6 ms·

Twitter to employees today: 'If in office or on your way, please return home'

64 points by firstSpeaker 4y ago

firstSpeaker 4y ago
Here’s full email that Twitter has sent to its employees: Team, In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward. Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email. By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter. Please check your email, including your spam folder. If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email. If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email. If you do not receive an email from twitter-hr@ by 5PM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, please email xxxxxxxx. To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home. We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted. Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere. We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter and for your patience as we move through this process. Thank you. Twitter
- abootstrapper 4y ago
  > We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter Clearly.
  - Frost1x 4y ago
    Always fun to see real relationship language buried in messages that clearly treat your relationship as entirely transactional. I always wonder if there's anyone left naive enough to justify corporate double speak.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      > elationship as entirely transactional by definition, it is. It's a job
      - Frost1x 4y ago
        Agreed. So, why pretend it's not purely transactional, other than to be manipulative? All the "were a family", "we care about you", yada yada language just tries to create false social constructs to hide the fact your relationship is only a business transaction.
        xwolfi 4y ago
        Honestly I quite companies while being grateful to them... I m not sure why the need to be salty here: they cant keep these people, what can they say?
    - pmoriarty 4y ago
      "I always wonder if there's anyone left naive enough to justify corporate double speak." I found The Gervais Principle[1] to be an interesting read on the subject. According to its author: "the Sociopaths use Powertalk as a coded language with which to simultaneously sustain the (necessary) delusions of the Clueless and communicate with each other" Also relevant was the article's description of the so-called MacLeod Life Cycle of organizations, wherein: "A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction rather than a runaway explosion. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself and anything of value is recycled by the sociopaths according to meta-firm logic." [1] - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
- tyingq 4y ago
  >If you do not receive an email from twitter-hr@ by 5PM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, please email xxxxxxxx. I wonder how many will fall into this black hole, having to email and wait to hear whether they have a job or not. On a late Friday afternoon.
  - exitb 4y ago
    https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/American_Dream.html https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/American_Dream.html
- vesinisa 4y ago
  > By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th So confused. Isn't the U.S. still on DST until this Sunday, meaning the correct timezone at the Twitter HQ is in fact PDT (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-7)? PST is Pacific Standard Time (UTC-8), i.e. "winter time". Maybe they thought PST stands for Pacific Summer Time? Or this email was sent by someone from Europe, where DST ended last Sunday?
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    It's common to use the same time zone abbreviation throughout the year. E.g. in Europe you'd be on CET or CEST depending on time of year, but it's common enough to use "CET" for both that it's a de facto standard. Not a hill to die on at this point. CET in this informal way means "CET OR CEST depending on which of them is current at the location at the given time". This can give rise to ambiguity in places, but it's pretty rare that it does.
    - CalRobert 4y ago
      Most people don't know what PST is and just use it all year without thinking about it.
  - thallium205 4y ago
    They likely meant to put “PT” which merely indicates Pacific Time ignoring if the time zone is in daylight savings or not.
  - quartz 4y ago
    In my experience no one really uses ST/DT properly in the US in casual email… in fact I can’t remember the last time I received a human-written email referencing EDT or PDT. For some reason everyone just defaults to PST/EST. I’ve given up even trying and just use “PT” and “ET” or even “NYC time” or “SF time” especially when interacting with those outside the US (who are less familiar with the custom and more confused when a mistake is made).
    - SwiftyBug 4y ago
- gnu8 4y ago
  > If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email. What about people who don’t have a personal email address?
  - almostarockstar 4y ago
    I'm sure they will both figure something out.
  - Luuseens 4y ago
    They do not work for Twitter.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - sillysaurusx 4y ago
    It’s like office space. You’ll just keep showing up for work but never get paid.
    - sgt 4y ago
      Or you continue to get paid due to an accounting error, and also bizarrely your badge still works, and your repo access still remains.
  - plgonzalezrx8 4y ago
    Yeah, people working at a big tech company without personal email address, when they got the job initially they got notified via pigeon carrier, I guess they'll do the same now /s
- wiredfool 4y ago
  Wonder who’s going to be the first to spoof emails to managements personal addresses. For maximum confusion, send both messages, several times.
- CalRobert 4y ago
  Please tell me they're actually using PST and not just screwing up PDT.
  - gbil 4y ago
    one way or the other, PDT will receive an email in its personal mail Saturday to Sunday this weekend /s
firstSpeaker 4y ago
I can see more and more outlets and twitter-informed folks are mentioning that this is happening (according to their sources inside twitter). https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1588327845348093952 https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1588327845348093952 https://twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1588336115031117824 https://twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1588336115031117824 https://twitter.com/LarryMadowo/status/1588385922282049536 https://twitter.com/LarryMadowo/status/1588385922282049536 I hope the people impacted at least get a proper severance package after going through the hard time in the past couple of months.
estomagordo 4y ago
Thoughts and prayers for those who are not ousted.
astockwell 4y ago
What an absolutely asinine situation. Attention all companies: don’t be at all surprised when your employees give fewer and fewer shits about you, your goals, and loyalty to any of it.
- BoGs83 4y ago
  I usually advertise I am a mercenary (team and managers), when you pay me our contract is up. I will do what is best for me, and you will do what is best for you. No hard feelings. No loyalty. No confusions.
  - sgt 4y ago
    Then you give companies zero reason to act any different.
    - BoGs83 4y ago
      I agree, as long as our interests match we good. I always told my managers to text or email me so I do not have to get out of bed. I will send you my laptop and we good. I am ... unique in this. I know that most people do not like this situation and would feel betrayed. You cannot have loyalty to corporations, they are there for their interest. You have to follow yours all the time as well.
      - aliqot 4y ago
        I can't help but feel like you're playing a character right now, the way you talk about it.
        BoGs83 4y ago
        I have been through enough companies that grow and layoff people to be immune from it. It would impact me, and I feel bad for the people that did get impacted by this. The writing on the wall for me was when Elon took over the company and told everyone to come in over the weekend and print their contributions. That to me signalled ok give me my package. It ended for me there. I know my self worth, and know working more hours per week does not make you a better developer. It does the opposite actually. One of my initial managers when I started working almost 20 years ago said to me that developers and code is like artists. You cannot just tell someone sit down and write code, or you will get the Walmart paintings. Creativity cannot be turned on, bam write code for me. Make this piece of software. The point that I am trying to make is that employment should be a transaction. That is why you sign the contract when you get hired. When it is not beneficial to you or the company that contract is terminated. I have no loyalty and always question if this is the best situation for me. Am I learning? How is the work I am doing benefiting me? How is the company benefits helping my family? It is selfish but I think that is the way to look at it, since the company is selfish as well.
neilv 4y ago
2 hours ago post with hundreds of comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33463908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33463908
d23 4y ago
Twitter clearly wasn’t perfect, but it was a source of value to me as a user. I guess he’s just going to burn it all down.
hestefisk 4y ago
What an atrocious way of treating staff.
- thedorkknight 4y ago
  Not surprising at all. Narcissism commonly has lack of empathy
  - meragrin_ 4y ago
    Given the reaction of some employees prior to being acquired, I can only imagine what some would do when they are fired. It is probably best for Twitter that some of these employees are just cut off.
- fuckyah 4y ago
  [dead]
- Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
  What alternative would you recommend that's better for employees, but still makes sense for Twitter?
  - lm28469 4y ago
    Idk, tell managers to speak to their teams, have an online with everyone to explain the situation. Literally anything that shows you remotely care about the situation is better than "You might or might not get an email in the next few days to let you know you're fired" I know people who went though that and it's very dehumanising and stress inducing
  - hoherd 4y ago
    Announcing it ahead of time would've been a good start. "Do not come to the office on Friday" instead of "go back home".
- jesuscript 4y ago
  I fear it. The same way, as entertaining Donald Trump has been, he sort of normalized bad behavior. People think it’s okay to act like that. It sounds scary, but companies may find what Elon is doing palatable and find it to be a new normal. Elon is doing it in the most abrasive way, but what Stripe and Lyft have been doing is roughly the same level of action. Elon simply refuses to put lipstick on the pig. When you hire a team, you have some responsibility for their livelihood (it’s not just money, the contract between the two sides is one of earning a living, to literally survive in the world). They are not just your little StarCraft units that you suddenly point to go in some other direction. It’s completely inhuman, and this is coming from someone that admires Elon’s achievements. I’m saddened. And no, it’s not cool to romanticize the retort of “he has the guts to do what has to be done”. No I think not, there’s enough money in the world. I pray we never become this. It’s like watching a family member fall into drugs, they have become a different person.
ethagknight 4y ago
If you need to halve your workforce for some unknown reason, what is the correct/best way to do it? EDIT “you shouldn’t have to cut your workforce and a half” is not relevant discussion to this question. Say your market implodes, the Fed triples your interest rates and no one can afford to buy your stock of spec homes. nobody wants your buggy whips anymore, Apple won’t let you target people across the globe anymore, the FDA unexpectedly blocks your promising drug under development. I can come up with reasons on a long where this might happen, however it may be. I would include “bad management made bad decisions, and we are having to right the ship” as one of those items.
- ratg13 4y ago
  At that scale, this is probably the best way to do it, but you will never come out of such an action as "the good guy"
- awinder 4y ago
  Well, provide 60 days notice for one: https://nypost.com/2022/11/04/twitter-sued-over-elon-musks-plan-for-mass-layoffs/ https://nypost.com/2022/11/04/twitter-sued-over-elon-musks-p...
  - protomyth 4y ago
    If I remember the law correctly, you can also announce without notice and pay a severance that covers 60 days.
  - ethagknight 4y ago
    60 day pay, sure, but No way would I lay off that many people and let them back in the building. Mob mentality is a bizarre thing. Imagine the emotional burden or hostility between the retained staff and the terminated staff? I think I would’ve taken a “slowly thin the herd” approach, but may be ripping the Band-Aid off is more emotionally acceptable. Also, your best employees, the ones who also have the highest opportunity elsewhere, will leave rather than wait to find out if they pass the mysterious retention test.
tibbydudeza 4y ago
I got laid off but least I had the dignity of being told in person, given time to hand over my projects, allowed to remove my personal stuff from my work laptop (did not have any) and a generous severance package - it was about a month. So thankful I don't work in the US.
- smnrg 4y ago
  This happens in the US as well, given an employer that behaves with dignity and is not a narcissistic addict trolled into buying a $44B company.
  - tibbydudeza 4y ago
    Yeah but we have strict labour laws, none of this for cause or work at will nonsense.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  I once had my job ended (contract employee and they decided to end the contract) mid-commute home before. I worked there that whole day, and then I got a call on the drive back, pulled over to answer the call, and was told not to come in to the office next Monday, the company would mail me my belongings. What do you gain from that. Could have just pulled me aside while I was there at the end of the day, stand someone next to me while I packed up my shit, and let me go home with my stuff at least. I don't remember if I actually did get that stuff mailed to me even (it wasn't a whole lot, at least).
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    "What do you gain from that. Could have just pulled me aside while I was there at the end of the day, stand someone next to me while I packed up my shit, and let me go home with my stuff at least." They're afraid of people freaking out and making a scene... or worse. For safety reasons it's better to prevent fired employees from coming in to work at all.
    - 4y ago
lenamed 4y ago
I am wondering will Facebook do the same now?
Waterluvian 4y ago
Perhaps this is just me but how would anyone who keeps their job be capable of productive work?
bambax 4y ago
> Notably, the layoffs will be global and take place across geographies. IDK where Twitter has the most employees outside of the US, but in most countries in Europe you absolutely cannot do mass layoffs this way and if you try, you're in for a world of pain.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pmoriarty 4y ago
Morale at Twitter must be at a record high right now.

64 points by firstSpeaker 4y ago

Here’s full email that Twitter has sent to its employees: Team, In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward. Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email. By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter. Please check your email, including your spam folder. If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email. If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email. If you do not receive an email from twitter-hr@ by 5PM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, please email xxxxxxxx. To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home. We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted. Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere. We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter and for your patience as we move through this process. Thank you. Twitter

abootstrapper 4y ago
> We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter Clearly.
- Frost1x 4y ago
  Always fun to see real relationship language buried in messages that clearly treat your relationship as entirely transactional. I always wonder if there's anyone left naive enough to justify corporate double speak.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    > elationship as entirely transactional by definition, it is. It's a job
    - Frost1x 4y ago
      Agreed. So, why pretend it's not purely transactional, other than to be manipulative? All the "were a family", "we care about you", yada yada language just tries to create false social constructs to hide the fact your relationship is only a business transaction.
      - xwolfi 4y ago
        Honestly I quite companies while being grateful to them... I m not sure why the need to be salty here: they cant keep these people, what can they say?
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    "I always wonder if there's anyone left naive enough to justify corporate double speak." I found The Gervais Principle[1] to be an interesting read on the subject. According to its author: "the Sociopaths use Powertalk as a coded language with which to simultaneously sustain the (necessary) delusions of the Clueless and communicate with each other" Also relevant was the article's description of the so-called MacLeod Life Cycle of organizations, wherein: "A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction rather than a runaway explosion. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself and anything of value is recycled by the sociopaths according to meta-firm logic." [1] - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
tyingq 4y ago
>If you do not receive an email from twitter-hr@ by 5PM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, please email xxxxxxxx. I wonder how many will fall into this black hole, having to email and wait to hear whether they have a job or not. On a late Friday afternoon.
- exitb 4y ago
  https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/American_Dream.html https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/American_Dream.html
vesinisa 4y ago
> By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th So confused. Isn't the U.S. still on DST until this Sunday, meaning the correct timezone at the Twitter HQ is in fact PDT (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-7)? PST is Pacific Standard Time (UTC-8), i.e. "winter time". Maybe they thought PST stands for Pacific Summer Time? Or this email was sent by someone from Europe, where DST ended last Sunday?
- alkonaut 4y ago
  It's common to use the same time zone abbreviation throughout the year. E.g. in Europe you'd be on CET or CEST depending on time of year, but it's common enough to use "CET" for both that it's a de facto standard. Not a hill to die on at this point. CET in this informal way means "CET OR CEST depending on which of them is current at the location at the given time". This can give rise to ambiguity in places, but it's pretty rare that it does.
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    Most people don't know what PST is and just use it all year without thinking about it.
- thallium205 4y ago
  They likely meant to put “PT” which merely indicates Pacific Time ignoring if the time zone is in daylight savings or not.
- quartz 4y ago
  In my experience no one really uses ST/DT properly in the US in casual email… in fact I can’t remember the last time I received a human-written email referencing EDT or PDT. For some reason everyone just defaults to PST/EST. I’ve given up even trying and just use “PT” and “ET” or even “NYC time” or “SF time” especially when interacting with those outside the US (who are less familiar with the custom and more confused when a mistake is made).
  - SwiftyBug 4y ago
gnu8 4y ago
> If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email. What about people who don’t have a personal email address?
- almostarockstar 4y ago
  I'm sure they will both figure something out.
- Luuseens 4y ago
  They do not work for Twitter.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  It’s like office space. You’ll just keep showing up for work but never get paid.
  - sgt 4y ago
    Or you continue to get paid due to an accounting error, and also bizarrely your badge still works, and your repo access still remains.
- plgonzalezrx8 4y ago
  Yeah, people working at a big tech company without personal email address, when they got the job initially they got notified via pigeon carrier, I guess they'll do the same now /s
wiredfool 4y ago
Wonder who’s going to be the first to spoof emails to managements personal addresses. For maximum confusion, send both messages, several times.
CalRobert 4y ago
Please tell me they're actually using PST and not just screwing up PDT.
- gbil 4y ago
  one way or the other, PDT will receive an email in its personal mail Saturday to Sunday this weekend /s

firstSpeaker 4y ago

I can see more and more outlets and twitter-informed folks are mentioning that this is happening (according to their sources inside twitter). https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1588327845348093952 https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1588327845348093952 https://twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1588336115031117824 https://twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1588336115031117824 https://twitter.com/LarryMadowo/status/1588385922282049536 https://twitter.com/LarryMadowo/status/1588385922282049536 I hope the people impacted at least get a proper severance package after going through the hard time in the past couple of months.

estomagordo 4y ago

Thoughts and prayers for those who are not ousted.

astockwell 4y ago

What an absolutely asinine situation. Attention all companies: don’t be at all surprised when your employees give fewer and fewer shits about you, your goals, and loyalty to any of it.

BoGs83 4y ago
I usually advertise I am a mercenary (team and managers), when you pay me our contract is up. I will do what is best for me, and you will do what is best for you. No hard feelings. No loyalty. No confusions.
- sgt 4y ago
  Then you give companies zero reason to act any different.
  - BoGs83 4y ago
    I agree, as long as our interests match we good. I always told my managers to text or email me so I do not have to get out of bed. I will send you my laptop and we good. I am ... unique in this. I know that most people do not like this situation and would feel betrayed. You cannot have loyalty to corporations, they are there for their interest. You have to follow yours all the time as well.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      I can't help but feel like you're playing a character right now, the way you talk about it.
      - BoGs83 4y ago
        I have been through enough companies that grow and layoff people to be immune from it. It would impact me, and I feel bad for the people that did get impacted by this. The writing on the wall for me was when Elon took over the company and told everyone to come in over the weekend and print their contributions. That to me signalled ok give me my package. It ended for me there. I know my self worth, and know working more hours per week does not make you a better developer. It does the opposite actually. One of my initial managers when I started working almost 20 years ago said to me that developers and code is like artists. You cannot just tell someone sit down and write code, or you will get the Walmart paintings. Creativity cannot be turned on, bam write code for me. Make this piece of software. The point that I am trying to make is that employment should be a transaction. That is why you sign the contract when you get hired. When it is not beneficial to you or the company that contract is terminated. I have no loyalty and always question if this is the best situation for me. Am I learning? How is the work I am doing benefiting me? How is the company benefits helping my family? It is selfish but I think that is the way to look at it, since the company is selfish as well.

neilv 4y ago

2 hours ago post with hundreds of comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33463908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33463908

d23 4y ago

Twitter clearly wasn’t perfect, but it was a source of value to me as a user. I guess he’s just going to burn it all down.

hestefisk 4y ago

What an atrocious way of treating staff.

thedorkknight 4y ago
Not surprising at all. Narcissism commonly has lack of empathy
- meragrin_ 4y ago
  Given the reaction of some employees prior to being acquired, I can only imagine what some would do when they are fired. It is probably best for Twitter that some of these employees are just cut off.
fuckyah 4y ago
[dead]
Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
What alternative would you recommend that's better for employees, but still makes sense for Twitter?
- lm28469 4y ago
  Idk, tell managers to speak to their teams, have an online with everyone to explain the situation. Literally anything that shows you remotely care about the situation is better than "You might or might not get an email in the next few days to let you know you're fired" I know people who went though that and it's very dehumanising and stress inducing
- hoherd 4y ago
  Announcing it ahead of time would've been a good start. "Do not come to the office on Friday" instead of "go back home".
jesuscript 4y ago
I fear it. The same way, as entertaining Donald Trump has been, he sort of normalized bad behavior. People think it’s okay to act like that. It sounds scary, but companies may find what Elon is doing palatable and find it to be a new normal. Elon is doing it in the most abrasive way, but what Stripe and Lyft have been doing is roughly the same level of action. Elon simply refuses to put lipstick on the pig. When you hire a team, you have some responsibility for their livelihood (it’s not just money, the contract between the two sides is one of earning a living, to literally survive in the world). They are not just your little StarCraft units that you suddenly point to go in some other direction. It’s completely inhuman, and this is coming from someone that admires Elon’s achievements. I’m saddened. And no, it’s not cool to romanticize the retort of “he has the guts to do what has to be done”. No I think not, there’s enough money in the world. I pray we never become this. It’s like watching a family member fall into drugs, they have become a different person.

ethagknight 4y ago

If you need to halve your workforce for some unknown reason, what is the correct/best way to do it? EDIT “you shouldn’t have to cut your workforce and a half” is not relevant discussion to this question. Say your market implodes, the Fed triples your interest rates and no one can afford to buy your stock of spec homes. nobody wants your buggy whips anymore, Apple won’t let you target people across the globe anymore, the FDA unexpectedly blocks your promising drug under development. I can come up with reasons on a long where this might happen, however it may be. I would include “bad management made bad decisions, and we are having to right the ship” as one of those items.

ratg13 4y ago
At that scale, this is probably the best way to do it, but you will never come out of such an action as "the good guy"
awinder 4y ago
Well, provide 60 days notice for one: https://nypost.com/2022/11/04/twitter-sued-over-elon-musks-plan-for-mass-layoffs/ https://nypost.com/2022/11/04/twitter-sued-over-elon-musks-p...
- protomyth 4y ago
  If I remember the law correctly, you can also announce without notice and pay a severance that covers 60 days.
- ethagknight 4y ago
  60 day pay, sure, but No way would I lay off that many people and let them back in the building. Mob mentality is a bizarre thing. Imagine the emotional burden or hostility between the retained staff and the terminated staff? I think I would’ve taken a “slowly thin the herd” approach, but may be ripping the Band-Aid off is more emotionally acceptable. Also, your best employees, the ones who also have the highest opportunity elsewhere, will leave rather than wait to find out if they pass the mysterious retention test.

tibbydudeza 4y ago

I got laid off but least I had the dignity of being told in person, given time to hand over my projects, allowed to remove my personal stuff from my work laptop (did not have any) and a generous severance package - it was about a month. So thankful I don't work in the US.

smnrg 4y ago
This happens in the US as well, given an employer that behaves with dignity and is not a narcissistic addict trolled into buying a $44B company.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  Yeah but we have strict labour laws, none of this for cause or work at will nonsense.
cableshaft 4y ago
I once had my job ended (contract employee and they decided to end the contract) mid-commute home before. I worked there that whole day, and then I got a call on the drive back, pulled over to answer the call, and was told not to come in to the office next Monday, the company would mail me my belongings. What do you gain from that. Could have just pulled me aside while I was there at the end of the day, stand someone next to me while I packed up my shit, and let me go home with my stuff at least. I don't remember if I actually did get that stuff mailed to me even (it wasn't a whole lot, at least).
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  "What do you gain from that. Could have just pulled me aside while I was there at the end of the day, stand someone next to me while I packed up my shit, and let me go home with my stuff at least." They're afraid of people freaking out and making a scene... or worse. For safety reasons it's better to prevent fired employees from coming in to work at all.
  - 4y ago

lenamed 4y ago

I am wondering will Facebook do the same now?

Waterluvian 4y ago

Perhaps this is just me but how would anyone who keeps their job be capable of productive work?

bambax 4y ago

> Notably, the layoffs will be global and take place across geographies. IDK where Twitter has the most employees outside of the US, but in most countries in Europe you absolutely cannot do mass layoffs this way and if you try, you're in for a world of pain.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

pmoriarty 4y ago

Morale at Twitter must be at a record high right now.