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Googler... ex-Googler

nerdy.dev

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Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#611

Post by spacemadness »

wyclif wrote: post #473
Scandiravian wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having experienced layoffs in both US and EU companies, the difference is massive. In my experience there is very little respect for "the human" being laid off in US companies People literally would just disappear day to day. I've had several instances where I only found out a colleague had been fired because I tried to write them on Slack only to find that their account had been deactivated Personally I felt constan…

If anyone here has only worked in the EU and wants to see what the US layoff process is supposed to be on a good day, just watch the movie Margin Call and the scene where Eric Dale is called into the office by HR to be fired. There's a scene where they put a folder in front of him with a brightly-coloured sailboat on the cover labelled "LOOKING AHEAD." It's exactly as grim as it sounds.

American companies play mental games and gaslight everyone by calling it “a hard decision” and try to place the empathy back on the executives who get paid 10-100x the employees they just fired without warning. It’s sociopathic behavior.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#612

Post by neop1x »

acyou wrote: post #606

Content aside, does anyone else have poor scrolling performance on his blog? I saw similar issues on both mobile and desktop, what's with that?

Also the content did not fit my Galaxy S24's screen width when used in portrait. The author's previous work in the Chrome team is visible. "The shoemaker's children go barefoot" as they say. :)

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#613

Post by darknavi »

whiplash451 wrote: post #177

« Relationships that took me years to cultivate… mostly going to be gone too » Why? What prevents you from spending time with your ex-colleagues?

Relationships here might also mean professional relationships.

I think many of those can still survive a job transition, but some of them may rely on the fact that he is on the Chrome team doing Chrome things. Those relationships would now be moot (professionally).

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#614

Post by ertian »

wormlord wrote: post #539
cab11150904 wrote: post #527

[flagged]

You are probably gonna get downvoted for lack of empathy but I completely agree. I feel bad for OP, but simultaneously if you are a technocrat who thinks they are somehow insulated or not part of the larger system, you need a reality check. > I was supposed to help with the developer keynote, ensuring things matched reality and were beautiful. Gone. Maybe I am too much of a jaded asshole but anyone who writes somethi…

> Maybe I am too much of a jaded asshole but anyone who writes something like this needs perspective.

This is clearly a person who loved their job, and took it seriously. They had worked hard on something and were looking forward to sharing it. That, frankly, seems healthy. It's the only way to give your everyday life worth and meaning as an employee. It's certainly something that Google cultivated and encouraged. And it's shocking to have it vanish so abruptly.

If you take a more cynical, realistic view, you could never seriously engage with your work. You realize the company doesn't care about you, and you return the sentiment. That might be a more realistic way of viewing your situation, but it's empty of meaning or satisfaction. You'd be correct but unhappy all day every day.

I was always kinda jealous of people who could drink the kool-ade. And even if there's a certain satisfaction in seeing them get a reality check, it's also a shame that somebody who thought they had found meaning and purpose in a community suddenly realize they were just a tool the whole time.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#616

Post by palmotea »

therealpygon wrote: post #500
abdj8 wrote: post #110

Layoffs are a difficult thing for employees and their managers. I have seen people (one was a VP of Engineering) escorted out of the building, sent in a cab to home along with a security guard (this was in India), not allowed access to computer or talk with other employees. But, recently have had a very different experience. The current company I work for announced 30% layoffs. The list was made public within one hou…

As it should be, but emotional people make emotional choices. The trusted and valued employee yesterday can turn on a dime and become malicious when they feel they have been wronged regardless of whether that is independently true. Their resulting actions can include anything from theft of IP to hand over to a competitor, to destruction of records or property. Worse, it is impossible to tell when someone will choose…

> As it should be, but emotional people make emotional choices. The trusted and valued employee yesterday can turn on a dime and become malicious when they feel they have been wronged regardless of whether that is independently true.

That's pretty cold, un-empathetic logic. If you're rigorously practice that kind of thing, you'll get the same reflected back at you.

My company has layoffs (not massive, but some). In my experience, the affected employees keep their access to everything, and typically finish up their work and participate in transition activities (knowledge transfer, etc) over a couple weeks. Yeah, they're typically also slacking a lot and socializing more, but no one around here wants to be an ass to their coworkers. I think the only people who get their access cut off are those fired for cause.

> Companies generally don’t become militant about a subject unless they have experienced the other side of the equation.

There are obvious problems with designing your processes around the literal worst case (e.g. treating everyone like they're a criminal has consequences).

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#617

Post by cab11150904 »

shuckles wrote: post #591
cab11150904 wrote: post #527

[flagged]

I would love to read some compelling analysis of why online public spaces are increasingly filled by cynical losers with crabs in a bucket mentality.

Caring about spoiled rich people = Intelligent Discourse

Caring about marginalized and needy people = Cynical Loser.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#618

Post by stronglikedan »

Aurornis wrote: post #559
abdj8 wrote: post #110

Layoffs are a difficult thing for employees and their managers. I have seen people (one was a VP of Engineering) escorted out of the building, sent in a cab to home along with a security guard (this was in India), not allowed access to computer or talk with other employees. But, recently have had a very different experience. The current company I work for announced 30% layoffs. The list was made public within one hou…

> After the announcement, the laid off employees were given a few days in the company to allow them to say good byes. I was at a company that did this. I thought it was very nice at first. It didn’t take long to see why most companies don’t do this. It became common to have a couple people who turned their last days into a mission to poison the well and go on angry tirades. Those days became tense and messy as people…

My company does this, but they are a very large company that is known to aggressively sue people that try to poison the well, so no one tries.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#619

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

Mithriil wrote: post #526
underdeserver wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. I try them from time to time, they weren't better.

Try out the big LLMs for translating and explaining translation (e.g. ChatGPT). Much better than Google translate in my experience.

I don't think switching to an LLM is exactly in line with what GP was trying to say :)

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#620

Post by Workaccount2 »

nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #495
slivym wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not a charity. What do you want them to do? Hire $100Bn worth of engineers until their net income is 0? The possibly difficult truth at Google is that there's probably <1% of the company that is really essential to their monopolistic search business. The rest are either working on other projects which might be strategically interesting but not essential, or are working on the core product but not in a way tha…

This is an important point. Especially overt the last two (three now?) years, it's become pretty apparent many software jobs are superfluous, even those that are ostensibly "skilled" or "difficult." I do wonder what the actual "needed" number of technical staff these companies would have in a perfectly "efficient" environment. Let's hope we don't have to find out.

Twitter was the experiment. Elon showed up and started cutting headcount left and right. People were even encouraged to just walk out. On paper this was supposed to lead to the immanent collapse of it's service.

That didn't happen and instead every other tech CEO started to wonder about the amount of fat in their org.

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