4 ms·

Amateurs. My employer does mass layoffs by terminating access to everything except their email account at 3am, and then sending an email to the victim saying “y

Amateurs. My employer does mass layoffs by terminating access to everything except their email account at 3am, and then sending an email to the victim saying “you were let go at 3am”. Managers get to figure out who’s left on their team by pinging everyone when they learn about it at work.

brightball 5mo ago
Oracle?
Twirrim 5mo ago
If you're talking about Oracle, the large round previous to that they did had individual meetings with employee, manager, and HR. With so many layoffs it took a week+ to do, effectively torturing an entire set of employees who had no idea if they'd have a job by the end of the hour, let alone week. I'm not sure there's any good way to lay off large amounts of staff (besides not getting yourself into the situation in the first place where you have to)
- joe_mamba 5mo ago
  >I'm not sure there's any good way to lay off large amounts of staff Someone on HN once wrote that after the dot.com bust, Yahoo! HR had 1-1 meetings with every single employee that was part of the mass layoffs back then, and they did this for hundreds of workers. Boy what I wouldn't give to go back to such state of affairs, even though I wasn't yet part of the workforce back then. An older family friend of mine who started working in tech around 2003-2005, told me "back in my day, to get a job, you'd just send your CV to HR@corpo.com, and in 2-3 days you'd get a call asking you when you're free to come over for an interview". Now today you're lucky you get an automated reply back from 50 CVs sent, just for the opportunity to do an impersonal take home assessment as part of the seven stage interview process. It's like screaming into the void of AI bots and automated CV screening systems, while you spin the barrel of the revolver to play the next round of Russian roulette. And the crazy part is, that when people talk about "the good old days", we're talking about events from recent history, just 10-25 years ago, that a lot of current workers experienced in their lifetime, not stuff from when boomers were kids. The massive sudden shift in the commoditization of human workers and turning them into faceless labor resources that can be inhumanely disposed of with a keystroke, is real and noticeable to everyone, that I'm envious for you guys who are set to retire soon out of this shitshow. What comes after this? Have we reached rock bottom, or will it get even worse?
  - duzer65657 5mo ago
    Either your dates or experiences are off, because I've been working in software since 1999 and the easiest time to get a job was quite recent, in the back-half of COVID. The early 2000's were decent, but I didn't experience - or know anyone who did - any sort of "free jobs' period. Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. It's only the in the past year or so that the world has appeared to be ending for developers, and I think that pronouncement is premature.
    - joe_mamba 5mo ago
      >Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. IDK, I'm not from the US/Bay-Area, nor does my country have any big-tech/FANG jobs to distort the market for what constitutes a "high wage" in tech, it's all the same. >in the back-half of COVID. Sure, but Covid was only a short blip, a temporary exception, not a baseline norm for wage/job growth, like the years prior which was a longer period of getting a job was easy, like 2012-2020. For me where I live now, the career depression I saw came in 2023 already when jobs become less abundant and harder to get, and it only got worse later when mass layoff started. So we're already 3 years in the decline, longer than the Covid boom lasted and things aren't going better yet. I entered the workforce in around 2012-2014 and it was significantly easier to get a callback from sending a resume than it is now where it's mostly automated rejections. When I say "easy" I also mean you didn't need 7 stages of interviews to get a job back then, you'd have 2 stages and those were pretty chill and get a call back from every 2-3 resumes sent. Now you need to send dozens. I guess "easy" is relative. >Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. Inflation also happened in that time.
      - hackeridiot12 5mo ago
        [flagged]
        usrnm 5mo ago
        I know enough people who tried, to be able to tell you that it's not all roses over there. Some had to go back to being a corporate slave and some just continue grinding a barely viable business earning much less than they could at a large company
- vidarh 5mo ago
  In much of Europe, if you're planning redundancies above a certain (low) number of employees, the employees / unions has a consultation right before layoffs start in order to be able to negotiate or consider other options...
- lazyasciiart 5mo ago
  No, Salesforce.
gcr 5mo ago
Google powerwashes your corp Chromebook when they let you go. A friend was composing an email on the train when their screen went black and the device reset itself to factory settings. They even send the “you’re being fired” email to their personal email they have on file. Didn’t even schedule a meeting.
- laughing_man 5mo ago
  Man, that's cold.
- rixed 5mo ago
  A full email? We need a "you've been fired" emoji.
  - tosti 5mo ago
    U+1FAF5 U+1F525
- gear54rus 5mo ago
  I think at least on windows you can powercycle it quickly a few times until it gives up this behavior. Not sure about Chromebooks.
- ninalanyon 5mo ago
  Most of the employer behaviour described in such gleeful terms here would be outright illegal in most of Europe and open up the employer to risk of being sued for wrongful dismissal, etc.
  - mschuster91 5mo ago
    And then US tech has the arrogance of claiming "we don't need unions". yeah, shit like what we're reading here is precisely why y'all need unions.
    - kortilla 5mo ago
      We’re talking about a Google employee that makes 5x or more of what a European counterpart would. Lack of termination notice and other at will employment is easy to plan for when you make so much money. Until someone starts providing examples of software companies where the employees are unioned and clear $400k+ annum, the bar is still “no unions”.

brightball 5mo ago

Oracle?

Twirrim 5mo ago

If you're talking about Oracle, the large round previous to that they did had individual meetings with employee, manager, and HR. With so many layoffs it took a week+ to do, effectively torturing an entire set of employees who had no idea if they'd have a job by the end of the hour, let alone week. I'm not sure there's any good way to lay off large amounts of staff (besides not getting yourself into the situation in the first place where you have to)

joe_mamba 5mo ago
>I'm not sure there's any good way to lay off large amounts of staff Someone on HN once wrote that after the dot.com bust, Yahoo! HR had 1-1 meetings with every single employee that was part of the mass layoffs back then, and they did this for hundreds of workers. Boy what I wouldn't give to go back to such state of affairs, even though I wasn't yet part of the workforce back then. An older family friend of mine who started working in tech around 2003-2005, told me "back in my day, to get a job, you'd just send your CV to HR@corpo.com, and in 2-3 days you'd get a call asking you when you're free to come over for an interview". Now today you're lucky you get an automated reply back from 50 CVs sent, just for the opportunity to do an impersonal take home assessment as part of the seven stage interview process. It's like screaming into the void of AI bots and automated CV screening systems, while you spin the barrel of the revolver to play the next round of Russian roulette. And the crazy part is, that when people talk about "the good old days", we're talking about events from recent history, just 10-25 years ago, that a lot of current workers experienced in their lifetime, not stuff from when boomers were kids. The massive sudden shift in the commoditization of human workers and turning them into faceless labor resources that can be inhumanely disposed of with a keystroke, is real and noticeable to everyone, that I'm envious for you guys who are set to retire soon out of this shitshow. What comes after this? Have we reached rock bottom, or will it get even worse?
- duzer65657 5mo ago
  Either your dates or experiences are off, because I've been working in software since 1999 and the easiest time to get a job was quite recent, in the back-half of COVID. The early 2000's were decent, but I didn't experience - or know anyone who did - any sort of "free jobs' period. Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. It's only the in the past year or so that the world has appeared to be ending for developers, and I think that pronouncement is premature.
  - joe_mamba 5mo ago
    >Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. IDK, I'm not from the US/Bay-Area, nor does my country have any big-tech/FANG jobs to distort the market for what constitutes a "high wage" in tech, it's all the same. >in the back-half of COVID. Sure, but Covid was only a short blip, a temporary exception, not a baseline norm for wage/job growth, like the years prior which was a longer period of getting a job was easy, like 2012-2020. For me where I live now, the career depression I saw came in 2023 already when jobs become less abundant and harder to get, and it only got worse later when mass layoff started. So we're already 3 years in the decline, longer than the Covid boom lasted and things aren't going better yet. I entered the workforce in around 2012-2014 and it was significantly easier to get a callback from sending a resume than it is now where it's mostly automated rejections. When I say "easy" I also mean you didn't need 7 stages of interviews to get a job back then, you'd have 2 stages and those were pretty chill and get a call back from every 2-3 resumes sent. Now you need to send dozens. I guess "easy" is relative. >Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. Inflation also happened in that time.
    - hackeridiot12 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - usrnm 5mo ago
        I know enough people who tried, to be able to tell you that it's not all roses over there. Some had to go back to being a corporate slave and some just continue grinding a barely viable business earning much less than they could at a large company
vidarh 5mo ago
In much of Europe, if you're planning redundancies above a certain (low) number of employees, the employees / unions has a consultation right before layoffs start in order to be able to negotiate or consider other options...
lazyasciiart 5mo ago
No, Salesforce.

gcr 5mo ago

Google powerwashes your corp Chromebook when they let you go. A friend was composing an email on the train when their screen went black and the device reset itself to factory settings. They even send the “you’re being fired” email to their personal email they have on file. Didn’t even schedule a meeting.

laughing_man 5mo ago
Man, that's cold.
rixed 5mo ago
A full email? We need a "you've been fired" emoji.
- tosti 5mo ago
  U+1FAF5 U+1F525
gear54rus 5mo ago
I think at least on windows you can powercycle it quickly a few times until it gives up this behavior. Not sure about Chromebooks.
ninalanyon 5mo ago
Most of the employer behaviour described in such gleeful terms here would be outright illegal in most of Europe and open up the employer to risk of being sued for wrongful dismissal, etc.
- mschuster91 5mo ago
  And then US tech has the arrogance of claiming "we don't need unions". yeah, shit like what we're reading here is precisely why y'all need unions.
  - kortilla 5mo ago
    We’re talking about a Google employee that makes 5x or more of what a European counterpart would. Lack of termination notice and other at will employment is easy to plan for when you make so much money. Until someone starts providing examples of software companies where the employees are unioned and clear $400k+ annum, the bar is still “no unions”.