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GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

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Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unthreaded chats are all private, no? If you want to use the group chat it forces you into threaded (or is there a way to switch out of that?)

In chat, just go to New Chat and add as many people as you want. Boom, unthreaded group chat. You can rename it to a topic or group name.

But then what's the point of the "Teams" part of Teams?

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#452
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, you can't have it both ways. People on HN are always talking badly about companies that don't allow work from home, or require at least a couple days in the office. Then a company says it's going entirely remote (not including the layoff context) and people shit on that. Which is it? As for the layoffs, I don't have anything to add to that. There a Microsoft decision.

There are different people on this website and they can have different opinions about things

And we can even have somewhat contradictory opinions about things.

E.g. the option for remote work is really nice for many and may be required to be viable in the future... but are we losing some fundamental part of teamwork by leaving the office? And does it really just make us more expendable?

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#453

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

Five years from now, I think we will not see "remote only" for a large company and think "ooh, they value their employees I guess", but rather, "uh oh, they like to think of their employees as being like virtual servers, easy to spin up and easy to shut down the moment you don't need to pay for that capacity". That's basically how the movie industry has always worked. Why keep people on your books when you're not act…

If software worked the way managers and business like to imagine it does - define requirements, build app, step away - then this model could work. But we all know that's almost never the case.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#454
post #428

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

Look, you can't have it both ways. People on HN are always talking badly about companies that don't allow work from home, or require at least a couple days in the office. Then a company says it's going entirely remote (not including the layoff context) and people shit on that. Which is it? As for the layoffs, I don't have anything to add to that. There a Microsoft decision.

It's almost as if... employees want choice even within their company?

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#455

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

Five years from now, I think we will not see "remote only" for a large company and think "ooh, they value their employees I guess", but rather, "uh oh, they like to think of their employees as being like virtual servers, easy to spin up and easy to shut down the moment you don't need to pay for that capacity". That's basically how the movie industry has always worked. Why keep people on your books when you're not act…

Honestly I couldn't tell you what capacity I needed from my reports on a time horizon of even 1 month. Sure we do planning, but it's always wrong.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#456

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

I think assuming that people will associate remote-only with layoff-eagerness is probably too pessimistic of a take.

Even if that were the case, I'd still prefer to work for a remote-only job with a marginally higher chance of layoffs, than to work for an in-person job. The trade off still seems worth it to me.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#457
post #428

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

Look, you can't have it both ways. People on HN are always talking badly about companies that don't allow work from home, or require at least a couple days in the office. Then a company says it's going entirely remote (not including the layoff context) and people shit on that. Which is it? As for the layoffs, I don't have anything to add to that. There a Microsoft decision.

This site is a bit: "4 Polacks, 6 opinions" -Frank Sobotka

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#459
post #428

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

Look, you can't have it both ways. People on HN are always talking badly about companies that don't allow work from home, or require at least a couple days in the office. Then a company says it's going entirely remote (not including the layoff context) and people shit on that. Which is it? As for the layoffs, I don't have anything to add to that. There a Microsoft decision.

The hackernews zeitgeist assumes all companies are run by saturday morning cartoon villains, despite being in an industry that is highly privileged at the expense of other possible businesses due to economic policy.

Re: GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

#460

Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs. Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90's, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such. With no offices, it's a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face. Five years from now, I think w…

> Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs.

I don't know. With sufficiently large organizations it's quite easy to lay off people you never crossed eyes with, remote or not.

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