5 ms·
I had just started working at a large financial services company shortly before the financial meltdown in '07-08. Leadership held an all-hands meeting letting
by haswell 4y ago
I had just started working at a large financial services company shortly before the financial meltdown in '07-08.
Leadership held an all-hands meeting letting people know that layoffs were coming, and the VP of each person's respective area would walk over to their desk to inform them personally.
On the day of the layoffs, you could feel the stress in the air. Not much smiling, except the forced kind after someone tries to break the tension with a joke.
And then, a door at the end of a row of cubes opens and your VP walks into the area. Everyone wonders if they're the one (they've been wondering since they learned of the layoff, but something changes when the agent of termination literally walks through the door). She walks down your row, nearing your desk, and your heart starts pounding. She keeps walking, and you breathe a sigh of relief. You peek over the edge of your cube to see her talking to Joe, and a few minutes later he is escorted from the premises.
A few minutes later, she walks into the area again, and the cycle of stress repeats.
I survived the cut, but the experience still sits with me. I don't remember much about any specific day during my next half-decade there, but I remember that day like it was yesterday.
I know some of the recent layoffs have been handled terribly, but I never again want to be sitting in my cube, wondering if I'm next every time the door down the hallway opens.
- jobs_throwaway 4y agoJesus, what a terrible and needlessly stressful way to let people know
- lr4444lr 4y agoThe "escorting" strikes me as the worst part. I understand completely if the person is being fired under bad terms. But laid off? That just undermines everything: "Hey, Joe. You've done great work here, and you know that it's just the nature of the business that your unit simply can't be supported. It pains me so much to have to do this, and we hope you'll keep us in mind when things turn around: we'd hire you back in a second. Also, I don't entirely trust that you're decent enough to exit with dignity and not to go ape ** and destroy/vandalize/steal valuable company property. Good luck out there ... as soon as you leave the premises, that is."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cube00 4y agoBy the sounds of this they just wanted to be as needlessly cruel as possible to strike fear into those left behind to work even harder. There are so many other ways to handle this that will retain the employee's dignity but still mitigate any risk they might kick off.
- VagueMag 4y agoFor my recent layoff from a 100% remote role at a well known BigTech co, I was in the midst of a meeting and was abruptly signed out of my laptop and presented with a screen saying it had been frozen and prompting for a 6 digit passcode to unlock it. I had no idea what was going on and began calling IT support to get back in so I could let coworkers on my team know I was completely unable to do anything. They evidently hadn't been informed either as they actually gave me the passcode! I put two and two together when I got back in and was still locked out of everything, and a friend in a personal non-work Slack @'d me with the headline that my company was doing layoffs.
- techbozo 4y agothat is completely nuts and unsurprising
- ryandrake 4y agoThere are so many better ways to do layoffs, you have to assume they pick the cruel ways on purpose. It's not like these companies are inventing layoffs and figuring out on their own how to do it.
- xdfgh1112 4y agoSounds like you are better off not working for that company.
- bobosha 4y agoYour description couldn't help but remind me of this fantastic movie Margin Call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn2Xf9hAFcE&ab_channel=Weyland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn2Xf9hAFcE&ab_channel=Weyla...
- sircastor 4y agoI thought of that immediately. And of Spacey’s character congratulating the remaining folks because you need to somehow rebuild morale.
- nytesky 4y agoSo Stanley’s characters was walking out with a USB drive of d@mining evidence about the coming collapse of the company? It may not have been proprietary, but it does speak to why they walk people out under guard. Maybe he had good intent, as proven by how he handed it to his staff to look at in the elevator, but if that staff hadn’t stopped to thank him, that USB data would be in the wind.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- barbazoo 4y agoThat sounds so stressful. Not long ago the tech company I work at announced layoffs and for everyone to expect an email with whether they've been laid off or not. Most stressful 15 minutes of my whole career.
- xdfgh1112 4y agoHow is it that people are on insane salaries like $200-300k but are still terrified of being fired? Don't you have savings? In from the UK and earn about a quarter as much and I could be unemployed for several years before I had to start caring. I'm not trying to brag. My salary is shit compared to the US. Just genuinely curious.
- aaomidi 4y agoHealthcare. Mortgages.
- jedberg 4y ago> In from the UK and earn about a quarter as much and I could be unemployed for several years before I had to start caring. Luckily you live in a still mostly civilized society, where you don't lose your health care when you lose your job, and you have a decent welfare program so you don't lose your house and can still eat. We don't have that here. Also, in the Bay Area, $300K will barely get you by if you bought a house in the last five years.
- swatcoder 4y agoThose salaries are a new experience to a lot of people. In some cases, because they came out of school into them and have little experience with financial management in the first place, and in other cases because the prior benchmark for tech industry was like 30-50% of that until fairly recent (and remains that way at many US tech companies). And like with a lot of "new money" experiences, the answer to your question is: no. You get excited to taste a luxury lifestyle and get carried away buying an dangerously expensive house because it fits your Peleton and your bank says you're good for it. With this being your first time through a tech boom, you didn't believe the old cynics telling you there was a second act coming. But now you might get laid off and have $15,000 per month in bills to pay lest that house go back to the bank. It's an understandable story, and a tragic one. :(
- haswell 4y agoPeople come from a myriad of circumstances. In addition to the other responses, two major factors for me: 1. At the time, I wasn’t making anywhere close to that salary. The tech job market in my region at the time didn’t pay anywhere close to SV salaries, and even less as someone working tech at a non-tech company. 2. I only had a few years of decent earnings at that point, and was funneling most extra funds into debt. Having enough savings to quit for a few years is amazing, but a privilege that few people have.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- emodendroket 4y agoYou know, I wonder with a lot of these processes if it's not deliberately anxiety-provoking or cruel "pour encourager les autres."