6 ms·

Layoffs and Loyalty in a Liquid Valley

65 points by tim_sw 11y ago

dudul 11y ago
Loyalty is a one way street in business, don't be a fool, do what's right for you.
alain94040 11y ago
Loyalty works at the person level. That engineer you got along with great? They are your best source of future employment. When they move to a new great opportunity, they call who they know and trust. It better be you.
- a3n 11y ago
  Exactly. If there's any loyalty, it's in these personal relationships within a company. Regardless of how loyal you are to each other, if the company bottom line says you're gone, then you're gone, and the notice will probably come from a person to whom you are loyal. It's just bidness.
pkaye 11y ago
Loyalty should be to individuals, not companies.
20years 11y ago
Wow this highlights how brutal and vulnerable working in the tech space really is.
- gaius 11y ago
  But... Everyone should learn to code!
  - muzmath 11y ago
    No one is arguing that everyone should learn to code to become a professional programmer, in the same way that no one is arguing everyone should become a mathematicians due to mandatory geometry class.
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  Do you think it's better elsewhere?
  - 20years 11y ago
    Good point. Probably not.
- thrway2busy 11y ago
  yeah I knkow - you might need to spend up to four weeks and go through, I shit you not, dozens of unpaid interviews - robbing you of 2 hours each, and not just once but often two or three times - before you get your next $80K-$140K job offer. The tech space is absolutely brutal. Nobody other than 90% of people would think this is a tenable lifestyle.
  - 20years 11y ago
    Ha! That is true I suppose if you are in the Bay area.
  - shopinterest 11y ago
    It all depends, tech/developer vs BD/Marketing - Have experienced the up/down too of the Bay Area, and sometimes it takes months to get back in the saddle. Everyone wants the perfect employee, ready to go, nothing to train, Knows all stacks, all systems, liked by all 6-8 people who interview him/her, asks for 10% less than market rate. Some companies want you to be an unicorn yourself, I've gone through stuff like: 'So you have years of mobile ad marketing and also years of online security service experience, years doing app marketing, already know our reporting and tracking systems, but you DONT have experience specific marketing on an online security app? Thanks for coming'
xacaxulu 11y ago
Stay loyal, but always keep your options open. Never stop networking, never stop exploring new opportunities.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
This is a pretty straight call on things. Nobody likes getting laid off, even if they had the day before been wishing they would get laid off. It feels wrong, it feels personal, and it feels bad. That said, it forces you to look at new opportunities and that can be a good thing. There was a person I knew at Sun who was layed off and that forced them to find a new job and they landed at a company that then went public and they made several million dollars. It really struck me how what seemed like something horrible for them really was the key to their future success. The key for me was realizing that different people, in different situations, respond very differently to the folks around them. I've seen it work both ways where a "star" from Company A was recruited to work at the company I was working at and they flamed out miserably, and I've seen people that were very unproductive get layed off an blossom in a new environment into superstars. I wish sometimes someone would do a long duration study of folks in the bay area to quantify the expected value of staying or leaving. My instinct tells me that the smart ones leave, the "loyal" ones pay a price for their loyalty that they don't expect.
- gopalv 11y ago
  > My instinct tells me that the smart ones leave, the "loyal" ones pay a price for their loyalty that they don't expect. The opportunities that come up for a "smart" person is many-fold for the ones who're not acknowledged as smart - the difference in productivity might be minimal, but the label can be sticky purely due to narcissism. Don't get me wrong. Self belief is an important part of signing up for a challenge that is bigger than anything you've done before - instead of being given a new badge & the same job elsewhere. Then, there's the trouble with the signaling of "loyalty". Not looking for another job is too easy to qualify as loyalty. But that's what mostly gets put up as being loyal, which is fairly low-bar for anyone. Now, the trouble is removing the "just not looking" confounding factor from a proper study - relying on self-reporting for that is going to produce bias. Loyalty as a word has come to mean a pseudo-virtue which is papered over the actual rational decision to stick with what you've got, considering all the risks. And people who can't see opportunity over the horizon rarely get to better places. The fact that people blossom when they get laid off takes away that illusion - there is no status quo bias or loss aversion to overcome. Immediately people are less risk averse to new roles, knock on more doors & grow. Loyalty as practiced would mean acting in mutual benefit always - not sacrifice.
hwstar 11y ago
You need to be prepared at all times. You never know when (not if) they are going to come for you. I lasted 25 years and 11 months at one company before they came for me. (In hindsight, I should have quit long before the company got into such dire straits, but it was an easy commute, and the co-workers were great people to work with) Layoffs in the tech industry will happen. An emergency fund or F.U. money is required to deal with it. Once you are over 50 like me, you need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck because it could take years for the job market dynamics to change and become more favourable for the employee. During the time you are out of work for a long stretch take some time to learn some new skills, contributing to open source software is an excellent way to do this. You must always place your interests ahead of the company you are currently working for, the company is not going to place your interests ahead of it's own. You are just a pawn to them. If the companies interests start to conflict with yours, then you must be prepared to leave (either voluntarily or they'll do it for you at their time and place of choosing).
- carsongross 11y ago
  > 25 years and 11 months > You need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck because it could take years for the job market dynamics to change and become more favourable for the employee. How insane is that? Add to the fact that cost of living is so high now in the Bay Area, and safe returns are so low, that building up any sort of true emergency savings is difficult... Insane.
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    Save 20% of your income for 25 years and you'll have 5 years living expenses saved up. That's assuming zero returns on capital, beyond inflation. It just means assuming that your $125K/year salary is actually $100K, or your $100K/year salary is actually $80K. There are people - even in the Bay Area - who live on less than half of that.
    - mattmanser 11y ago
      You've forgotten that you only spend 80% of your salary, so you'd have 6.25 years.
acjohnson55 11y ago
Loyalty shouldn't be thought of as synonymous with ongoing employment. Loyalty is staying true to the deal you made when you were hired. And for most people, that's at-will. Going above and beyond the call of duty as an employee is great, but that should be out of symbiosis, not sacrifice. You can be loyal to a company and to your colleagues while moving on to a new job. If you're advancing on the world, you may well find ways to send opportunities to the people and businesses you've worked with in the past. Likewise, good employers (companies and bosses) are loyal by putting people first, even when the employment relationship is ending.
mschuster91 11y ago
What I don't get is: can you really be terminated without notice in the US? In Germany, you have iirc minimum 4 weeks delay.
- hdctambien 11y ago
  Most states in America (all of them?) have an At-Will Employment law. That means you can quit your job at any time, for any reason, effective immediately. It also means you can be fired at any time, for any reason (Except illegal reasons). effective immediately. This is a description of the law in Texas: http://www.davidcholmeslaw.com/blog/what-is-the-at-will-employment-rule-in-texas/ http://www.davidcholmeslaw.com/blog/what-is-the-at-will-empl...
  - krapp 11y ago
    >It also means you can be fired at any time, for any reason (Except illegal reasons). effective immediately. In practice this means you can usually be fired for illegal reasons as well, as long as the company can maintain plausible deniability.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    > Most states in America (all of them?) have an At-Will Employment law. Yes, all of them.
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  Absolutely. I have seen people coming in to work in the morning and their badges didn't work anymore. They had to negotiate with security to be allowed to get their personal stuff from their desk.
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    God, that's sick. First world country my ass.
    - peoplelovelines 11y ago

65 points by tim_sw 11y ago

dudul 11y ago

Loyalty is a one way street in business, don't be a fool, do what's right for you.

Loyalty works at the person level. That engineer you got along with great? They are your best source of future employment. When they move to a new great opportunity, they call who they know and trust. It better be you.

a3n 11y ago
Exactly. If there's any loyalty, it's in these personal relationships within a company. Regardless of how loyal you are to each other, if the company bottom line says you're gone, then you're gone, and the notice will probably come from a person to whom you are loyal. It's just bidness.

pkaye 11y ago

Loyalty should be to individuals, not companies.

20years 11y ago

Wow this highlights how brutal and vulnerable working in the tech space really is.

gaius 11y ago
But... Everyone should learn to code!
- muzmath 11y ago
  No one is arguing that everyone should learn to code to become a professional programmer, in the same way that no one is arguing everyone should become a mathematicians due to mandatory geometry class.
JabavuAdams 11y ago
Do you think it's better elsewhere?
- 20years 11y ago
  Good point. Probably not.
thrway2busy 11y ago
yeah I knkow - you might need to spend up to four weeks and go through, I shit you not, dozens of unpaid interviews - robbing you of 2 hours each, and not just once but often two or three times - before you get your next $80K-$140K job offer. The tech space is absolutely brutal. Nobody other than 90% of people would think this is a tenable lifestyle.
- 20years 11y ago
  Ha! That is true I suppose if you are in the Bay area.
- shopinterest 11y ago
  It all depends, tech/developer vs BD/Marketing - Have experienced the up/down too of the Bay Area, and sometimes it takes months to get back in the saddle. Everyone wants the perfect employee, ready to go, nothing to train, Knows all stacks, all systems, liked by all 6-8 people who interview him/her, asks for 10% less than market rate. Some companies want you to be an unicorn yourself, I've gone through stuff like: 'So you have years of mobile ad marketing and also years of online security service experience, years doing app marketing, already know our reporting and tracking systems, but you DONT have experience specific marketing on an online security app? Thanks for coming'

xacaxulu 11y ago

Stay loyal, but always keep your options open. Never stop networking, never stop exploring new opportunities.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

This is a pretty straight call on things. Nobody likes getting laid off, even if they had the day before been wishing they would get laid off. It feels wrong, it feels personal, and it feels bad. That said, it forces you to look at new opportunities and that can be a good thing. There was a person I knew at Sun who was layed off and that forced them to find a new job and they landed at a company that then went public and they made several million dollars. It really struck me how what seemed like something horrible for them really was the key to their future success. The key for me was realizing that different people, in different situations, respond very differently to the folks around them. I've seen it work both ways where a "star" from Company A was recruited to work at the company I was working at and they flamed out miserably, and I've seen people that were very unproductive get layed off an blossom in a new environment into superstars. I wish sometimes someone would do a long duration study of folks in the bay area to quantify the expected value of staying or leaving. My instinct tells me that the smart ones leave, the "loyal" ones pay a price for their loyalty that they don't expect.

gopalv 11y ago
> My instinct tells me that the smart ones leave, the "loyal" ones pay a price for their loyalty that they don't expect. The opportunities that come up for a "smart" person is many-fold for the ones who're not acknowledged as smart - the difference in productivity might be minimal, but the label can be sticky purely due to narcissism. Don't get me wrong. Self belief is an important part of signing up for a challenge that is bigger than anything you've done before - instead of being given a new badge & the same job elsewhere. Then, there's the trouble with the signaling of "loyalty". Not looking for another job is too easy to qualify as loyalty. But that's what mostly gets put up as being loyal, which is fairly low-bar for anyone. Now, the trouble is removing the "just not looking" confounding factor from a proper study - relying on self-reporting for that is going to produce bias. Loyalty as a word has come to mean a pseudo-virtue which is papered over the actual rational decision to stick with what you've got, considering all the risks. And people who can't see opportunity over the horizon rarely get to better places. The fact that people blossom when they get laid off takes away that illusion - there is no status quo bias or loss aversion to overcome. Immediately people are less risk averse to new roles, knock on more doors & grow. Loyalty as practiced would mean acting in mutual benefit always - not sacrifice.

hwstar 11y ago

You need to be prepared at all times. You never know when (not if) they are going to come for you. I lasted 25 years and 11 months at one company before they came for me. (In hindsight, I should have quit long before the company got into such dire straits, but it was an easy commute, and the co-workers were great people to work with) Layoffs in the tech industry will happen. An emergency fund or F.U. money is required to deal with it. Once you are over 50 like me, you need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck because it could take years for the job market dynamics to change and become more favourable for the employee. During the time you are out of work for a long stretch take some time to learn some new skills, contributing to open source software is an excellent way to do this. You must always place your interests ahead of the company you are currently working for, the company is not going to place your interests ahead of it's own. You are just a pawn to them. If the companies interests start to conflict with yours, then you must be prepared to leave (either voluntarily or they'll do it for you at their time and place of choosing).

carsongross 11y ago
> 25 years and 11 months > You need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck because it could take years for the job market dynamics to change and become more favourable for the employee. How insane is that? Add to the fact that cost of living is so high now in the Bay Area, and safe returns are so low, that building up any sort of true emergency savings is difficult... Insane.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  Save 20% of your income for 25 years and you'll have 5 years living expenses saved up. That's assuming zero returns on capital, beyond inflation. It just means assuming that your $125K/year salary is actually $100K, or your $100K/year salary is actually $80K. There are people - even in the Bay Area - who live on less than half of that.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    You've forgotten that you only spend 80% of your salary, so you'd have 6.25 years.

acjohnson55 11y ago

Loyalty shouldn't be thought of as synonymous with ongoing employment. Loyalty is staying true to the deal you made when you were hired. And for most people, that's at-will. Going above and beyond the call of duty as an employee is great, but that should be out of symbiosis, not sacrifice. You can be loyal to a company and to your colleagues while moving on to a new job. If you're advancing on the world, you may well find ways to send opportunities to the people and businesses you've worked with in the past. Likewise, good employers (companies and bosses) are loyal by putting people first, even when the employment relationship is ending.

mschuster91 11y ago

What I don't get is: can you really be terminated without notice in the US? In Germany, you have iirc minimum 4 weeks delay.

hdctambien 11y ago
Most states in America (all of them?) have an At-Will Employment law. That means you can quit your job at any time, for any reason, effective immediately. It also means you can be fired at any time, for any reason (Except illegal reasons). effective immediately. This is a description of the law in Texas: http://www.davidcholmeslaw.com/blog/what-is-the-at-will-employment-rule-in-texas/ http://www.davidcholmeslaw.com/blog/what-is-the-at-will-empl...
- krapp 11y ago
  >It also means you can be fired at any time, for any reason (Except illegal reasons). effective immediately. In practice this means you can usually be fired for illegal reasons as well, as long as the company can maintain plausible deniability.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  > Most states in America (all of them?) have an At-Will Employment law. Yes, all of them.
maxxxxx 11y ago
Absolutely. I have seen people coming in to work in the morning and their badges didn't work anymore. They had to negotiate with security to be allowed to get their personal stuff from their desk.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  God, that's sick. First world country my ass.
  - peoplelovelines 11y ago