401–410 of 537 posts
These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.
These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.
I was just thinking the same, this is quite the weasel wording. Not only the “losses” but the passive voice. As if Amazon is a person who walked to work one day and realise it has a hole in its pocket from which thousands of jobs fell off. “Oh well, these things happen, not my fault and nothing I can do about it”, Amazon says as it shrugs its shoulders and whistles down the factory floor with a skip in its step.
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My favourite is during terrorist attacks in Europe, it's always like "car attacks crowd". Like the car's wife had left it and it had decided to go out with a bang.
The problem is, there isn't much initial facts to base on, other than that a vehicle has plowed into a crowd. In the early 30-60 minutes, you often don't even know how many people died and how many are injured because emergency services are still working on rescue (alive people) and recovery (dead people). Maybe it's political or religious terrorism, maybe it's suicide-by-cop, maybe it's a generic mental health issue…
So it'd be nice if they'd say like "a man has ploughed into a crowd" - we'll safely assume he didn't use an actual plough since I hear those are fairly slow.
It does make a difference regarding people viewing news outlets as informers rather than an arm of some kind of agenda.
These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.
Jeffrey Bezos: All those jobs will be lost. Like tears in the rain.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. A blue-green planet from suborbital space. Four commas in my net worth. I watched tens of thousands of employees get misplaced in my couch cushions. All their jobs will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.
There's an interesting asymmetry in language in this area. Jobs are "created" by a company or an industry. But they never seem to be "destroyed", instead they are "lost". If the company starts hiring again, they're "creating" new jobs, not "finding" the ones they were careless enough to lose.
So in this case of our capitalist system, doublespeak exists in such a way because they can create money or not lose money by doing such doublespeak as saying to investors this as a destroyed would make them have a negative connotation with amazon itself which would reduce their stock price.
Everything is done for the stock price. Everything. The world is a little addicted on those shareholders returns that we can change our language because of it.
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My theory is that when an organization descends into a cycle of repetitive downsizings, it inevitably leads to people focusing more on protecting their jobs than on business value. By the process of natural selection, the people who survive such rounds of firings are the ones with the political skills to survive them. Some of those guys will be star performers, but most will simply be politicians. Over time, this pro…
My company’s been through layoffs/reorgs every 3–6 months for three years. One thing is true: performance management happens faster. Many chronic low performers were laid off, and a few “too many cooks” problems were resolved. Those benefits are real and genuine. But it’s a mistake to assume the remainder is automatically high‑performer‑only. Three patterns I’ve seen: 1) People with options leave first. If you can fi…
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This is a great tactic, where competent, good workers find a more stable job, and the ones unable to get a better job are then rehired. On one hand, you can bully them more, and they'll stay, on the other hand, they're so bad at their job, no one else wants them either.
Doesn't sound very labour-law friendly
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They won't confirm if the termination was the choice of the employee or the company? Doesn't that have implications for unemployment benefits?
Most employers won't confirm the reason for termination with random callers who are verifying employment history. Unemployment insurance is a bit different. When a former employee files for unemployment benefits then the state will notify the last employer, and that employer can dispute the claim if the termination was for cause. In practice many employers don't dispute unemployment claims even for employees whom the…
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I confess this surprises me. I didn't think they had to give specific details, but I thought they had to at least confirm whose decision it was for the termination.
In most cases when a company wants to fire someone they will first pull them into an office and tell them they are allowed to submit their resignation right now. If this happens it is normally best for you to accept that offer as then they will say you left in good standing. At least this way you can find a new job. There is the possible exception that you already have enough evidence that you were going to sue them…
No one is going to know you got fired, if they call the company, it’s just dates and title, probably say in good standing.
It’s in old company best interest for you to get a new job because jobless people start talking to lawyers when they get desperate.
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I always find this so funny. “Citizens have guns so they can overthrow a government that has tanks, helicopters, nuclear weapons, bunker busting bombs, etc”
Ok so the US military is going to drop a nuclear weapon on Dallas or Buffalo to stop insurgents? Why even bother writing something like that when you know it’s stupid? Obviously governments have superior firepower and can and have quashed rebellions. But rebellions have been successful as well. Taking away arms from the people makes rebellion in the case of tyranny that much harder. I don’t think it’s unfair to quest…
However, this is a huge danger of ML ("AI"). It allows individuals to concentrate power. All real-world power comes from violence. Sufficiently advanced ML models allow individuals to profile subordinates and remove them before they rebel and (partially now but increasingly in the future) to control swarms of drones and robots.