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Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

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Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#161
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha life is exceptionally easy for people in the US. I had no idea working 2 service jobs and living paycheck to paycheck was the good life!

It is exceptionally easy in the US to not end up working 2 service jobs and living paycheck to paycheck, some people just screw it up. Not much you can do about that then. People don’t listen, they don’t take things seriously, until it’s too late. If you can’t be an example, be a warning .

Or maybe, just maybe, people face different struggles and adversity that prevent/delay them from "rising above" the level of working service jobs (which someone still needs to do btw, and those people deserve to live. I see this perspective way too often on here, usually from people with tech jobs/salaries. It's super, super fucked up.

It's not actually exceptionally easy to make the jump from service worker to professional for most people. It can be done, but it's not exceptionally easy to study and advance through a professional career path while working multiple minimum wage jobs and supporting a family, struggling with mental illness/addiction/health/etc.

Sure it's exceptionally easy if you have a comfortable home life and no responsibilities and are given the opportunities and guidance and support to develop professional skills. And sure there are tons of people who take those opportunities for granted. Fuck those people though we're not talking about them they're a small minority and they fucking suck. The VAST majority of people who get stuck in this wage slavery system don't have any of that. It's not easy at all.

Honestly really sad how many people on here don't get this. This shouldn't be controversial in any way. Humans are selfish, lazy creatures in general, including the "successful" ones. We should always have compassion for those less fortunate. I'm on my way to getting a good salary and I recognize how incredibly fortunate I will be to have that. I wont think someone else still working a service job is just lazy or whatever because I understand how hard it is out there. I could care less about downvotes but it's sad to see people "disagree" with empathy.

Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#162

I don’t know what the deal is, but I feel like the cynicism on HN has just constantly ramped up over the past couple of years. I actively feel worse after reading the comments on a lot of articles posted on here, and it’s just not an enjoyable experience. There was another article posted recently about a CEO raising the minimum salary of all of his employees to $70,000 and cutting his personal costs to afford it, and…

I work for Facebook and a lot of employees were quite stressed with all these changes (especially the ones with kids). I can tell you that this has been a huge boon for people's morale. (Just an insider's point of view, as I feel like HN doesn't get too many of these.)

Morale is something I find fascinating, because half the normal boosters don’t work on me even though I expect them to while the other half do work even though expect them to fail [0].

Gifts like this are a good example: $1k is objectively small compared to annual salary, but it feels like a lot, so it is great to get given it.

[0] I don’t work for FB, but I had a similar effect with the ~£60 “birthday” gifts at my first post-uni employer: small number, big morale impact. Conversely, the carnival and fireworks they arranged to celebrate a certain threshold made me feel less connected to everyone else at that place.

The more I think about it, I’m wondering if I’m normal and it was all just anchoring bias because of details I don’t want to repeat in public…

Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#163

It might be a gesture at a company like Amazon where they employ many low paid workers, but at FB a high proportion of workers will see this as a 0.2-1% bonus. The 'exceeds' performance review will have a much bigger impact on income.

The 'exceeds' performance review will have a much bigger impact on income. Not until mid-September bonus payout, though.

Exceeds bonus: great!

Not having to write perf reviews: priceless!

Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, I don't know why people are trying so hard to find the negative here in a thousand bucks bonus to all employees. The top ranked comment in this entire thread is currently "But why? [...] What do they need the extra money for?" Talk about crab mentality. If your employer gives you extra money, you take it! Good on Facebook for redistributing some vanishingly tiny fraction of their cash to their employees in…

Here is why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_primacy Why did they choose $1,000? Why not $2,000, $6,000 on any other number for that matter? They are piggy backing on the good will Andrew Yang and Mitt Romney generated.

Why pay their employees $200k/yr? Why not $100k? Why not $50k? Why not $0? I mean they are just playing on computers all day.

I know this may be a __radical__ idea, but possibly paying your employees more and giving them good benefits helps you: 1) get the best candidates 2) keep the best candidates 3) keep workers happy (read efficient) 4) keeps them working longer hours and taking less time off (less stress). If only there was a plethora of studies and historical evidence to back this.

Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#165
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Facebook and a lot of employees were quite stressed with all these changes (especially the ones with kids). I can tell you that this has been a huge boon for people's morale. (Just an insider's point of view, as I feel like HN doesn't get too many of these.)

Morale is something I find fascinating, because half the normal boosters don’t work on me even though I expect them to while the other half do work even though expect them to fail [0]. Gifts like this are a good example: $1k is objectively small compared to annual salary, but it feels like a lot, so it is great to get given it. [0] I don’t work for FB, but I had a similar effect with the ~£60 “birthday” gifts at my f…

Don’t forget the additional bonuses that will come in Q3 due to all employees receiving “exceeds” on their 6 month review

Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#167
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have Facebook contractors been given the right to work from home yet? Facebook contractors have that right implicitly. If the contractor is required to perform their work in a certain way, they are a statutory employee. By filing their taxes as employees, rather than contractors, this would hit facebook with an IRS investigation and hefty fines. They don't need to be given permission to work from home.

Facebook had mandated that some work had to be done from an office. > A Facebook spokesperson told The Intercept that “for both our full-time employees and contingent workforce there is some work that cannot be done from home…for content reviewers, some of this work must be done from the office for safety, privacy and legal reasons,” adding that “we’re exploring work from home options on a temporary basis, and have a…

As someone else stated above, the individuals in content moderation working at the office are not contractors but employees of Accenture, the real contractor.

Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stated another way: this is a $45m PR investment.

Considering that the only way HN knows anything about this is because some jerk leaked an internal post from Mark, this has nothing to do with PR.

"leaked"

Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#169
post #166

How about giving out some masks which are more effective than just money? We can't even find any masks to buy in the Bay Area, and we are at risk.

Is it possible that some FB employees have problems that can be solved with cash, but not with N95 filters? And where is FB going to get these mask, and how would they distribute them to their employees working from home?

Re: Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

#170
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morale is something I find fascinating, because half the normal boosters don’t work on me even though I expect them to while the other half do work even though expect them to fail [0]. Gifts like this are a good example: $1k is objectively small compared to annual salary, but it feels like a lot, so it is great to get given it. [0] I don’t work for FB, but I had a similar effect with the ~£60 “birthday” gifts at my f…

Don’t forget the additional bonuses that will come in Q3 due to all employees receiving “exceeds” on their 6 month review

This is the real big one. I'm not at Facebook (but I am at a similar company), and I expect to be getting meets in biannual review process. If I instead got exceeds that would be a huge boon to me. It'd mean a bigger bonus and a bigger stock refresher, and would easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars in the first year alone (plus the remaining three years of the refresher).
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