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Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

• refurb 8y ago
  Having been laid off due to downsizing, I think everyone should go through it at least once. Sure, the first time will leave you panic stricken, but you'll come out the other side with a lot more clarity about the employee-employer relationship. You are disposable. Even the CEO is disposable (as I've seen many times). Once you realize that, you'll stop the BS about loyalty to your company. It's a business arrangement, nothing more. Your job is to get the most you can (money, experience - whatever floats your boat). If it no longer works for you, leave. They'd do the same to you.
  • redundo_twa 8y ago
    Throwaway account because I'm currently in the middle of being laid off ("redundancy" in UK). I thought I always had that somewhat-cynical outlook by default, coming from a leftist family; but still, the unfairness of this process (first time for me in 20 years of work) boils my blood. Metrics massaged to target this and that, backstabbing, disrespecting people who built the company... all that will forever scar the company, no matter what. Your best and brightest don't want to live in fear, once you scare them like this they will leave. I don't understand why companies with troubled books don't just spin off the departments they want to cut: give people a chance to fend by themselves, keeping teams together and offloading risk without losing knowledge and propagating fear.
    • mseebach 8y ago
      Can you elaborate on the idea that companies should spin off departments? On the face of it, I don't see how that could work, but I probably don't understand your idea fully.
      • allannienhuis 8y ago
        The idea might work better for products than departments. I worked for an employer who did exactly that when one of the new product/business they'd built wasn't growing (enough?) to warrant more investment. So he set up a couple of the developers working on the product with the rights to the product and helped work out new contracts with the existing handful of clients (it was large enterprise software). There was enough revenue (maintenance contracts) to support the two guys, and so the existing customers were taken care of in terms of maintenance. Worked out pretty well for everyone as far as I know.
        • mseebach 8y ago
          But was the alternative in that case to fire the two employees? It sounds more like the case that they wanted to cut the product. Specifically, in the case of the article, spinning off the redundant employees leaving them in a new firm with no product and no revenue sounds like a cruelly dystopian option. And if the company was willing to put money into it, I'm pretty sure most employees would prefer that as a severance package instead.
          • redundo_twa 8y ago
            > I'm pretty sure most employees would prefer that as a severance package instead. Possibly, but I think the employee should be given a choice. If even just 1% of laid-off people took the choice and succeeded, the entire economy would clearly benefit.
          • allannienhuis 8y ago
            Cutting a product often comes with layoffs. The other products may or may not be able to support the staff that were working on the products being cut. Obviously the larger the company is the more likely there are other options aside from layoffs. In this case I expect he might have made a spot for those employees working on a different product, but that's not certain - technologies & skills were different & the vertical markets were completely different. And in this specific case, the two staff thought it was an amazing opportunity for them - I think their short-term salary went up & they got a lot more flexibility plus potential upside if they could grow the business even slowly. Obviously some downsides in terms of benefits, etc. But even if it didn't work out it would have been a pretty good line item on their resume. :)
      • asmosoinio 8y ago
        I also did not understand how that could work in most cases. I agree with allanienhuis, that it can work well for products. I was myself working on a mobile app (before they were really a thing) at Nokia. The app was for analyzing golf swings. There was a department working on sports related products. Someone decided to streamline the company (around 2002 or so I guess - nothing major back then), and this department was killed. We were allowed to spin off the app and related IP to our own company, and were able to continue working on it. At the time I think it was a win-win for both sides.
      • redundo_twa 8y ago
        See my reply at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16916590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16916590
    • pascalxus 8y ago
      if this only happens once in 20 years to you, then you've been quite lucky or have done quite well. In the tech industry, companies have lay offs on average about once per year: every year your there, you roll the dice. It's not just troubled books. Many have lay off quotas they need to fill: jack walsh style of management. It's just how modern day capitalism works. There is however, one upside. All that laying off means they'll have to do a lot of re-hiring to replace all the employees they laid off.
      • fjsolwmv 8y ago
        Laying off 5% every year means an average of 20 years between layoffs.
      • fallingfrog 8y ago
        I think it's also a union-busting tactic- if you keep the turnover high enough then people don't get to know each other well enough to form unions.
    • kemiller 8y ago
      I'm not sure how that would work. I completely agree that layoffs suck, but when a company is at that point, it's usually because other options have been exhausted. But turning a bunch of people out who have never run a company (presumably) as a spinoff seems pretty cruel in most cases. Edit: most of my experience being laid off has been at startups, where I guess it's a bit different from big companies.
      • redundo_twa 8y ago
        >when a company is at that point, it's usually because other options have been exhausted. Definitely not the case for me at the moment, but I won't bore you with the details. I don't think it would be cruel at all. If a company cuts entire chunks of the business (products, departments, what have you), it's because someone made a management call that they don't want to bear the risk and/or losses associated to that particular segment, or they cannot imagine new strategies. That does not mean that such a segment is completely unviable, it might simply be that it's not as profitable as that someone decided it should be, or requires more effort that that someone is willing to invest (money, time, creativity etc). It might still be a perfectly viable lifestyle business for the people working there, who only want to make a decent living. Giving them a choice and a fighting chance, imho, is a win-win situation: the business offloads risk, knowledge is not dispersed, relationships are kept positive. At worst, the spin-off fails, the company has executed a cheap round of layoffs with no hard feelings; at best, the spin-off succeeds, they get some service for cheap and/or dividends, everybody is happy. I'm surprised nobody said "well, the laid-off people can still do it themselves, nobody stops them" and that's absolutely true; but doing it in an organised manner, with support from an established "mother" entity, is much easier. Say I switch to the cloud and don't really need most of my datacentre anymore. Instead of just chucking it all away, people and machines alike, I set them up as a separate hosting company where i'm a minority shareholder, buy from them a small contract for my little bit of legacy stuff, and let them free to go find new customers or do their thing. If they fail, nothing of value is lost and I still have access to their talent pool because no bridge was burnt; if they succeed, my shares are worth something and I keep getting good service for cheap. In a way, it's similar to what Amazon did when they first introduced AWS: they had internal overcapacity for some services and just turned it into another business. (sure, it was a new system etc etc; but when you boil it down, it's just that: they had more internal resources than they needed, and rather than scaling them down, they started selling excess.)
  • mysterydip 8y ago
    Agreed. I once got a call out of the blue that I was being laid off. I had always associated stability with success: as long as I was doing a good job, my job would be secure. That was not the case. It was purely a business decision for them, but I left dazed and wondering what to do. I had always planned job changes on my terms. But it was also freeing in that I now could find opportunities I would've missed. I'm much happier where I am now.
    • fjsolwmv 8y ago
      Perhaps your last employers were dazed when you left.
      • bengale 8y ago
        Most employers are aware of how business engagements work.
        • candiodari 8y ago
          And the reason you see "starter-level" next to important jobs is that most employers are aware ... that starters don't have a clue.
      • coldtea 8y ago
        They still have the power and the money to employ other people. Which is a different situation that needing to be employed to put food on the table.
        • derekp7 8y ago
          To put this in a slightly different perspective. Let's say you had hired a babysitter so you could go out for the evening. At the last minute, the babysitter cancels, and it is too late to get another one. Now you are either scrambling (calling relatives, etc) or you cancel your evening plans. Now let's add to this that your kids really like this particular babysitter, who has quit the babysitting business permanently, and it takes a bit of trial and error to find a replacement that will work for your kids. So an employee leaving does have some impact. On the employee side, of course there is the food-on-the-table issue, which can be important if there isn't a safety net. Which is why it is critical to live within 75% of your paycheck, so that every year you can survive 3 months unemployment.
  • aphextron 8y ago
    Can't agree with this more. Getting laid off was an invaluable experience for me in retrospect. As a young single person with money and job prospects it's basically a free paid vacation.
  • dugluak 8y ago
    CEO is disposable, but often gets a golden parachute.
    • taurath 8y ago
      In those terms, its usually a hit to reputation, though in general its RARE that a "reputation" hit will prevent an ex-CEO from getting another CEO job, but usually means they won't get a "better" CEO/Executive position. Likewise, if you're working at a company (Facebook say) that has a scandal, get laid off, you're probably gonna be able to find another job.
      • eeZah7Ux 8y ago
        CEO are forgiven by the job market even when they run out of a failing company while taking a big bonus.
        • ericd 8y ago
          Would you want to be the CEO of a large corporation? The money is great, which everyone who isn't a CEO always seems to want to complain about, but there is very little work-life balance there, and a huge amount of pressure. And you still have a boss, in the form of the board, and very aggressive, possibly unrealistic milestones to hit. And thousands of employees depending on your decisions, along with many millions of shareholders directly and indirectly via their retirement plans.
  • davidjhall 8y ago
    The only person who wants to be at a company is the owner/creator/founder (in whatever role that is). Everyone else is picking up a paycheck to work on what they are skilled at and could just as easily work somewhere else ( from CEO to mailroom person.)
  • bb88 8y ago
    I remind myself and others that they wouldn't have a "Human Resources" department if companies didn't believe that humans were resources. It's not "feelings management" or "people support", it is HR for a reason.
    • candiodari 8y ago
      I'm sure that if there's too many posts like this they'll rename it. Probably to something they perceive as better like your suggestion "people support". But of course, it's function, to protect the firm from it's employees, won't change.
      • bb88 8y ago
        > But of course, it's function, to protect the firm from it's employees, won't change. That's part of the problem right there: "We only hire the best". "We need to protect the company from the employees." It seems like if you really did the first statement, there wouldn't be a need for the second. If you find yourself using the second statement to justify a management action, then your management (you or your company) has failed.
  • throwaway82729 8y ago
    I was laid off once. Got a call from my VP when I was on my vacation. It was an extremely painful experience since I had been repeatedly told that I was a good performer and was critical to the team. I used that as an opportunity to reevaluate how I was operating and swore to make myself as valuable as possible. Also, I started keenly observing how the business was doing and jumped before layoffs happened. Today, I'm in a senior middle management role but still operating very cautiously and taking nothing for granted.
    • taurath 8y ago
      > I used that as an opportunity to reevaluate how I was operating and swore to make myself as valuable as possible Isn't that just doubling down on what you were doing before, being a "good performer" and "critical" to the team? The problem is that external forces (to you, your team, division, or your company) can come in at any time and make people change the calculus to want to pay you. And there's nothing stopping them from pulling the trigger, and suddenly you're out of work. We do not have a system designed to help you, we have systems designed to save companies money. The only real solution is to constantly make sure you could move if you had to, and that you're marketable. Part of my newbie years were spent at a big company watching very competent but experienced people get the axe and be replaced by 2-3 new hires - sometimes its not even about the money they'll save. Then, when you're out checking whether you're marketable, you can do regular checks to see if you really want to stay where you are.
  • toephu2 8y ago
    Even Steve Jobs is disposable. How many here remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard Steve Jobs passed away? Almost like being able to recall where you were when 9/11 happened. When I heard of his death I was shocked, I wondered how Apple would survive, how the world for that matter would move on? But sure enough the next day the sun still rose and and the earth still rotated. Today Apple is doing just fine without Jobs and is making record profits. Everyone is disposable and money will always make the world go 'round.
    • keieo29 8y ago
      Numerous studies have tried to measure who generates value. Millions of dollars spent on this, cause it seems like an important question right? The results from what I’ve read have offered no answers. One place spent $20 million trying to answer how much productivity is gained from having email. Nothing. I suspect it’s like the food industry and fossil fuels: they are selling us on nonsense and hiding the reality. Economics was the latest long con, like religion before it, the masses buy in hook line and sinker But yeah we DEFINITELY need to make more phone apps and web apps! Fawk yeah!
    • mywittyname 8y ago
      > Almost like being able to recall where you were when 9/11 happened. Is this sarcasm that I'm not picking up on? I literally can't remember what year SJ died. I can't even remember what generation iPhone was his last.
      • bdcravens 8y ago
        I remember because I was traveling home from Adobe MAX so I heard the news at the airport. However, I totally get that many assume he's deified by all.
      • kridsdale1 8y ago
        I remember the precise moment because on that day I was in my office at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino. It was bizarre. A mass of mourners swamped the building in under an hour.
  • mooreds 8y ago
    "You are disposable." A kinder way might be to say that no one is irreplaceable. I'd argue that that's actually a good thing. But yes, the first time you go through layoffs it is shocking, especially if you've built your identity around your job.
  • joe_the_user 8y ago
    Having been laid off due to downsizing, I think everyone should go through it at least once. I think it's mistake to recommend life-changing events like this so glibly. A given person may recover and become wiser and stronger. Another person may never recover in terms of career, relationships or mental health. It's better to look and learn that the market is a harsh place and you should take steps accordingly. If you have to have that lesson engraved on your body, so be it but remember, each person has only so much productive career-time, some many opportunities to make and keep relationships, etc (fired-to-divorced, etc is a common path just for example).
  • aliencat 8y ago
    Well put. I realized that when my boss compared me to a pigeon taking a shit on the company when I am quitting. Clearly, all the "I want my employee to be happy here" talk is just BS and only fools geeks that are naive enough to believe it and actually work their ass off.
• zeveb 8y ago
  I'm not certain what he expects: lifetime risk-free employment? Yeah, there's stress involved with risk. But the risk one has as an upper-middle-class American is tech is nothing compared to the risks that others alive today face, and less than nothing compared to the risks that others in the past have faced. Nothing last forever. Not a job — not even one's life. Make the most of it while you can.
  • logicx24 8y ago
    Author here. Not sure why you're being downvoted, I completely I agree with this. The fact that even upper middle class doesn't guarantee any real security was a huge wake-up call for me, and I can't imagine what it's like for everyone else.
    • magic_beans 8y ago
      I think this is a fallacy of immigrant parenting. While I was growing up, my mother's mantra was always: "Go to college, get a good job, you will make money and everything will be perfect for you." In her mind, success could ONLY come from a) college and b) a good job (doctor, engineer). But here's the thing -- white collar jobs are just as subject to cost-cutting and instability as any other job. And perhaps, in the end, a "perfect" job in which you work yourself to death for a paycheck is hardly a happy or rewarding way to live. Open your mind. Life is insecurity. Be open to change and you will thrive.
    • toss1 8y ago
      'The best security is insecurity.' -- a concept that became apparent to me early on, and has served me well. To realize that whatever security there once was on corporate jobs is at best a vanishing illusion. To realize that the way forward isn't to build on a rock that will likely be flooded at some point, but to realize that you must surf. While that doesn't mean that it'll all be great, it does prepare you for when the wave does crash down on you and pummel you into the sandy bottom -- you get back in the mix a lot faster and more capably than those who bought into the expectation of stability. Also can lead to a much more interesting career, even if not as consistently lucrative.
    • 8y ago
• badpun 8y ago
  TL;DR: a 22 year old CS grad gets a job and learns that vanila software development career is not going to be as exciting and rewarding journey as he'd imagined. Good for him; for some people, it takes much longer to figure this out.
• trhway 8y ago
  this is why i don't move out of Bay Area - me and my acquaintances have been through lay offs here at various years, during the booms and busts, and nobody had any significant issues promptly finding a new job (with a salary increase usually :). Compare that to, for example, the next best thing in US tech - when AMZN says come to Seattle i always imagine being laid off from it few years down the road (with a non-compete on top of that :), and if for any reason i don't get a job at the only other game in the town - MS - then what? Probably move to Bay Area :)
  • cwe 8y ago
    Agree overall, but there are a LOT of other employers in Seattle, including lots of the big guys. In general, a layoff would be similar to the bay area experience for a talented dev.
  • brantonb 8y ago
    I left Microsoft a couple years ago, with no desire to work at Amazon. I had no problem finding interesting companies in Seattle for interviews. Facebook, Google, Apple, and Twitter are all here. Not to mention a bunch of startups that are generally run by people with experience at those larger companies.
  • jeffreyrogers 8y ago
    Amazon has non-competes?
    • trhway 8y ago
      Important point here is that WA and almost all US states do have it while CA (pretty much an exception) - doesn't. Specifically to AMZN - i remember some horror story mentioned here on HN, and googling also brings some stories.
  • seattle_spring 8y ago
    I think it's hilarious that you think Seattle is some backwater tech nowhere with only 2 companies.
• awat 8y ago
  To comment on one of the sentiments in the last paragraph. I often find myself wondering about the people doing the bidding above them where they are the last one compensated on a middle-upper class level before the VP or CEO or whoever that makes the 100X worker salary. What motivates that person? I’m sure they are compensated very well but at an exponentially lower rate than the will they are serving.
  • mseebach 8y ago
    You seem to imply that those top people receiving these large compensations are obviously unfairly and massively overpaid, and that this is an uncontroversial fact. This clearly isn't the perception at that level. At least some number of people at the board level, as well as presumably these top people themselves, probably don't share that view[1]. This probably extends to the layers immediately beneath them. I know from my own work that I'm not bothered by the fact that other people I sometimes interact with (I'm not the last layer before them nor do I think "doing their bidding" accurately describes my relationship with them) are paid significantly more than I am. I can plainly see that they are bringing skills and experience to the table that I or others at "my level" simply do not have. 1: Never mind the fact that the market also doesn't agree. The departure of a good CEO can move the market cap by a substantial multiple of the CEOs compensation.
    • TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
      It is an uncontroversial fact - or at least it should be, because it's an objective fact that productivity capture has slanted towards the highest pay levels over recent decades, with devastating effects on economic security lower down the ladder. Why should your personal opinion - "I'm not bothered" - be a political universal? The reality is that there are increasing numbers of people who used to have steady jobs, and now have gig economy pseudo-slavery which barely makes rent, if at all. This is an unstable basis on which to run a large economy. Market cap is not the only measure of economic effectiveness. If all the rhetoric about "highly paid job creators" doesn't lead to the creation of real jobs, what use is it?
    • heurist 8y ago
• 110011 8y ago
  Jesus, can you be more melodramatic, self-congratulatory and pointless all at the same time?
  • qstyk 8y ago
    It appears the original author would be better suited in a union shop. It would also appear that they’ve never owned a business.
    • Clubber 8y ago
      The thing about owning a business is you never hire someone unless you absolutely, positively need to. This apparently wasn't the case at BigCo. Maybe they're the ones that never owned a business.
      • bdcravens 8y ago
        Well, it's Snap, so that means they were pumping that sweet VC cash roll into headcount (like any similarly funded startup). Then one day they realize that doesn't deliver the desired growth, and they cut headcount. I've said it before, and I know it sucks, but startup layoffs are often the result of letting go of people that in a normal business probably shouldn't have been there.
• rubicon33 8y ago
  > Fewer and fewer careers offer a stable path to the financial and personal security that underwrote the Baby Boomers’ “American Dream.” Technology is the one career that has an optimistic future, isn’t beholden by regulation and credential inflation, and actually attempts to create some sort of meritocracy, and so, those that are fortunate enough to be in it want to preserve the one island of paradise left. This really resonated with me, for a number of reasons. Primarily, it's because I am hyper aware of how delicate this "tech boom" really is. The good times will end, and I believe they will end sooner than most believe. I was layed off once before because the company I worked for outsourced their entire engineering department. That was a quick lesson for me early in my career that you are EASILY replaced. There are people in India, China, the Ukraine, you name it... who will do your job for half the cost. There is an enormous, GLOBAL, influx of software engineers that is rapidly diluting the worker pool and is quickly reducing the implicit bargaining power that we've enjoyed for the last 10 years. Big "thanks" to all the initiatives by well meaning, but naïve, individuals and organizations who want to "spread the wealth" without realizing that the wealth is already spread very thin, and is being spread thinner, and thinner, every day by mechanisms outside of our control (cost of living, housing, taxes, etc.). I am trying my best to save, but somehow the cost of merely existing seems to increase month over month. I don't have kids, can't afford them. I don't have a car payment, I bought a junker. I have minimized my expenses down to the bare necessity and even then coming up with the down payment for a home is going to take years. At my age, my parents were already on to their second home. My wife has enormous student loans that cripple her ability to save so even our dual income seems weak in this environment. So what can you do? I'm starting a business in my after-hours and weekends, desperately trying to establish a source of low-overhead income. I'm specializing within my field, attempting to learn new skills in a niché programming field that can't be easily learned by bootcamps and YouTube videos. Above all, I'm remembering that right now things are good. This is the calm before the storm.
  • jeffreyrogers 8y ago
    Tech has a natural moat in that only a small portion of the population is smart and driven enough to do well in it, so I expect decent paying jobs for the foreseeable future. And while some of high profile startups might have unviable business models, most of the established companies actually have pretty good metrics, so I don't seem them as being in danger of going out of business unless some legislation comes along that completely undermines their ability to do business. Obviously it's still smart to save and plan for a period of unemployment though.
• pkaye 8y ago
  This is how it always has been in the tech industry. It is just that the last few years been very prosperous that many recent graduates have not even experienced the down sides. Best things to do is keep building your skill sets and maintain relationship and help out coworkers so that they are there when you next need referral for a job.
• gthtjtkt 8y ago
  > My first thought was relief. But that relief quickly turned back into fear. How disposable I was, I thought. How bound I was to the whims of others. This is why I think we need to build more communities around cheap housing (think manufactured homes) and shared agricultural space. At least if you lose your job in that type of community you won't have to worry as much about homelessness or starvation. We're far too dependent on others for life's basic necessities, and that drives millions of people to work themselves to death doing jobs that make them miserable for employers who don't care about them.
• vinceguidry 8y ago
  The author of the article is misinformed about the true landscape of wealth and income inequality. The middle class is ultimately defined by the ability and need to build your own safety net. The upper middle class is able to do this with plenty of wealth to spare for luxuries like private schooling for their kids, income security is provided by their network. Just tap your network and find another job. The upper middle class is unconcerned with skills and only concerned with leeching off of the upper class. The 'regular' middle class still needs to lean on their skill set and willingness to move in order to provide income security. If a layoff is enough to throw your lifestyle into disarray, you're not upper middle class, in fact you'll never be upper middle class because you probably spend too much time messing around with getting stuff done and not enough on greasing the political wheels. The upper class doesn't need to fool around with a network, they are networks unto themselves. At this level, enough ambient wealth is floating around that you can hire professionals to manage it for you and never have to do anything you don't want to. The difference between the lower class and the middle class boils down to whether you have enough to provide for your daily needs, much less a safety net. The lower class cannot meet expenses each month without assistance, has no ability to build a safety net and so has no safety other than what the government provides. What distinguishes the lower middle class from the regular middle class is whether they have enough left over every month to save for the future or a rainy day.
  • wolfspider 8y ago
    This is so horribly wrong- I've known upper middle class that get there by not spending hardly anything and owning their own business and operating it (e.g. Gas Station + Auto Repair). No leeching there. No accounting for "Luck" here or proximity to resources and opportunity. Do they actually teach this in schools or what nowadays? starting to seem prevalent. Life is what you make it, tomorrow holds no promises, opportunity doesn't knock it looks backwards through your peephole, can't take it with you, go where the food is(!!) Heh, how about some more pragmatic advice huh?
    • vinceguidry 8y ago
      The idea behind talking about classes isn't that there aren't people who don't fit the mold, but to just discuss the broader trends. For every frugal business owner making upper middle class incomes, (and deeply concerned that the economy will continue to support their livelihoods) there's fifty filling up middle management spots in midsize organizations or upper management spots in small organizations, safe in the understanding that the firm they're working for will insulate them from market trends and confident that they can find a new berth if it doesn't. Also, my descriptions aren't intended to be prescriptive, just descriptive. You want to know what the landscape looks like before you try to safely navigate it.
• magic_beans 8y ago
  I can't help but wince when I read this. This guy got laid off from his very first job. He is young -- in his twenties -- and has no family to support. He likely got some sort of bonus/severance. He's not the LEAST bit in any sort of dire straits... Did he need to get laid off to realize that a) no job is forever and b) doing all "the right things" won't ALWAYS lead to success. I figured those were common sense.
  • nsp 8y ago
    Not that it helps, but he didn’t get laid off - just saw coworkers getting laid off.
  • dgacmu 8y ago
    No - survived a round of layoffs...
• erikb 8y ago
  In another context I went through that same realization of powerlessness myself and even today I'm still surprised how we first-world people are raised so we think so invincible about ourselves. And it's not just about our position in society. You could just as easily die any minute. Accident, natural disaster, world war 3, crazy coworker, jealous ex-wife. The options are unlimited. It shouldn't change that we take risks. Taking risks is important. But it should make us more aware about which risks to take (e.g. waiting might be a risk too), and how to approach risky situations.
• minikites 8y ago
  >Because you do not have power. Remember that, always. When you get promoted, when you enter management, when you get a stellar performance review, you are simply fulfilling the whims of someone else. I hope the author learns about labor unions some day, hopefully soon.
  • phil248 8y ago
    If you look at the advancements in worker protections in recent years, they do not come from unions. Paid maternity/paternity leave, higher wage floors, pay equality, paid sick leave... these are all being mandated by governments and they apply to all workers, not by unions that represent one industry.
    • gamblor956 8y ago
      Those advancements that you speak of were all pioneered by labor unions. And in most states they were also negotiated by labor unions, who negotiated directly with legislators.
  • kjdndisneinj 8y ago
    It's quite telling of HN that this perfectly reasonable comment is the most downvoted. I also enjoy the ignorant response implying governments are responsible for worker protections, not the organized labour that pushed for those regulations in the first place. The same meager protections that the current anti-labour government would love to roll back.
  • dcre 8y ago
    The fatalism, for someone who clearly prides themselves on thinking outside the box, is just incredible.
• squozzer 8y ago
  Not sure if any job or career exists that is impervious to some kind of replacement / oversupply. Maybe doctors, but the barrier to entry is almost stratospheric. Ultimately, to paraphrase Machiavelli, our ability to thrive rests on our own prowess. I only wish such statements were immediately useful instead of requiring lots of introspection, filed-testing, etc.
• replicatorblog 8y ago
  I'd be curious to ask the author, + Have many of your laid off peers had trouble finding work, post-layoff? + Do you think you'd have a difficult time finding another job if you were laid off? Most people in tech, who are willing to live in one of a half dozen specific cities, have job security prior generations could only have dreamed of. Tech skills are far more portable than a skilled line worker at Ford's River Rouge plant in the 1960s, where job-hopping was nearly impossible due to union senority regulations. I work at a VC firm and every company struggles with hiring enough talented people. I don't know many, really any, people who are moderately skilled and unable to find work in this environment. That could change if there's a big macro swing. That's not to say the broader criticism of job security is wrong. I have plenty of 50+ family members that are struggling on the finish line to retirement. Other people in my circle never had a fair shot at the start, but I don't know that there's ever been a better time to be a member of the professional class, even at a mid-skill level.
  • Rafuino 8y ago
    I'd be curious to ask you what "tech skills" means. What's demanded by the companies you refer to is likely shifting constantly. If you're not working in the hot stack, you're not going to have job security "prior generations could only have dreamed of."
    • zanny 8y ago
      HN might not like to hear it, but what this hive mind likes to think of as "hot stack" - React, Node based software in general, etc - is not even close to the "hot stack" of almost anywhere except in the microcosm of California around SF. At the end of the day there will still be a dozen programming jobs in .Net or Java to every one in the latest and greatest web tech. In equal parts because on one hand finding people who stay contemporary with the "latest and greatest" is expensive and because businesses don't want to use the latest and greatest if it means changing the software they already wrote twenty years ago.
      • thoughtpalette 8y ago
• debt 8y ago
  Hm. So he didn't get laid off? What am I reading? Why do I care what this guy has to say? He hasn't been through it.
• twodave 8y ago
  I don't get why people ever thought a job was anything other than a strictly professional relationship. Your employer is not your family, and if they say you are then that's a red flag because it means your employer will want you to give them more than they deserve. If you are relying on a business to pay your living expenses indefinitely because you've been loyal or whatever other nonsense, that is lunacy. If you're not producing some kind of value then you are dragging your company down, and you should be let go. In my opinion businesses aren't proactive enough at firing non-contributors. Layoffs aren't great for anyone because they kill the culture, but to avoid that someone really has to pull on some pants, swallow their pride, admit to hiring mistakes and rectify them.
  • outworlder 8y ago
    > If you're not producing some kind of value then you are dragging your company down, and you should be let go. Have you worked at big companies? This has nothing to do with producing value. It has to do with whatever "strategic direction" the company wants to take. You can be profitable, but your whole division will be cut off if there is a conflict with whatever a more powerful exec is doing. Layoffs are different from firing "low performers".
    • twodave 8y ago
      This actually explains excellently my own averseness to working at big companies.
• sizzzzlerz 8y ago
  I just passed my 40th anniversary since college working in the valley. I've worked for 3 companies, the current one I'm in my 26th year. Although all 3 companies had one or more periods of downsizing, I was never a part of any of them but I did have to suffer colleagues and friends leaving because of them. It's no more fun for those who are left than for those who are shown the door. The lesson learned from that is your employer is not your friend, not your buddy. You should never expect them to be regardless of what they say in the mission statements. You're employed because you have some value to them. That value goes away, you'll be out the door. Don't ever forget that and plan accordingly.
  • Rafuino 8y ago
    Congrats! What do you think about the seemingly more common approach for newer grads to work 2-4 years per job and then move on? I hear MBA grads on average stay in their first job ~18 months. It's around the same length for software engineer jobs: https://deeptalent.com/blog/tenure-length-tech-titans-compared/ https://deeptalent.com/blog/tenure-length-tech-titans-compar.... Where I work now longevity is highly valued, and I think leadership is disconnected with the reality of today's job market.
    • sizzzzlerz 8y ago
      Not having done that, I can't speak from experience but it really is an individual decision. My first job was 6-1/2 years, the second, 9. I chose to stay because I liked what I was doing and the people I worked with, the work was nationally important (contracts with the intelligence community), I was very well paid compared to peers (according to surveys I read), and the benefits were top-notch. And, to be complete, I really hate interviewing and starting out at the ground floor in new jobs. Keep in mind, this is me. Your mileage may vary.
• urda 8y ago
  Why is this on the front page? A recent grad, at a startup that grew too fast taking on too many employees, and didn't even get laid off, is writing about getting laid off? This is a medium.com fluff piece if I have ever seen one. Come back and talk to me when you have actually been laid off.
  • pnw_hazor 8y ago
    ...only when the author is 40+ I was laid off once, I made it through the first round, the day they cut me in the second round I accepted another job offer. Any time a company started cutting, I started looking. It was always a good signal to leave.
• dv_dt 8y ago
  I think is is maybe more of a personal realization for the author, but a job isn't security. Saving an 6-18 month buffer of expenses is a better level of security, having a marketable skill set is some level of security.
• justherefortart 8y ago
  Work for yourself. That's the answer. One job means you get fired and you're looking for a new boss. 10 clients means if one fires you, you still have 9 you're hopefully keeping happy. I try to follow what I read about Gates starting Microsoft in some Biography. He tried to keep 2x the salary of all the employees as cash on hand, so if something went bad, they could try to weather the storm as long as possible. So before hiring anyone as an employee (including myself), I do this with my startups. (I work 1099 in the beginning as well and I fire myself [work without pay] first). Getting laid off lets you know where your loyalties should lie. The circle of you, is what I call it. Each circle goes out from there. For me that's the circle of my wife. Then my immediate family. Etc.
  • trentnix 8y ago
    I own my own business, which is kinda the same thing as working for yourself. Two bits of advice: 1. The first check you don't write is usually the one to yourself. You're the only worker that will show up for free. 2. The problem with being your own boss is that your boss is always around. I've never known stress and uncertainty like being a business owner. But I feel like I've learned a lot and am better for it. And if I ever work for anyone else again, I'll be a much better employee as a result.
    • justherefortart 8y ago
      Why wouldn't your first check be to yourself? I guess I'm well rounded so that doesn't really apply to me. I hire for roles that consume my time but still provide value (the necessary busy work). I'm a much worse employee as the proud failure of 7 startups (on #8 at the moment). So much bullshit, waste, politics, needless meetings, etc., that working for a company again is one of the most painful things I've ever had to do besides death of a family member or divorcing my first wife (that was #1 BTW). I will agree with your #2, work life balance can be hard. But if you find yourself not wanting to work on a Wednesday, you can just not work that day. If you're particularly inspired on a Saturday, you can go all in. My biggest issue was around this (startup #3, first fully self funded). I felt if I was not working every waking moment, I was failing. I learned my way out of that one eventually. Discipline is the key in working for yourself. I'm lucky that my parents were both entrepreneurs. I saw them fail and succeed (and fail and succeed again...).
• jarsin 8y ago
  I prefer to only work with people who have been laid off. The reason is I can't stand all these "I'll do anything for the company types." Truth is they are dumb and naive.
• gojomo 8y ago
  Author is 22 years old, and was not laid off. But, because some peers were – from Snap, a boom-times high-flyer – he's now facing a crisis-of-confidence, first in himself, and then in what feelings of security might be available from reaching "[t]he upper middle-class, the professional class, that venerable example of American wealth and mobility". Well, of course working for a single hot company at 22 doesn't mean your career is set for life. What, did he think he was going to retire at Snap? There were idiosyncratically high expectations here... and now there's an idiosyncratically low mood, concluding "you do not have power. Remember that, always... being a well-ground cog is exactly what sustains our machine of systemic oppression, benefiting no one but those above." That reads more like personal depression than an accurate extrapolation of lessons from his recent experience. Wait until he sees a dot-com crash, or a 2008-recession – then some broad despair might be (temporarily) justifiable. But even then, people with skills and creativity bounce back, and thrive. Not just in tech, but other sectors, too. But to do so, you can't let a disappointment like a layoff (of yourself or, as here, others) send you into maudlin rumination about your own inherent powerlessness, and the 'systemic oppression' that sometimes paying gigs end sooner than you'd hoped. At least you can't stay in that mindset for very long. You can look at the same facts and instead focus on what power you do have – the time and ability to build skills, relationships and savings that can deliver security across many possible futures and industry cycles, without reliance on any single employer's choices. The people actually laid-off here may handle things better than this author – because they have no choice but to dust themselves off and engage with a broader world. And when a few months or a year later, they realize they're in a better place than Snap, they'll have less of the "woe-is-us" hopelessness expressed by this author.
  • lucio 8y ago
    excellent comment
  • pm90 8y ago
    I kinda agree. The author does sound like he's basically still living in the school mentality: I do X amount of work and expect Y benefits, no matter what the economy or market is like. This seems to be his first experience with external factors almost getting to him which made him think that the world may not be so fair after all. Surprise, surprise...
• davepeck 8y ago
  I wrote about how my experience with layoffs at Silicon Graphics in 1999 turned out, in retrospect, to be extremely lucky bad luck: https://davepeck.org/2009/02/11/the-luckiest-bad-luck/ https://davepeck.org/2009/02/11/the-luckiest-bad-luck/
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • ghaff 8y ago
    Yeah, I've been lucky as well. Got laid off shortly after 9/11 from a company that had been a really bad fit. But got a job with another quickly. Things ended up being a bit rough financially because of industry events but it wasn't terrible and I liked the work. Then when the writing was on the wall for that company I ended up with a new employer. It's been great across all dimensions and probably only happened because of what I was doing previously.
  • hpcjoe 8y ago
    I remember those days. The worst layoff I remember, I was at an ACS meeting at the SGI booth when word of layoffs came. They nuked something like 1/3 of our team there. I escaped all of the layoffs, and finally had my fill of the VP Eng who told me that Linux clusters had no future, and big SMPs were how SGI was going to rise again. I turned in my resignation a week later (early 2001).
• brighteyes 8y ago
  > Technology is the one career that has an optimistic future, isn’t beholden by regulation and credential inflation, and actually attempts to create some sort of meritocracy One the one hand, tech might have less regulation than others - you can call yourself a "software engineer" and work as one without any formal credentials. But on the other hand, plenty of other fields have optimistic futures and good guarantees of employment, the exact things the author is worried about (and the regulation in those fields often helps achieve those goals). For example, nurses need to be certified but then they work in a field with good salaries and plenty of jobs in a rapidly growing market: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/registered-nurses.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/registered-nurses.htm Tech is an ok industry to work in, but there are others. Anyone that says "tech is the only good career" is either uninformed, living in a bubble, or a snob.
• desireco42 8y ago
  I am one of those weirdos, that change jobs so often, I do contracting often enough, that I get fired quite often, or quit. I remember when one big corp I had long term contract decided to 'trim the fat' and laid us all. My neighbor felt bad and wanted to make lunch for me. I explained her that the same day, I went to another big corp (pretending to be startup) and got much higher rate I always wanted. That lasted a year, then I was on my own again. It really makes you stronger, your wife more stressed out, but my skills are way more awesome, I contribute way more and I don't care if you need to fire me. It will make me sad for sure, as I care about people I work with. Anyhow, this is still true. I would love to have a place I can stay for 10-15 yrs like 'normal people'.
  • mancerayder 8y ago
    I went a similar route (contracting) but you seem to have more resilience. I recently went a couple of months in between contracts after a long-term one ended and started panicking after 2 months, jumping into something that wasn't ideal. It's feast or famine with contracting, which I'm still getting used to (hint: the feasts are easier to adapt to).
    • desireco42 8y ago
      I had those. Definitely should count on those. I don't have any good advice. In the past I had recruiters and contacts that I could get work within days. It gets harder.
    • cbayram 8y ago
      The stoic says prepare for the famine during feasts.
• throw2016 8y ago
  There is always a lack of empathy in these discussions. If the world looks different depending on the situation you personally find yourself in it can't lead to any productive discussion. A lot of decisions that can impact the lives of many are often made for short term self interest of a few. And upper management who make these decisions or run companies to the ground keep floating from one high paid job to another. The 2 senior most execs of Well Fargo for instance responsible for the fraud and a $1 billion dollar fine get a golden parachute of around $250 million between them. Who is going to pay for this? Customers or job cuts? And this is not an exception. There seem to be a huge dissonance between idealized values and reality in upper segments of society. Ultimately as a society you commit to a set of values. These values are reinforced by politics, media and your own experiences. Maybe you have a great life and you don't question them, maybe you are born privileged and your perspectives and life experiences are by definition different. But as educated adults its your job to understand and define your society. You make the bed and you have to lie in it.
• outworlder 8y ago
  It's good that they realized that doing your job does not guarantee anything. Going far and beyond you job description also doesn't guarantee anything, although you may increase your changes of survival. There are probably diminishing returns here. Networking inside the company, if it is big enough, will also increase the chances of survival, as you may be able to jump ship to another group, or even get some advance warning. Still, the best insurance is to stash money for rainy days and have the resumé up-to-date. As soon as the weather starts to turn (which you can detect in many, but not all cases), jump ship. Company has zero loyalty to employees, so theirs should not be much higher than zero either if they want to be fair.
• jpao79 8y ago
  Rich Dad Poor Dad has some interesting concepts. The book actually is really poorly written (and a bit scammy) but these video synopsis actually do a decent job of describing the concepts of passive income and differentiating between employee, self employed, business manager and investor: - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtzLMrb8zQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtzLMrb8zQ - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1ScfCny38 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1ScfCny38 I like to think in a small way if you own any stocks/bonds, you are in a sense hiring employees (indirectly at arms length of course). If you are buying SNAP, you are giving Evan Spiegel, the employee, his own business unit and promoting him. If you are holding SNAP and not buying more, then that's like putting Evan Spiegel on a PIP. If you are selling it, its basically like firing Evan Spiegel for poor performance. I'd recommend to the OP spending any remaining time after your side coding projects learning about businesses/cashflow. To just blindly hold S&P Index funds in your 401K is a bit a kin to hiring never doing an initial coding review and never doing an annual perf review on your employees.
• throwme_1980 8y ago
  i don't see why this is any different than other layoffs, the company's perceived value in the would be ex-employees is not the same as the employees themselves. they let people go for various reasons, most of those reasons make sense to the business.
• throwme_1980 8y ago
  people need to lookup what "middle class" actually means. what's being banded about in this article is nowhere near the definition of middle class.
• kraig911 8y ago
  Survivor Syndrome to the T. It's a part of our modern life I'm afraid. It could be a lay off. A car crash. Any event of trauma where you didn't feel in control. I've been laid off 3 times now - there's not a lot of ways to spin it. Rather than trying to find it as an opportunity or BS any it all it's just best to say it really sucks that are minds can mess us up that way. It just sucks. Leave it at that.
• yeslibertarian 8y ago
  This is some leftist shit. The C level executives are also disposable. The company itself is disposable. They are providing some product and service and trying to convince people to buy it. So you feel powerless eh? Try creating a successful business. THEN you will feel really powerless.
• mooreds 8y ago
  The real myth is that your job is going to make you who you need to be and provide for you. The only thing that will make you who you need to be is you, and that is going to require hard work to determine who you want to be and who you are capable of being. The only entity that can provide for you is yourself, and your determination and willingness to work hard and take advantage of the environment you are in to the best of your ability.
• gaius 8y ago
  The harsh truth: you may be an excellent engineer. But your company can probably make do with a mediocre engineer for half the cost. You may write superb quality thoroughly tested code. But your company just needs something that mostly works most of the time. You might be able to implement that feature in a week, your company would be happy to have it in 6 weeks or even months. Talent is no guarantee of job security. A fair severance package is 1 months salary per year of employment.
• freshhawk 8y ago
  Hmm, if only there was a way for workers to actually get power ...
• mevile 8y ago
  Ugh, that layoff process sounded amateurish. Tapping people on the shoulder? So snap basically called in people one at a time leaving people who were not going to get laid off thinking they might for hours? They should have separated everyone at the beginning into two groups, those who were getting laid off and those who weren't so that the people who stay aren't left with such a terrible experience. After layoffs the company's priority should be to reassure their remaining workers that they're OK because a shocked, shattered workforce is not a productive one. Employees are humans and they should be treated that way, and that should have been their priority. Snap seems terribly run based on this post. If I had experienced this I would be looking for new work. As long as the same people remain in charge who made those bad decisions, more bad decisions lie on the horizon.
• FlyingSideKick 8y ago
  After having worked at large companies and startups including founding a few of my own it is clear that job and financial security is about equal between the two. The last Fortune 100 company I worked for would cull thier workforce including whole teams often regardless of individual performance every March. If you had just happened to work on the wrong team for the wrong director too bad for you. All to often I saw dedicated people who had sacrificed years and long hours just get laid off seemingly out of nowhere. Directors seemed to have the worst longevity as when a VP was let go they often got rid of his or her management team as well. The days of company loyalty are long gone. If you work at a large company and have been there over a year keep actively looking for the an even better position. You are expendable and therefore owe your employer nothing more than what you are paid to do today. I hate being so negative but sadly this seems to be the state of affairs these days
• fallingfrog 8y ago
  I can tell you exactly why they kept you and not someone else: you're the most junior developer. The senior ones are more expensive. I've seen it before- to make the profit margins look better in preparation for a sale they axe all their most experienced people. It's possible that snap is about to get purchased.
• JepZ 8y ago
  The occupational psychologist would probably diagnose the Survivor syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_guilt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_guilt
• coldtea 8y ago
  >And in that sense, I was as trapped as every other person who’s forced to work for an income. My job offered shallow perks and self-affirmation, and that gave me the feeling that somehow I deserved anything I’d achieved: that I was, in any sense of the word, “successful,” and that working at a tech company was something more than just a paycheck. I was nothing, I realized, and in my hopes of actually accomplishing something, I’d deluded myself into thinking I already had. Well, sort of. At 22, and in IT, still way better off than any single mother, non-college educated, or 40+ yo laid off person, in any other industry.
• sunstone 8y ago
  Tech and security are uneasy bedfellows. Just look at what GE is going through now, before that Nokia and before that Northern Telecom among a lot of others. If you want security find a profession that requires a license to practice.
• hpcjoe 8y ago
  This was one of the reasons I made the case to my wife that, at the time, we should be in control of our own destiny. No corporation would have my families best interests at heart. No one would be looking out for them when they swung their axe. So, I argued that I should form a company, start working on selling, marketing, developing, etc. I used my layoff severance, loaded up credit cards to buy what I needed. Built a business that survived for 14.5 years. Generated millions a year in revenue. Had a small team working for me. Until a bank came along and shot us in the head over an out-of-formula LOC. So I am back working for the man. But I have so much more experience now. Much richer in business, in management, in sales and marketing, in addition to engineering and support. I would have done a number of things differently. This said, having the control over your own destiny, to some degree, as much as your customers allow, was fantastic. You winning or losing was predicated on how hard and smart you worked. The article is fairly accurate. Coding tests have become a thing. I've noticed that some places ask esoteric irrelevant questions specifically to stump people. Others are genuinely interested in your experience. If only there was a way to avoid wasting time on the former to spend time with the latter.
• scarface74 8y ago
  The problem is that too many people in tech think that their financial security comes from their job and don't concentrate on learning marketable skills. I was at a company from 2008-2011 that went through quite a few rounds of layoffs until they finally shut the door. Without fail, everyone who was laid off had another job within a month. We all knew the writing was on the wall in 2011. Management was completely honest with us. When the day came, we all went out to lunch after our layoffs joked around and from looking at everyone's LinkedIn profile, everyone had a job within a month - we all got a months severance. I'm in my mid 40s and have no desire to start a company or go into management. I never want a job that doesn't involve hands on coding. These days I go back and forth between contracting, full time "senior software Engineer" and "architect". But I am aggressive about learning, I keep my resume up to date and I'm always networking. I don't expect any loyalty from a company. I do my best work while I'm there and all I expect is a check twice a month. I know they will let me go if it's best for their business and I'll leave if I can get a significantly better offer or if I'm not growing and keeping my skills marketable. It's never in 20 years taken me more than a little over a month to get a job making more money from the time I've started looking - and that includes a two week notice. I'm not bragging. In my market (not on the west coast), most developers who know current technology can say the same.