231–240 of 454 posts
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argh, spoilers :(
Oh, drat - I'm sorry. I had assumed most HN readers would have seen the series already - it was on a while back, wasn't it? (We only just saw it in Australia, which is usually an indication that is has been on in the US about a year ago?!?)
Here in Germany. Jimdo (something like SquareSpace) is laying of (I believe) up to 25% of it's staff.
I was fired from Wickr a few months ago. The given reason was they considered me not a Senior Android Developer and that was my title - I asked too many questions apparently. My manager indicated that if my title had been Android Developer there probably would not have been a problem. I don't care about titles really. I was hired in 2014 as a contractor for 3 months, and then they converted me to a salaried employee. I'm currently searching for a job. I'm finding it challenging to find my next job I think due to disclosing that I was fired from Wickr after a performance review and me being there 2 years doesn't help. The interesting thing is the performance review was held in December 2015, a few months after some layoffs where I was not affected but coworkers were. Another interesting thing is Wickr HR person told us that during the performance review to not expect any surprises. However, this underperformance was a complete surprise to me. I had never been notified. Personally, I would prefer to be laid off vs fired, even if it means a few months less of salary. It was very easy for me to obtain the job at Wickr. I wasn't asked hardly any technical questions and just did a phone screen, never met in person. One thing is I liked being a contractor at Wickr because I was paid for hours worked. The CTO was very insistent about us working overtime, meaning nights and weekends. I complained to him about this overtime requirement without getting paid in an email about a month before my performance review. The reason I emailed was because we were just in a scrum meeting where management was asking us for feedback on how the sprint went.
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I did a double-take when I saw Twitter posting[0] in the Who's Hiring thread. What's the rationale here? Why are they firing and hiring at the same time? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12851502
I might be wrong but it makes sense to spend more hiring dollars where they'll increase the bottom line (which is why they're still hiring) while reducing spending in places that are negatively contributing?
Obviously, people have different talents, and can't do equally well any task you ask them. But I really doubt Twitter even tried. No company tries. More likely they froze their employees tasks beforehand so they could be better evaluated.
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In your opinion what hurts morale more? One big round of layoff, or multiple smaller rounds? I've only seen the later happen, and personally I think I'd prefer the first one. If you know that after that large layoff round the rest of the company is safe, I'd venture that might be better for the morale of the remaining employees.
I worked at a place, where I was not laid off, but my friend was, on his birthday. For me, this was a real eye-opener. It would not have been a big deal for HR to wait another day, and then lay him off. Another employee, also laid off, 2 days after moving out of his aunt's house and had put a deposit down on an apartment and DSL connection. I think I left a month later right before the company imploded.
I've had this happen
good 20th.
When I read this, all I could picture was the scene in HBO's 'Silicon Valley' where Gavin Belson sacks his entire Nucleus team, then later inadvertently hires them all back again when he acquires EndFrame, and doesn't realise that he is talking to the same people in the same room about the same product.
There is a big german gamecompany that hasn't paid 300+ employees in 4 months so they are bleeding employees instead of firing them.
If I weren't an actual founder of the company, I think I'd be willing to put up with one missed paycheck. Sometimes shit just happens. But if a second was missed, I'd walk out.
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In the UK, "getting fired" or "getting the sack" means you were incompetent (or commited misconduct) and are sent home. For incompentance, they can only do this after a "performance review" (they have to give you 3 months to improve, I think). "Laid off" is called being "made redundant". The company can do this much more easily to a bunch of people, but it generally has to pay them ~6 months salary and can't hire new…
You forgot about being 'sent to Coventry' - i.e. the company doesn't want to pay you redundancy, and can't fire you for incompetence, so you get ignored, not given any work, get put in a useless role, etc until you wise up and quit/find another job. British passive aggressiveness at its finest! Being American. I would have had no problem with being fired aka 'you're now surplus' and it would have been far more helpfu…
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> In your opinion what hurts morale more? One big round of layoff, or multiple smaller rounds? Both hurt morale. I've seen many rounds of redundancy and layoffs in UK companies and both the huge layoff rounds and the slowly trimming back everywhere. With the big rounds, the "We'll only do this once so we'll do it big and won't do it again" is never true. The whole company knows it's just time but at least you can pre…
If I'm understanding this correctly, does this mean no company can recover from a situation where they had to let go of people?