3 ms·

Sad, because before COVID, no one at Meta cared where you worked as long as you were getting your shit done. There was never available meeting rooms, and the op

by jarjoura 11mo ago

Sad, because before COVID, no one at Meta cared where you worked as long as you were getting your shit done. There was never available meeting rooms, and the open floor plans were so loud, that people would spread out all over the campus and use single person VC rooms to communicate in. Basically, everyone trusted everyone. This is 100% just a soft layoff.

wkat4242 11mo ago
I notice US tech companies have also become really tough on white collar workers in order to suck up to Trump and his country goons. No more diversity programs, work life balance no longer promoted, that kinda stuff. This fits in with that trend.
- JuniperMesos 11mo ago
  Diversity programs do not universally benefit white collar workers.
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    Not directly but they do create an open and fair working environment for all. Once you leave room for discrimination and bullying, everyone suffers because it makes company culture harder. And it's not just about "quotas". That's an extreme-right talking point. Diversity done properly doesn't involve quotas. Those are just a way for companies that don't actually care about it to have an easy 'fix' to get their numbers to look ok but it's not actual diversity. I'm part of a diversity team myself as a side role. In Europe luckily.
    - will4274 11mo ago
      > And it's not just about "quotas". That's an extreme-right talking point. Diversity done properly doesn't involve quotas At Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Meta, diversity programs were implemented as soft quotas. All this talk about "diversity done properly" is just so much noise when approximately all the largest companies aren't doing it that way.
      - wkat4242 11mo ago
        Soft quotas are not great but at my work (also a huge multinational but headquartered in Europe) we just use stats as a guide. Obviously if a country has 30% people of a certain ethnicity and in your employ it's 2% you're doing something wrong. We use that to measure hoe effective we are at combating bias and prejudice, what works and what doesn't. I wonder if that's sometimes regarded as a 'soft quota' but it shouldn't be. We don't fix this with hiring targets. We hit the root cause with training for HR and management (and also some for all employees in the yearly mandatory training package). Recognising hidden bias, challenging people to bconsider their reactions. And then measure the performance with stats, but not just force them. That's lazy and only fixes the problem on paper. Window dressing. Diversity is more than the hiring process anyway, a huge part is discrimination on the work floor. Often not by managers but co-workers, so we give management skills to deal with that. Maybe in US big tech this is common but those are all pretty immoral companies anyway. See how quickly they pivoted to sucking up to Trump. The world is much bigger than the US and big tech.
        pb7 11mo ago
        >Obviously if a country has 30% people of a certain ethnicity and in your employ it's 2% you're doing something wrong. Do you apply this to everything? Like say, a sports team? >The world is much bigger than the US and big tech. Anything impressive to show for it? Because it really seems like all this focus on diversity is your downfall not your strength.
        wkat4242 11mo ago
        > Do you apply this to everything? Like say, a sports team? No, at work where we have tens of thousands of people. Sport is a voluntary thing, people just join it when they want (I guess, I'm not into sports, not watching nor playing). > Anything impressive to show for it? Because it really seems like all this focus on diversity is your downfall not your strength. Yes we have great quality of life. It's not all about money. In fact I asked to move to a country where the wage levels are much lower, to have a better quality of life. Here around the Mediterranean the weather is better, people enjoy life more and take it slower. There's much more things to do in my free time that I enjoy. When I'm back in Holland I hate it, people are so materialistic. Always talking about their new car, how big their TV is lol. I don't even own any car or motor and my TV is tiny but I'm much happier here. Also diversity is just a thing we do, we're not all about that. I am because I voluntarily spend part of my work time on it (LGBTIQ in particular). For most people in the company it's a message here or there, one little training per year and maybe a talk from one of us at the town hall meetings which are optional. There's other similar programs in the company about sustainability and ethics.
    - pb7 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      - wkat4242 11mo ago
        They are merit based. Especially with DEI. It just aims to remove the common human bias to trust people more when they are more like us. With training and hiding names/photos during CV preselection. So it is only based on merit.
      - slater 11mo ago
        > We're back to sane times thankfully, but it will take a long time to undo the rot caused by DEI. Don't be counting your chickens too soon. Once the current clown show is voted out, we can hopefully get back to a more reality-based situation.
        pb7 11mo ago
        So that a different clown show can take over, great, cool way to run a country. People are never going to tolerate the nonsense that followed 2020 again, mark my words.
        slater 11mo ago
        As clown shows go, the current admin will be hard to beat.
- jarjoura 11mo ago
  meh, you're just conflating two different things. Tech companies spent a decade (since 2010), driving towards some belief that the entire world was going to go online and stay there. They also ammassed an insane amount of wealth in that time. Wealth that is now structurally tied to the stability of the entire financial system. For whatever reason, investors get bored and want to move money around and so the tech companies, that built healthy, stable businesses, needed to keep that dopamine hit coming with new mega annoucements. What else is there to build? "Efficiency" is the current corporate white collar trend, because that's what investors are woo'd with. AI is the other new-new thing, but instead of a that next reason to reverse hiring trends, AI itself is built and sold as an employee replacement. Anyway, the fact that there is an entire class of people in the US who feel and believe, it can't get any worse, are geniunely suffering in ways many of here on this forum can't even imagine. Definitely think it's unfair to put these two concerns in the same bucket.

wkat4242 11mo ago

I notice US tech companies have also become really tough on white collar workers in order to suck up to Trump and his country goons. No more diversity programs, work life balance no longer promoted, that kinda stuff. This fits in with that trend.

JuniperMesos 11mo ago
Diversity programs do not universally benefit white collar workers.
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  Not directly but they do create an open and fair working environment for all. Once you leave room for discrimination and bullying, everyone suffers because it makes company culture harder. And it's not just about "quotas". That's an extreme-right talking point. Diversity done properly doesn't involve quotas. Those are just a way for companies that don't actually care about it to have an easy 'fix' to get their numbers to look ok but it's not actual diversity. I'm part of a diversity team myself as a side role. In Europe luckily.
  - will4274 11mo ago
    > And it's not just about "quotas". That's an extreme-right talking point. Diversity done properly doesn't involve quotas At Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Meta, diversity programs were implemented as soft quotas. All this talk about "diversity done properly" is just so much noise when approximately all the largest companies aren't doing it that way.
    - wkat4242 11mo ago
      Soft quotas are not great but at my work (also a huge multinational but headquartered in Europe) we just use stats as a guide. Obviously if a country has 30% people of a certain ethnicity and in your employ it's 2% you're doing something wrong. We use that to measure hoe effective we are at combating bias and prejudice, what works and what doesn't. I wonder if that's sometimes regarded as a 'soft quota' but it shouldn't be. We don't fix this with hiring targets. We hit the root cause with training for HR and management (and also some for all employees in the yearly mandatory training package). Recognising hidden bias, challenging people to bconsider their reactions. And then measure the performance with stats, but not just force them. That's lazy and only fixes the problem on paper. Window dressing. Diversity is more than the hiring process anyway, a huge part is discrimination on the work floor. Often not by managers but co-workers, so we give management skills to deal with that. Maybe in US big tech this is common but those are all pretty immoral companies anyway. See how quickly they pivoted to sucking up to Trump. The world is much bigger than the US and big tech.
      - pb7 11mo ago
        >Obviously if a country has 30% people of a certain ethnicity and in your employ it's 2% you're doing something wrong. Do you apply this to everything? Like say, a sports team? >The world is much bigger than the US and big tech. Anything impressive to show for it? Because it really seems like all this focus on diversity is your downfall not your strength.
        wkat4242 11mo ago
        > Do you apply this to everything? Like say, a sports team? No, at work where we have tens of thousands of people. Sport is a voluntary thing, people just join it when they want (I guess, I'm not into sports, not watching nor playing). > Anything impressive to show for it? Because it really seems like all this focus on diversity is your downfall not your strength. Yes we have great quality of life. It's not all about money. In fact I asked to move to a country where the wage levels are much lower, to have a better quality of life. Here around the Mediterranean the weather is better, people enjoy life more and take it slower. There's much more things to do in my free time that I enjoy. When I'm back in Holland I hate it, people are so materialistic. Always talking about their new car, how big their TV is lol. I don't even own any car or motor and my TV is tiny but I'm much happier here. Also diversity is just a thing we do, we're not all about that. I am because I voluntarily spend part of my work time on it (LGBTIQ in particular). For most people in the company it's a message here or there, one little training per year and maybe a talk from one of us at the town hall meetings which are optional. There's other similar programs in the company about sustainability and ethics.
  - pb7 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - wkat4242 11mo ago
      They are merit based. Especially with DEI. It just aims to remove the common human bias to trust people more when they are more like us. With training and hiding names/photos during CV preselection. So it is only based on merit.
    - slater 11mo ago
      > We're back to sane times thankfully, but it will take a long time to undo the rot caused by DEI. Don't be counting your chickens too soon. Once the current clown show is voted out, we can hopefully get back to a more reality-based situation.
      - pb7 11mo ago
        So that a different clown show can take over, great, cool way to run a country. People are never going to tolerate the nonsense that followed 2020 again, mark my words.
        slater 11mo ago
        As clown shows go, the current admin will be hard to beat.
jarjoura 11mo ago
meh, you're just conflating two different things. Tech companies spent a decade (since 2010), driving towards some belief that the entire world was going to go online and stay there. They also ammassed an insane amount of wealth in that time. Wealth that is now structurally tied to the stability of the entire financial system. For whatever reason, investors get bored and want to move money around and so the tech companies, that built healthy, stable businesses, needed to keep that dopamine hit coming with new mega annoucements. What else is there to build? "Efficiency" is the current corporate white collar trend, because that's what investors are woo'd with. AI is the other new-new thing, but instead of a that next reason to reverse hiring trends, AI itself is built and sold as an employee replacement. Anyway, the fact that there is an entire class of people in the US who feel and believe, it can't get any worse, are geniunely suffering in ways many of here on this forum can't even imagine. Definitely think it's unfair to put these two concerns in the same bucket.