my take on this is that "2 week notice" should probably apply to businesses as well?
Googler... ex-Googler
81–90 of 1001 posts
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#82The reality of one's lack of value to one's own employer is often baffling. It makes you wonder how anyone manages to stay employed at all, since apparently everyone is replicable and unimportant. I have been through layoffs where other people on my team, doing the same job I did approximately as well, got laid off. No explanation given for why them and not me. And it could happen to me at any time. It doesn't matter…
If you do only the minimum necessary to not get fired, then wouldn’t you be the person that needs to be fired the next time the the budget is cut, since you are the lowest ROI of all, all other things equal?
In theory, you'd think so.
In practice, due to the phenomenon described here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43662738, it's less relevant than you think. Specifically at Google, there have been reports of high performers, recently promoted with excellent ratings before and after the promotion, getting the sack.
In my experience, people who do good work do so because they enjoy the work and feel motivated, not due to any kind of performance management system or threat. Destroy the joy or motivation, and you've just destroyed a large part of the performance of these self-driven people.
People often talk about "10x engineers", but not how it's possible to destroy a 10x engineer and turn them into a (let's be generous) 2x engineer, and I think capricious layoffs are a great way to do just that.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#83"I'm told this comes as a shock to my managers and other Chrome team leaders. I'm told it's not based on merit"
If your manager is shocked by one of their team being laid off, the manager is probably next.
Of course the OP was told it wasn't based on merit, or any other arguable-in-court characteristic.
But it was. Someone decided Google was better off this way, or that OP was better off working somewhere else.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#84Google is one of those places where you never need to ask if someone worked there.
Can you explain for the uninitiated what that means? Is that like PTSD?
"You don't need to ask, they'll tell you" - a claim that the people who work there will brag about it.
And while there may be some truth to it, keep in mind that you hear about the ones that will tell you, you don't hear about most of the ones that don't.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#85[flagged]
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#86Does Google (or whoever is making these decisions) think that layoffs are in the long-term best interest of the company? If so, are they correct? Or is it related to the possibility that Google may have to divest itself of Chrome due to anti-trust enforcement?
It may be a bet that AI will reduce the need for developers. Even if it can only write boilerplate, boilerplate still has to be written and is time consuming, so if it were to remove 20% of time that needs to be sunk into a project, the work of 5 people can now be done by 4 (less if you account for the reduced coordination overhead).
Whether these savings actually play out and whether management has accurate expectations and metrics remains to be seen, given messaging that makes it sound like AI saves huge percentages of time, when it at best saves huge percentages of something that's actually only a small percentage of day to day work.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#87my take on this is that "2 week notice" should probably apply to businesses as well?
We have it, it's called the WARN Act [0]
Any company with more than 100 employees that does the "you were laid off today, but you'll be paid for the next 2 months" thing is following the WARN Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraini...
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I have been through layoffs where other people on my team, doing the same job I did approximately as well, got laid off. No explanation given for why them and not me. And it could happen to me at any time." Usually there is a hidden variable that you don't know. It is your salary. That is why it sometimes looks surprising when senior roles are cut that look extremely valuable to the company from the outset. Maybe th…
> Usually there is a hidden variable that you don't know. This is frequently the case. I've worked at big employers (comparable in level of corporate-ness to Google if not absolute size) where the layoff process, roughly was: 1. Aggregate layoff target gets set and apportioned amongst functional leaders, then targets cascaded down to the line manager level. 2. Managers fill out a stack ranking spreadsheet for their t…
> diversity field
If this was even in the spreadsheet, whether or not it were used, the current administration would love to hear about it.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#89In this neoclassical/neoliberal economy where the only thing that matters is "delivering value for the shareholders" and profits for the billionaire class. I am not surprised. A bit jaded, honestly.
I have only started my career in the past 10 years and have seen this story unfold time and time again across many companies. Big, small, or medium company. It doesn't matter.
You. Are. Expendable.
I will say the problem is much more pronounced when it's a publicly traded American company; or a company that was recently acquired or funded by private equity, "angel investment", or a vulture capitalist firm.
Folks. Our industry needs a trade union to protect our interests. We cannot keep relying on billionaire class to "do right by us" because quite frankly. They do not give a shit.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP spent several years at Google. Kids or no kids, if they managed their finances well, they have a lot of latitude wrt next moves.
outside of having stupid money what percentage of people (excluding people living paycheck to paycheck) manage their finances well, especially in the first decade of their career? I’d ballpark that at 0.78%
Are you pessimistic or is that a serious estimate? It’s so … low.