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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

#711

Post by WoodenChair »

simplicio wrote: post #514
JasserInicide wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll contend that while I've been fully taken advantage of remote work (and probably want my next job to be remote too), I still fully believe it's a long term "leading lambs to the slaughter" type of plan. Companies save big on remote in so many ways. No more offices. No more weekly happy hours (just do a company retreat every 6 months). They can now depress salaries even further because they have a wider pool from…

Maybe, but that works both ways. Employees are often reluctant to leave jobs where they have a lot of personal relationships, or if getting a new job would entail moving to a new city/state/country, even if jumping ship would entail a sizable payraise or other improvement in working conditions. In an industry where remote work is the norm and changing jobs doesn't even require changing offices, people are much less l…

> Employees are often reluctant to leave jobs where they have a lot of personal relationships, or if getting a new job would entail moving to a new city/state/country, even if jumping ship would entail a sizable payraise or other improvement in working conditions.

Yeah you know I’d much rather work in a place where I have a very limited relationship with the people I spend at least 8 hours a day with. That was sarcasm. One of the reasons I didn’t take a remote job last year was the lack of deep social connections I’ve experienced in other remote work.

I’ve observed that the best work is often done by small teams with deep social connections. Think the original Mac team in 1983 or id software in the early 90s. I want to like and even love some of the people I work with, even if the time is short and I’m fired. Because life is short and even a couple years with someone I connected with is valuable when it’s 8 hours a day for 1/40 of my life.

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

#712

Post by Guthur »

geraneum wrote: post #692
simplicio wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but that works both ways. Employees are often reluctant to leave jobs where they have a lot of personal relationships, or if getting a new job would entail moving to a new city/state/country, even if jumping ship would entail a sizable payraise or other improvement in working conditions. In an industry where remote work is the norm and changing jobs doesn't even require changing offices, people are much less l…

Employee and employer are not on equal footing. This is better understood among the workers in other industries. The current situation with supply and demand of CS workers has led some to believe that this trend will never die. It may not stay like this and if/when that day comes, lord help us for we are not prepared.

It's happened time and time again.

I'm currently reading Marx Das Kapital and it's amazing how all the narratives are more or less exactly the same. The worker is lazy, society will collapse if every moment of time is not taken from the socialised labour etc.

This never seems to end.

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

#713

Post by [deleted] »

trynewideas wrote: post #341
jiocrag wrote: post #7

Fortune now confirming: https://fortune.com/2023/02/09/github-is-laying-off-10-of-st...

Another stupid demonym in a layoff letter! a Lattician, a Flexporter, a Scalien, a Relativian, a Plaid, a Swyftxer, an Elastician, a Krakenite, a Dragon, an Asana, a Wistian, a Nuron, a Bird, a Twilion, a Pitcher, an Olivian, a Snyker, a Panda, an Astronaut, a Superhuman, a VTEXer, a Klarnaut, a Lacer, a Mozillian, a Paddler, an Oyster, a SoundHounder, a Vimean, a Zoopligan, a Motive, a Stasher, a Plerker, a Lokalise…

[deleted]

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

#714

Post by wankle »

philistine wrote: post #689
JasserInicide wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll contend that while I've been fully taken advantage of remote work (and probably want my next job to be remote too), I still fully believe it's a long term "leading lambs to the slaughter" type of plan. Companies save big on remote in so many ways. No more offices. No more weekly happy hours (just do a company retreat every 6 months). They can now depress salaries even further because they have a wider pool from…

The workers will always lose out because the employer has more power. Accept that reality, and that the simple counter-balance is workers organizing.

[flagged]

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

#715

Post by gre »

JW_00000 wrote: post #436
harveywi wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got angry when Trump was elected so they forked the Oval Office.

This is a photo from March 2016, while Trump was only elected in November 2016.

They had the oval office replica in Sept 2013 before the office officially opened. They also had a huge well-stocked bar, a secret room that you open by pulling a book or similar, a cowboy themed room....

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

#716

Post by rayiner »

I’m surprised this isn’t happening up and down the line. All those law/consulting/accounting firms (where the culture assumes most people have private offices) are leasing enormous amounts of space that’s underutilized now because people are only in a couple or few times a week. With the economic belt tightening coming up it seems like a no brainer to start trying to end these leases.

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

#717

Post by renewiltord »

Aeolun wrote: post #667
ushakov wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original seal said "United Meritocracy of GitHub", until they removed it after a backlash https://readwrite.com/github-meritocracy-rug/#awesm=~otS2Mwn...

[flagged]

Oh, that was removed by the famous Julie Ann Horvath who made allegations of sexism and discrimination against Github (who hired an investigator and said they did not find grounds for the claims).

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

#718

Post by sokoloff »

Ancalagon wrote: post #541
LAC-Tech wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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". Good. Because that's the reality we live in. Acting personally surprised or offended or hurt when a business…

This makes it easier for them to fire you and everyone else. Why, even as a contractor, would you be ok with that? Niceties or no you are weakening your own position and the value of you labor.

I want to work for a company that’s financially strong (or at least profitable). If that means they sometimes fire people, that’s ok. I want my “don’t fire them” to be based on a premise that I’m creating much more value for them than I cost. That’s a stable situation for all parties, short and long term.

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

#719

Post by scarface74 »

berkeleyjunk wrote: post #700
robertcope wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% think this is the long term play. Once we figure out how to really have "remote only" companies, the "remote" part won't be "remote in the USA" but "remote in some cheap part of the world". We tried this with outsourcing but it failed because we didn't have the "remote" part down... now we do...

Yes. Agree. The only thing preventing this going all the way is the friction in timezones and difficulty in co-ordination (i.e. still requires someone local to the remote people to manage their work).

Well for my line of work (app dev/cloud consulting) there is lot of face time, video conferencing with clients, travel to client sites, etc.

But also many of our contracts have data governance requirements where you have to be US based and other government contracts require you to be a US citizen.

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

#720

Post by wnevets »

rossdavidh wrote: post #420

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…

Still worth not being stuck in traffic between 5 to 10 hours every week.
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