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Meta Layoffs

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Re: Meta Layoffs

#251

Post by adjkant »

ilikerashers wrote: post #193
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #38

> To me, although I’d certainly concede that WFH pares down meeting culture I feel the opposite though I'm an n=1 and don't have any data beyond myself. My company went full WFH during the pandemic and committed to it. Ever since we've become much more meeting heavy (I also have pretty senior IC title sadly.) Why? Along with going WFH we began hiring from other timezones in earnest. Low cost of living areas are cheap…

A side effect too is it becomes much harder to manage focus. 30 mins at 1, 2, and 3 turn 1hr 30 of meetings into at least 3 hours wasted on conference calls. I've taken to hiding my calendar and not turning up if someone does some inefficient meeting booking.

Slogan an old company of mine tried to socialize while trying to wrangle overbooked meeting issues: "No agenda, no attenda"

Re: Meta Layoffs

#252

Post by smarmgoblin »

surgical_fire wrote: post #208
rmk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does there need to be a metric? People with management experience can decide these things based on intuition. It's practically impossible to quantify anything in this industry, but 'data-driven decisionmaking' is fetishized to the extreme. Ultimately it just becomes another buzzword and method for people with little or no experience to override people with experience. Phrasing the whole discussion in terms of 'me…

> common-sense conclusion that junior people need more direct supervision is clearly sugarcoating it for junior recipients for whom the message is intended. I see this being repeated ad-nauseam. I don't really buy that at all. I have seen junior employees that performed and evolved fine on remote settings, on teams that had effective remote collaboration. IMO, this is a lie that people that really miss working from o…

I believe it might be predicated on some mythical junior engineer who would excel in-person but finds themselves completely helpless outside of the earshot of a senior engineer.

Those who want to figure stuff out will do it. That’s largely what this job is

Re: Meta Layoffs

#253

Post by pwinnski »

eloisant wrote: post #172
Dalewyn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just give it another 10 to 20 years and the next generation of the workforce will introduce cubicles as a monumental innovation in office design technology.

Cubicle are so much better than open offices, it's funny to think that in the 90's they were considered a symbol of employees being treated like cattle.

Closed offices > cubicles > open desks, the treatment like cattle began once we stopped having closed offices.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#254

Post by pjmlp »

cameldrv wrote: post #125
pjmlp wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office structure doesn't affect what products people are willing to pay for.

Maybe the products produced by developers that can concentrate better are more valuable and people are willing to pay more for them. Seems like Apple provides 2.4 trillion reasons.

I am sure the office isn't part of the interview casting processes, trying to be hired at Apple is hardly any different from most game studios, regarding what one is willing to put up with to have the name on the CV.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#255

Post by RangerScience »

eloisant wrote: post #172
Dalewyn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just give it another 10 to 20 years and the next generation of the workforce will introduce cubicles as a monumental innovation in office design technology.

Cubicle are so much better than open offices, it's funny to think that in the 90's they were considered a symbol of employees being treated like cattle.

IMHO it's all about proximity + access to windows (although I don't really have the right experience to know).

Offices are great! Unless they're internal and don't have windows (although some people definitely still like them).

Cubicles are great! Unless they're in giant internal rooms that don't have windows, or don't have enough windows / the right kind of windows for the space (although some people definitely still like them).

AFAICT it's not that cubicles sucked, it's that they correlated with a bunch of things that made the job also suck, but cubicles were an easy thing to refer to about that kind of workplace culture.

...arguably, the same can be said about a chunk (but not all) of the complaints around open offices.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#256

Post by zo1 »

fatnoah wrote: post #240
rhaway84773 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. With 30 to 50 people to 1 manager, the manager is spending 15-25 hrs simply in 30 min employee 1 on 1s every week. That’s an absolutely insane number. That means if they spread it out evenly over the week, they will be spending 3-5 hrs every day on 1 on 1s. In our company we also don’t have purely people managers. Even when I was managing people who were working on projects that had nothing to do with me, I had…

> If I was managing 30-50 people,... I directly managed 22 people at one point. 1:1s were an every other week affair. While it was possible, it was not sustainable. Keeping track of everyone and their goals & growth, flogging the PM team, running interference with the Sales team, keeping the exec team from interfering, etc. made it far more than a full time job. I was first in the office and last to leave, just so I…

Having a 1 on 1 with each report every 2 weeks is the problem here, not the amount of people. Where did this 1 on 1 stuff make it into the manager bible? You do your job and if you don't like something, ask for a 1 on 1. If your senior notices something, he arranges a 1 on 1. But this is also way too late already. A good manager picks up on issues way before this point.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#257

Post by krisoft »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #38

> To me, although I’d certainly concede that WFH pares down meeting culture I feel the opposite though I'm an n=1 and don't have any data beyond myself. My company went full WFH during the pandemic and committed to it. Ever since we've become much more meeting heavy (I also have pretty senior IC title sadly.) Why? Along with going WFH we began hiring from other timezones in earnest. Low cost of living areas are cheap…

> My 1200 lunch is overwritten all the time by folks in UTC-6 for whom it's actually 1400.

Book out your lunch break in your calendar. If anyone manages to put in a conflicting event just simply don’t appear for it (or bow out early, or arrive late if the overlap is only partial) If anyone is asking tell them directly that this is your lunch break.

It is up to you to setup healthy boundaries and maintain them.

Re: Meta Layoffs

#258

Post by RangerScience »

RangerScience wrote: post #255
eloisant wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cubicle are so much better than open offices, it's funny to think that in the 90's they were considered a symbol of employees being treated like cattle.

IMHO it's all about proximity + access to windows (although I don't really have the right experience to know). Offices are great! Unless they're internal and don't have windows (although some people definitely still like them). Cubicles are great! Unless they're in giant internal rooms that don't have windows, or don't have enough windows / the right kind of windows for the space (although some people definitely stil…

annnnd this just came across my feeds - "The Great Workroom":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Wax_Headquarters

That's an open office plan from ~1930, that, IMHO, is designed with the people who're gonna be working in it in mind.

Edit: I think this photo might be from much closer to construction. It's even more sparse / a lot less crowded:

https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2014/04/30/realestate/comm...

Re: Meta Layoffs

#259

Post by Karrot_Kream »

krisoft wrote: post #257
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #38

> To me, although I’d certainly concede that WFH pares down meeting culture I feel the opposite though I'm an n=1 and don't have any data beyond myself. My company went full WFH during the pandemic and committed to it. Ever since we've become much more meeting heavy (I also have pretty senior IC title sadly.) Why? Along with going WFH we began hiring from other timezones in earnest. Low cost of living areas are cheap…

> My 1200 lunch is overwritten all the time by folks in UTC-6 for whom it's actually 1400. Book out your lunch break in your calendar. If anyone manages to put in a conflicting event just simply don’t appear for it (or bow out early, or arrive late if the overlap is only partial) If anyone is asking tell them directly that this is your lunch break. It is up to you to setup healthy boundaries and maintain them.

I've tried and have been told by my management that I need to be flexible to work across timezones and that the issue will only be a problem if I claim that I regularly don't have lunchtime.
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