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Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

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Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#41

Post by wonderwonder »

kungito wrote: post #37
wonderwonder wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much take a mercenary approach to my jobs. At my very first software job I remember seeing a let go employee walking sadly through the office with a box of his possessions under one arm and a potted plant in the other. Since then I have brought nothing personal into work. If I'm let go I just have to grab my keys and I'm out. Work is something I do to earn money. If companies can replace people for less or cut…

At my first job our manager was fired around the time his partner died of cancer and he was left with 2 little kids. He was slacking but also they knew about the whole situation. He was there for over 10 years. That changed me forever

That's really harsh. At the job I mentioned in the above they pip'd me because I delivered 8 points per week instead of 10 for 2 weeks right when COVID lockdown hit. They couldn't understand why the world melting down and my kids suddenly home schooling would have any affect on my productivity.

Companies treat us as replaceable widgets. If widget A is broken just throw it away and use widget B. No reason to be loyal in that environment.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#42

Post by throwawaysleep »

twawaaay wrote: post #13

I wonder if large companies recognise they are shitting in the pond they are floating in. As somebody with over quarter of century of experience managing and hiring people I notice how candidates change over time (trying to adjust for how I change myself). I notice people care less about the company they work for and, honestly, it is more and more difficult to find arguments against. This whole trend of optimising ev…

I don’t see a reason to even report money being literally wasted in my current jobs.

There is an unused cloud service burning money at one of my jobs. Tens of thousands kind of money. Make a case for me even bothering to tell someone about it.

You can’t.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#43

Post by TobyTheDog123 »

tptacek wrote: post #38
TobyTheDog123 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't think he built his career at his daughter's expense, I'm saying that the over-dramatization of the post leads to this even being something to call out, even when it shouldn't be. You can call me names all you like, but don't expect people to not question intent over a poorly-conceived sentence.

You're right: what you wrote is poorly conceived. You can probably just delete it (or edit-clear it)! I'm an ass all the time; I'm not high-horsing you, but maybe we'd all just be better off if this whole subthread vanished.

[flagged]

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#44

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

zerr wrote: post #19

2 hours notice - How do you handover the work? Or is there nothing to handover?

I got 0 hours notice -that's fairly common, in the US. Usually, you aren't even allowed to go to your desk, and collect your stuff. You have to schedule an appointment to come back, after work hours, and be escorted there by a security guard.

I (and my team) already knew it was coming. The writing was on the wall, and we had our affairs in order. My Japanese manager appreciated it. I think the American HR manager was a bit disappointed that there wasn't much of an opportunity for the casual bullying and shaming that they do, in these circumstances. The last HR manager was OK. I had zero respect for his predecessor.

HR had the highest turnover of any department in the company. I tended to have a somewhat adversarial relationship with most of the HR managers, but the one that I respected most was fired in an explosion, more than twenty years ago, and now manages a much more prestigious organization. I sincerely wish her well, and she has my respect; little as I'm sure that means to her.

In Marketing and Sales organizations, it's common for people to be walked out the door, immediately after handing in their resignation.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#45

Post by throwaway675309 »

tptacek wrote: post #26
rybosworld wrote: post #10

I think it's awesome that some people enjoy their work and love their jobs. That said, if you aren't an owner of the company then I think it's unhealthy to be emotionally invested. In my last job, I had received a competing offer and informed my boss that I would rather not leave but that this other offer was too financially good for me to ignore. My boss responded by beating the other offer and I stayed there for ab…

This is one of those things that makes sense in the airless vacuum of a message board that has no connection to ordinary life; the mythical "touchless grass" as the tweeters say. In reality, people in all walks of life form deep emotional attachments to their jobs. Plant closures disrupt the identities of entire cities. People are emotionally attached to jobs as checkout clerks. Hit songs have been written about the…

I'd agree with what you're saying, although I think it highly is dependent upon the personality and independence level of the individual. Even at jobs where I found the work interesting, I've never had the slightest emotional attachment to the company. I'm vastly more interested in working on my own projects and hobbies and after putting in the requisite 7-8 hours in a day I completely switch off.

It's the same for the ostensible loyalty towards ones hometown. I've been just as comfortable living in China as I have back in the states.

I have no loyalty to abstractions like symbols, countries or companies. Loyalty is reserved for friends and my family.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#47

Post by goostavos »

wonderwonder wrote: post #23
twawaaay wrote: post #13

I wonder if large companies recognise they are shitting in the pond they are floating in. As somebody with over quarter of century of experience managing and hiring people I notice how candidates change over time (trying to adjust for how I change myself). I notice people care less about the company they work for and, honestly, it is more and more difficult to find arguments against. This whole trend of optimising ev…

I very much take a mercenary approach to my jobs. At my very first software job I remember seeing a let go employee walking sadly through the office with a box of his possessions under one arm and a potted plant in the other. Since then I have brought nothing personal into work. If I'm let go I just have to grab my keys and I'm out. Work is something I do to earn money. If companies can replace people for less or cut…

>I would love to work in an environment where I felt valued as a person but I have yet to find that

CAN that even exist? The mercenary approach seems to me the only one that doesn't fall prey to living in a fantasy about how things "Should" be -- there is only the way they are: it's a business relationship.

Younger me thought otherwise. I was big into startup culture, enjoyed the comradery of working long hours, taking pride in this thing we were building together. Management was great. Hierarchy was minimal. I felt "valued"... And then we were all let go with a phone call. I remember just being like "...Ohhhhh. Right." It's a business relationship. That's as far as it goes. Anything else is an illusion.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#48

Post by malfist »

kungito wrote: post #37
wonderwonder wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much take a mercenary approach to my jobs. At my very first software job I remember seeing a let go employee walking sadly through the office with a box of his possessions under one arm and a potted plant in the other. Since then I have brought nothing personal into work. If I'm let go I just have to grab my keys and I'm out. Work is something I do to earn money. If companies can replace people for less or cut…

At my first job our manager was fired around the time his partner died of cancer and he was left with 2 little kids. He was slacking but also they knew about the whole situation. He was there for over 10 years. That changed me forever

I have a friend who spent 30 years working for a factory building aircraft for the military. One year, a new lead manager comes in and decides he wants everyone on the floor to have a college degree and fires my friend and the six other people there without college degrees.

It really messed up my friend, he was really close to a comfortable retirement, but had to borrow against his 401k to make it through until he could get another job. He was the safety officer for the entire factory, 15+ years of experience doing that. Now he's too close to retirement age and no one will hire him, even though he's personally a long way from retirement.

So now he's working a physically demanding job on the line making cars. All that experience and skills with safety? Junk.

No company has loyalty to their employees. It's all about the next quarter.

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#49

Post by hypothesis »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #20
twawaaay wrote: post #13

I wonder if large companies recognise they are shitting in the pond they are floating in. As somebody with over quarter of century of experience managing and hiring people I notice how candidates change over time (trying to adjust for how I change myself). I notice people care less about the company they work for and, honestly, it is more and more difficult to find arguments against. This whole trend of optimising ev…

In many positions, and at many points in your career, job hopping or the threat of it is the only real way to get any noticeable raise in actual compensation. Most companies just don't really reward loyalty anymore.

Is that what they call a “loyalty tax”?

Re: Thoughts on getting laid off after nine years at Twilio

#50

Post by lkrubner »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #30
tptacek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those things that makes sense in the airless vacuum of a message board that has no connection to ordinary life; the mythical "touchless grass" as the tweeters say. In reality, people in all walks of life form deep emotional attachments to their jobs. Plant closures disrupt the identities of entire cities. People are emotionally attached to jobs as checkout clerks. Hit songs have been written about the…

> You can't just tell people not to have human connections to their work. In my case, it has been required. I'm very fortunate, to have worked for 27 years, for a company that had many, many faults, but always treated their workers as if their career at the company was a critical factor. That's because it was a "classic" Japanese company. The best managers that I had, were Japanese (including one that eventually beca…

In his autobiography Akio Morita (founder at Sony) tells a story in the 1960s, they'd hired an American salesman, who had done very well for them for many years, but then the guy thought he could make better money elsewhere, so he changed jobs. The next year they were all at a big electronics conference in Las Vegas, and Akio Morita was there talking up Sony's latest products, and this American sales guy walks up to them to say hello. Akio Morita, and the rest of the Japanese team, thought perhaps the American would have a sense of shame and so would try to avoid them, but instead the guy walked up and was very friendly and chatted with them awhile. Afterwards Akio Morita realized that the American saw nothing shameful in leaving Sony for some other company that was paying better. It was a bit of a shock for Akio Morita. He had initially thought of America as a paradise for managers, because they could fire a worker whenever they wanted to, but that incident with the salesman caused Akio Morita to see the other side of it, that a worker could quit at any time, and so Akio Morita developed doubts about the American system.
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