4 ms·

I was wondering that too. I think ideally you would have a 1-1 video chat with someone. But at such a big, 900 employee, layoff, maybe that wasn't easy to do.

by dilap 5y ago

I was wondering that too. I think ideally you would have a 1-1 video chat with someone. But at such a big, 900 employee, layoff, maybe that wasn't easy to do. I think the CEOs affect on the call made it worse. It was very strange to hear him say stuff like "last time I had to do this, I cried. I hope to be stronger this time." It felt like his focus when laying off 900 people was too much on how it made him personally feel uncomfortable.

PascLeRasc 5y ago
Same with calling people "the unlucky group", that felt really disrespectful.
contravariant 5y ago
Off topic but this might be the first time I've seen someone use the noun affect correctly.
- kittiepryde 5y ago
  emotion or desire, especially as influencing behavior or action. I had to look it up, I wasn't even aware affect had a noun definition - I had believed it was only a verb. TIL
  - knicholes 5y ago
    I heard it a lot in psychology classes in college. People can have a "flat affect."
castis 5y ago
I imagine 900 1-on-1s could not be done quickly and word would spread very fast that firings were ramping up around the company. This would cause a whole lot of stress for those not being fired, just waiting for a call. Given the alternatives, the 900-wide bandaid-ripping-off method seems best.
- darkandbrooding 5y ago
  I was curious and did some math. A five minute zoom call is not realistic; you probably need 15 minutes per person. If my math is correct, and if no one was even a minute late, it would take 225 hours to lay those people off sequentially, assuming 24/7 meetings. If you had 15 managers making those calls, it would still take 15 hours to complete all calls. Let's call that three business days, during which no other work gets done anywhere in the company. I once worked at an employer who performed five rounds of layoffs in the space of a few months. I cannot recommend that method. I agree with you, the 900-wide bandaid was the only practical option.
  - contravariant 5y ago
    Is it realistic to have just 15 managers for a 6000 employee company? That would mean 400 employees per manager.
    - darkandbrooding 5y ago
      I freely admit that I pulled numbers out of a hat, just to help me visualize the problem.
- dkarl 5y ago
  I think I agree with this. For one thing, if it's 900 1:1 meetings, the job of coordinating their loss of access with IT would be impossible. Mistakes would be made, you'd have people with access to chat and email after they were fired, people realizing they were fired because they lost access, rumors flying around, in some ways it would be just a more chaotic version of what actually happened. At least in the Zoom call everybody could see that nine hundred other people were sharing their fate. On the other hand, the CEO sounds like an asshole and seems to have been using some kind of intrusive work surveillance technology to blame employees for the layoffs: > “You guys know that at least 250 of the people terminated were working an average of 2 hours a day while clocking 8 hours+ a day in the payroll system? They were stealing from you and stealing from our customers who pay the bills that pay our bills" A fine point if true, but how does he know which people were working two hours per day? And who else should be blamed if it was such a widespread practice? The answers to those questions won't reflect well on him.
beckingz 5y ago
Last time I got laid off the CEO said that he knew it was hard for me, but also wasn't easy for him. Which is true: firing people is one of the hardest managerial tasks, but it's tone deaf and disrespectful to make it about the manager's feelings. Shows a lack of maturity.
- leetcrew 5y ago
  idk, some people might take small comfort in the fact that an actual human feels bad about it. who knows? imo all this "right/wrong way to fire people" is mostly bikeshedding. by far the worst part of being fired is the part where you don't have a job anymore. letting affected employees know as early as possible and paying severance are the only material ways to alleviate that.
  - rhino369 5y ago
    It's not inappropriate to be apologetic or sympathetic. But saying "this is hard on me" is basically asking for sympathy from the person you are putting in a very stressful situation.
- teawrecks 5y ago
  Even more so when the sentiment is literally "You know, last time I had to do this kind of thing I cried. This time, not so much."
jdavis703 5y ago
I’ve been in mass layoffs. Having bosses arbitrarily come up to desks and then having that person return fifteen minutes later and repeating that for the entire morning is much worse. It’s anxiety inducing, even if you didn’t get the ax. I’d rather have an all-hands and get it over with quickly.
- bstpierre 5y ago
  Same here. Never as big as 900 people, but I've been both laid-off and still-employed following maybe a dozen events. I have been laid off four times, both done as part of an en masse event and as a series of 1:1s. It's probably just a personal preference but I think the impersonal nature of the mass layoff is TONS less stressful. Just rip off the bandaid. One time I was in a meeting during a "series of 1:1s" event, and a colleague opened the door and said "It's all done." and left. We weren't sure for a minute if he meant the whole company was all done, and we should pack up and go home, or if they were done with the layoffs and we weren't getting let go. It could have realistically been either one, but we ended up still having another couple years worth of paychecks. My first time was at a startup; maybe 80 people. We had an all-hands meeting on a Friday afternoon, and everybody got an envelope on the way out. Some people's envelopes were fatter than the others. Friday afternoon was perfect timing -- most of us ended up at the brewery across the street. Fortunately in 1998 everything in tech in the area was super hot so we all landed on our feet pretty quickly.
- twiddling 5y ago
  The worst I have heard was a VP coming down to the bullpen and had workers stand up , count off in ones and twos. Twos were instructed to grab a box and clear their desk in 15 minutes, while security guards loomed.
yummybear 5y ago
If you can hire 900 people with personal interviews, you can lay them off with one too.
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  That is probably the simplest, best, clearest answer to this whole mess I have heard. Nicely put.

by dilap 5y ago

PascLeRasc 5y ago

Same with calling people "the unlucky group", that felt really disrespectful.

contravariant 5y ago

Off topic but this might be the first time I've seen someone use the noun affect correctly.

kittiepryde 5y ago
emotion or desire, especially as influencing behavior or action. I had to look it up, I wasn't even aware affect had a noun definition - I had believed it was only a verb. TIL
- knicholes 5y ago
  I heard it a lot in psychology classes in college. People can have a "flat affect."

castis 5y ago

I imagine 900 1-on-1s could not be done quickly and word would spread very fast that firings were ramping up around the company. This would cause a whole lot of stress for those not being fired, just waiting for a call. Given the alternatives, the 900-wide bandaid-ripping-off method seems best.

darkandbrooding 5y ago
I was curious and did some math. A five minute zoom call is not realistic; you probably need 15 minutes per person. If my math is correct, and if no one was even a minute late, it would take 225 hours to lay those people off sequentially, assuming 24/7 meetings. If you had 15 managers making those calls, it would still take 15 hours to complete all calls. Let's call that three business days, during which no other work gets done anywhere in the company. I once worked at an employer who performed five rounds of layoffs in the space of a few months. I cannot recommend that method. I agree with you, the 900-wide bandaid was the only practical option.
- contravariant 5y ago
  Is it realistic to have just 15 managers for a 6000 employee company? That would mean 400 employees per manager.
  - darkandbrooding 5y ago
    I freely admit that I pulled numbers out of a hat, just to help me visualize the problem.
dkarl 5y ago
I think I agree with this. For one thing, if it's 900 1:1 meetings, the job of coordinating their loss of access with IT would be impossible. Mistakes would be made, you'd have people with access to chat and email after they were fired, people realizing they were fired because they lost access, rumors flying around, in some ways it would be just a more chaotic version of what actually happened. At least in the Zoom call everybody could see that nine hundred other people were sharing their fate. On the other hand, the CEO sounds like an asshole and seems to have been using some kind of intrusive work surveillance technology to blame employees for the layoffs: > “You guys know that at least 250 of the people terminated were working an average of 2 hours a day while clocking 8 hours+ a day in the payroll system? They were stealing from you and stealing from our customers who pay the bills that pay our bills" A fine point if true, but how does he know which people were working two hours per day? And who else should be blamed if it was such a widespread practice? The answers to those questions won't reflect well on him.

beckingz 5y ago

Last time I got laid off the CEO said that he knew it was hard for me, but also wasn't easy for him. Which is true: firing people is one of the hardest managerial tasks, but it's tone deaf and disrespectful to make it about the manager's feelings. Shows a lack of maturity.

leetcrew 5y ago
idk, some people might take small comfort in the fact that an actual human feels bad about it. who knows? imo all this "right/wrong way to fire people" is mostly bikeshedding. by far the worst part of being fired is the part where you don't have a job anymore. letting affected employees know as early as possible and paying severance are the only material ways to alleviate that.
- rhino369 5y ago
  It's not inappropriate to be apologetic or sympathetic. But saying "this is hard on me" is basically asking for sympathy from the person you are putting in a very stressful situation.
teawrecks 5y ago
Even more so when the sentiment is literally "You know, last time I had to do this kind of thing I cried. This time, not so much."

jdavis703 5y ago

I’ve been in mass layoffs. Having bosses arbitrarily come up to desks and then having that person return fifteen minutes later and repeating that for the entire morning is much worse. It’s anxiety inducing, even if you didn’t get the ax. I’d rather have an all-hands and get it over with quickly.

bstpierre 5y ago
Same here. Never as big as 900 people, but I've been both laid-off and still-employed following maybe a dozen events. I have been laid off four times, both done as part of an en masse event and as a series of 1:1s. It's probably just a personal preference but I think the impersonal nature of the mass layoff is TONS less stressful. Just rip off the bandaid. One time I was in a meeting during a "series of 1:1s" event, and a colleague opened the door and said "It's all done." and left. We weren't sure for a minute if he meant the whole company was all done, and we should pack up and go home, or if they were done with the layoffs and we weren't getting let go. It could have realistically been either one, but we ended up still having another couple years worth of paychecks. My first time was at a startup; maybe 80 people. We had an all-hands meeting on a Friday afternoon, and everybody got an envelope on the way out. Some people's envelopes were fatter than the others. Friday afternoon was perfect timing -- most of us ended up at the brewery across the street. Fortunately in 1998 everything in tech in the area was super hot so we all landed on our feet pretty quickly.
twiddling 5y ago
The worst I have heard was a VP coming down to the bullpen and had workers stand up , count off in ones and twos. Twos were instructed to grab a box and clear their desk in 15 minutes, while security guards loomed.

yummybear 5y ago

If you can hire 900 people with personal interviews, you can lay them off with one too.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
That is probably the simplest, best, clearest answer to this whole mess I have heard. Nicely put.