them to be upset if it ever had to end, but you'd want the goodness part to happen? Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?)

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else. Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. People are moved to different jobs, helped with training etc... Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay.

that’s very business hostile tbh. I wouldn’t start a company there.

Pretty sure they wouldn't want someone like you to do so either.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#160
post #144

> Relationships that took me years to cultivate… mostly going to be gone too. I don't want to sound condescending, but if being forced out of the job means end for your relationships built for years, maybe these relationships weren't built as they should. They should have been built with the people as people, not coworkers, and definitely not using company as the communication ground.

That sentence caught my eye too. First thought was whether they meant corporate political capitol transactional relationships. Second thought was maybe they meant that, inevitably (or so it seems, probably thinking depressed), they'd drift apart, since everyone's busy with family and work, and around the workplace was the only times they'd have to interact. In the latter, even if you have beyond-work social relations…

> the opportunities to interact outside of work and the lunchtime

Good point. I wonder how much in-office work contributes to this. Because if you are trapped inside an office building for 8+ hours with essentially randoms, most people will start getting to know each other at some point, because there is no other choice, and after work and commute there is no time left for anything else.

I feel sad for the author.

Post reply on HN