r/technology
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u/BeautifulLife1
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Jan 23 '23
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Google layoffs: 'Couldn't control shaky hands...' 8-month pregnant employee fired after positive performance review. Business
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/google-layoffs-couldnt-control-shaky-hands-8-month-pregnant-employee-fired-after-positive-performance-review-article-972291786.3k
u/Conscious_Figure_554 Jan 23 '23
I know how that felt. Got terminated three weeks after I got a glowing review from my manager. I was making the most money in the group even more than some managers and developers. They told me I can’t keep up with the changing process which was ironic because I was the one heading the process change and implementing all the tech stack needed for automation.
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u/GrayBox1313 Jan 23 '23 •
I got laid off once saying I was an ineffective manager. My job was not management. I had no direct or even indirect reports. None of my duties were in management of anything. I was a senior level independent contributor
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u/RunningPirate Jan 23 '23 •
Well, technically correct. You were also a horrible butcher and your plumbing skills were lacking. Don’t even get us started on your crochet abilities
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u/five-acorn Jan 23 '23
Hey my plumbing skills are amazing! You never went to me for plumbing help! Instead the CFO picked the plumbing parts that the Sales guy said had anti glare coating and were “streamlined.” …. Sure, now none of the plumbing works. But …. Say, anyone who pointed that out is now on the layoff list! Funny coincidence!
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u/LawabidingKhajiit Jan 23 '23
Say, anyone who pointed that out is now on the layoff list! Funny coincidence!
They will be replaced by team players who are solution-oriented and synergistic with the corporate culture and who can get on board while feeling empowered to make effective decisions.
All of which can be summed up under the term 'brown noser'.
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u/phoenix0r Jan 23 '23
A lot of these companies have an “up or out” mentality so if you’ve reached a certain level and still aren’t showing any leadership abilities then you’re definitely likely to get laid off and replaced with a cheaper IC.
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u/blazze_eternal Jan 23 '23
It sucks when the only levels up are management. I'll manage projects all day, but people? Not for me. I hate office politics.
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u/Chariotwheel Jan 23 '23
And you might not be good at it. I know several people whose abilities would be wasted if they were to do management instead of the job they actually want to do.
Heck, I've seen a guy who build a company, retired decades later and was then taking up a parttime job of driving forklifts for that company. He very much didn't need the money, but after decades of being the boss all he wanted was to go back and work the forklifts.
I had something similiar when I was working at a fuel station. The shift after me called in sick and my boss who owned two fuel stations took over until a replacement arrived and he told me that he is glad to do that simple work again for a while instead of fighting the paper mountain in the office.
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Jan 23 '23
That's why more tech companies are implementing separate IC tracks.Shouldn't lose your best talent with intimate domain knowledge in the company and tooling just because they don't want to spend most their time managing others.
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u/llorllale Jan 23 '23
In my experience, the IC track is not worth much more than the paper it's printed on in some companies, and it almost feels like it's there just to lure people into a trap. These are the kinds of places with an IC track yet no one above the senior IC level
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u/GrayBox1313 Jan 23 '23
Possibly. Although the director was a tyrant and we clashed. Rate of Constant turnover was an inside joke in the Company. “Revolving doors around here” I’m actually glad I got out of The company
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u/CmdrShepard831 Jan 23 '23
They targeted people like this at my job the last time we had a layoff. They called those people stagnant if they hadn't had a promotion or glowing review within the last 5 years. In reality, these were typically also the highest paid people in our group.
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u/Lethargie Jan 23 '23
"this guy is great at his job and doesn't want to follow the Peter principle, fire him now!"
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u/phormix Jan 23 '23
Sometimes I wonder if a lawyer might be able to challenge stuff like this.
Bob was fired for being an ineffective manager. He did not have a management position. Therefore, either he was wrongfully terminated or should be given a severance in line with X management level that the company apparently believed him to be working at.
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u/GrayBox1313 Jan 23 '23
Ha I had thought of doing that. But just moved on. Also you have to sign “I won’t sue you” papers to get a severance check…while you’re shell shocked
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u/Envect Jan 23 '23
I had a place ask me to sign a non disparagement agreement, but they offered me no money. I declined.
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u/CmdrShepard831 Jan 23 '23
Any pushback? I could see some smooth brained HR/manager telling you "you have to sign it" as if they still had any leverage in that situation.
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u/camisado84 Jan 23 '23
They absolutely do try to tell people that. They can't withold pay from you so if they're firing or "laying you off" without a severence theres zero reason to sign anything.
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u/Envect Jan 23 '23
I think they understood it was pointless. They fired me on the day I was putting in notice so I was happy to burn it down. That place sucked.
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u/tbiards Jan 23 '23
You got fired because you were making too much money. This is how my beach patrol was. The highest paid lifeguards were treated the worst and were eventually chased out even though they were the most respected ones in town.
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Jan 23 '23
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u/Agamemnon323 Jan 23 '23
It’s too bad sun contractors are so hard to find. Just can’t seem to find them anywhere. Oh well.
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u/Infinite-Eggs Jan 23 '23
I'd rather discreetly warn those employees and go ahead with the search. There's no sense delaying the inevitable.
If my boss wanted to fire me I would want to know and cut my losses ASAP. I wouldn't want to continue in blissful ignorance and then blindsided.
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u/Agamemnon323 Jan 23 '23
Oh I'd tell them too. I just wouldn't find contractors until they're already gone.
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u/donjulioanejo Jan 23 '23
That's because Oracle has been hoarding them since they bought out Sun.
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Jan 23 '23 •
What 80s movie are you referencing?
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u/M3xLuthor Jan 23 '23
Space Balls
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u/TheseGreyHeavens Jan 23 '23
How many assholes we got on this ship, anyhow?
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u/CmdrShepard831 Jan 23 '23
TV show, actually. You might know it as Baywatch Nights. This man lived the real thing.
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u/Francis_Dollar_Hide Jan 23 '23
I was also made redundant late last year, 6 weeks later they promoted someone with over a decade less experience than me into my job title. They didn't make you redundant, they made your salary redundant.
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u/ktappe Jan 23 '23
Indeed.
I got laid off in a JPMC initiative to offshore 10,000 jobs to India. I gladly and laughingly took the buyout, knowing that nobody in Bangalore had my knowledge (a very specialized I.T. field in which I knew every single person with my skillset.) The conniving CIO who ran that project, Dana Deasy, took a golden parachute out of JPMC just months after I left and has now conned the Pentagon into hiring him.
Whatever. I got paid 6 months salary to leave behind a massive pile of mismanagement. Never been happier.
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u/WallStreetGayBear Jan 23 '23
WTF… ”International Association of Outsourcing Professionals Hall of Fame”. He is actually proud of this?
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u/ivosaurus Jan 23 '23
WTF. You could not pay me to believe that is an actual thing that exists, and not a meme, before I went back to the article and read it again. And then googled it. This fucking world, man.
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u/Desrac Jan 23 '23
If you ever find yourself as the highest paid member of your peer group, just know your neck will be the first on the chopping block when it is time for lay offs.
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u/danncyrax Jan 23 '23
When I worked for the blue home improvement store they had a massive meeting across the company in 2017 with assistant managers and then terminated the highest paid, then they fired the highest paid department supervisors. After that they reduced the amount of managers and divided the work among the remaining supervisors. That strategy lasted about a year before they had to bring additional people in to cover the work load. Now they staff management normal, but barely staff associates, have interviews daily but hire no one, and if an associate is terminated they aren’t replaced it’s just spread thinner for months. Oh, and they terminated 90% of loss prevention and all of HR, moved HR to India. And as a nice nail in the coffin, severely reduced what military veterans can use their discount on. Save that money
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u/hawaiianthunder Jan 23 '23
I do more business now with the orange store but my last job I would spend over $500,000/yr at the blue store. Back before Covid the blue store always had a crap load of associates. If I ever needed someone I didn't have to walk far to find someone. And the pro desk always could answer my questions. Now they're on par with the orange store. Pretty weird when you can walk 6+ aisles and not find a single worker.
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u/10minmilan Jan 23 '23
Oh, and they terminated 90% of loss prevention and all of HR, moved HR to India. And as a nice nail in the coffin, severely reduced what military veterans can use their discount on.
West first moved manufacturing abroad & made China powerful.
Now it is moving the services to India as well.
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u/darkenedgy Jan 23 '23
fucking yikes, thanks for this heads up. Urgh I was using them as an alternative to Home Depot.
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u/CrankleStank Jan 23 '23
90% of loss prevention terminated... maybe keep shopping there just give yourself some discounts
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u/alaphic Jan 23 '23
Well, if it's any consolation, I certainly know some people who will enjoy that LP information
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u/mckirkus Jan 23 '23
This is absolutely true. Most business have been burned by having that one irreplaceable guy that knows it and makes 3x what the other team members make. Especially if that fact gets out. So most companies make damn sure nobody fits that description.
The other aspect is that now, with a massive labor shortage and record stock prices, business just paid whatever it took to get and keep people in tech companies. So if a big chunk of you pay was from RSUs, options, etc., then when the economy slows down, or the stock price drops (or both, in this case), people are going to get cut and fast.
Wages are sticky. Imagine if your boss came to you and said "Hey Bob, we need you to take a 30% pay cut to keep you on." It would never happen in a salaried position. Commission, sure, but that comes with the territory. Salaried workers generally expect their wages to increase every year so the only two options are to keep paying or to lay-off.
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Jan 23 '23
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u/ktappe Jan 23 '23
They were (still are) stupid enough to think that their company's layoffs would change the entire market?
Wow, talk about egos....
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u/TeutonJon78 Jan 23 '23
However, when it's a group of CEOs on a board like that, that more than just one company. And those companies likely have a different group of CEOs on their boards, etc.
And they all have the same mindset -- extract everything that can from their workers to make them money. And that widening group of people can potentially affect an entire market.
Their only problem is at least one of them (and mostly likely most/all) would be willing to screw over the others to make a buck of that as well.
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u/Acmnin Jan 23 '23
You underestimate how much sway billionaires have through corporations, media, politicians. They run the show.
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u/fireraptor1101 Jan 23 '23
Wages are sticky. Imagine if your boss came to you and said "Hey Bob, we need you to take a 30% pay cut to keep you on
Inflation has been kind of having that same effect thought. Someone who is making the same salary today that they made in 2020 is effectively making 20% less than they were back then.
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u/digitaljestin Jan 23 '23
I've been laid off 3 times in my life. Each time was because of some budget decision made by people who didn't know me or my work. My performance was never considered.
Yeah, it sucks, but thinking you are safe because of good performance reviews is just naive.
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u/mnemy Jan 23 '23
Yep. I always thought it was bullshit that management didn't know what's coming down. Then I was team lead, and close enough with the multi team manager to believe him. Company canned 3/4th of our office, including half my team. Neither of us were ever consulted. They canned half my team, then gave us a surviving senior from a project that died with the layoff, who had zero experience at all with what we worked with, or even the language.
It astounded me that someone (the office manager, though he would never admit it), decided who stayed and who went, when he had zero fucking clue about anything anyone did on their day to day. Fired half my team even though we were the only team in the office making the company money. Gave me someone beyond useless to backfill, even though I had rockstars I had personally hired and trained the last two years.
Quit that disaster of a company, and have been contracting ever since. Haven't missed the politics and backstabbing. Your peers or direct superior might give a shit about you, but the people above them can make some arbitrary bullshit decisions and ruin all the hard work and extra miles you've put in. It's a lesson I've seen over and over in the industry.
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u/gmaster115 Jan 23 '23
If an exec fires 3/4 of the company that is actual suicide for that company. Why on earth would that ever be a sound business decision?
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u/ravioliguy Jan 23 '23
"New CEO cuts operating costs by 75% and revenue only dipped 10%! He has given himself a 20m raise"
1 year later when everything is on fire
"CEO leaves and takes 10 years severance package"
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u/Squirrel_Inner Jan 23 '23
This is it. Before 2008, AIG was set up to insure all the junk bonds (MBS) being sold as AAA. The company went bankrupt and the CEO walked with millions, when he should have gone to jail.
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u/RakeishSPV Jan 23 '23
Generally the nature of layoffs (structural company wide reasons) means that no one's individual performance will matter.
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u/crimxxx
Jan 23 '23
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Just a friendly reminder. Companies are not your friends, hr is not on your side. People at a company can be your friends, but you can be let go at anytime. If you can put yourself in a financial position where if you got fired today you’ll be fine for an extended period of time. You’ll be far less stressed knowing you will be fine no matter what your company decides.
Also always prioritize your needs cause companies will prioritize there’s, you are replaceable for the company. The company is replaceable to you. Always remember your trading your finite time for money at the end of the day.
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u/LesbianCommander Jan 23 '23
Remember that time that a white house advisor called people "Human capital stock"?
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/26/21270863/kevin-hassett-human-capital-stock-coronavirus
Yeah. Always remember that when you think of a company like a friend. They don't see you as a friend, they don't even see you as a human - with lives, emotions, goals, or needs. They see you as human capital stock that they can dial up or dial down whenever they want.
It's literally why we see problems like this occur so often. Companies will hire with zero recognition of what the long term impact of their workers will be. Some people might quit their current jobs, and move half way around a country to work for you, only to be laid off months later when you're no longer needed. It doesn't matter at all to them.
Compare that to a company that does recognize what layoffs mean to real people. Maybe they won't hire 40k people just to lay half of them off the following year. Hiring 20k people and being a slower overall, but with far less harm to workers.
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u/theinspectorst Jan 23 '23
Human capital doesn't mean people, it means knowledge, skills, education.
It's a concept in macroeconomics. Historically, macroeconomic models would simplify the production process as a function of labour (people) and capital (buildings, machines, tools). You combine the two together and an economy can produce stuff. If you increase the stock of either then that economy is able to produce more stuff - economic growth.
Then as developed economies became more about the service sector, the information economy, etc, people realised these models didn't really explain the growth process so well anymore - because the things that were driving growth now weren't well captured by either the quantity of labour or the quantity of capital as we usually think of it. So human capital became a concept to explain what was missing - it's capital (stuff that you invest in and combine with labour to produce output), but it's a type of capital that sits in people not a physical machine on the factory floor. Investing in the stock of human capital (increasing the skills, knowledge and education of the workforce) is another route to growing the economy.
Whoever wrote that article was choosing to misunderstand the meaning of a common term in economics and to be offended by it. They knew how to use a search engine just as well as the rest of us.
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u/8r4n Jan 23 '23
Your job is not a home. Your coworkers are not a family. Deluding yourself otherwise is a lie.
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u/dflame45 Jan 23 '23
That's the thing with layoffs, anyone can be let go. It doesn't matter if you had positive reviews.
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u/LosPiker Jan 23 '23
I've had 7 straight years of positive reviews and UHG Administratively Terminated me on Friday because I've been out of work with a medical condition (Postherpetic Neuralgia, a Shingles side effect). Thanks Big Insurance company.
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u/DoctorJiveTurkey Jan 23 '23
I hope you plan on contacting an employment attorney.
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u/Just_Another_Scott Jan 23 '23
IBM lost a case like this if my memory serves. They were using mass layoffs to illegally fire protected workers like older employees.
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u/Derpakiinlol Jan 23 '23
You may have a suit for wrong full termination. Contact a lawyer ASAP
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u/VulturE Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23
My previous employer was like "nah no way we can let you WFH, people don't get shingles at such a young age".
So I just went into work and screamed in pain every time I had to move.
They finally sent me home after a few hours but gave me a poor performance review for lack of communication, and took away my meager yearly raise.
Had it in 2012 when I was 25, can't wait to get it again. I've broken bones that have been more comfortable than Shingles. Can't imagine getting it when you're older and it's more painful.
The best part, of course, is not a single fucking person will give you the vaccine for it, because it's only been FDA tested/vetted for older people.
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u/fease Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23
I think the age range on shingles changed in the last year or two actually. Obviously wouldn't have helped you in 2012, but if you have a reason (dunno if shingles at 25 is reason enough?) to get it could help you now.
Edit: looks like 19+ with having had shingles previously is recommended by the CDC if you're in the US
Edit 2: Here is the link(Re-reading I find the wording a bit odd so I could see my original edit being not quite so black and white but definitely the possibility before 50): https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html
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u/DanGarion Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23
Are we talking about getting positive reviews and being laid off right before having a kid? Happened to me 10 years ago. I wasn't pregnant though it was my wife. Fortunately, I received 3 weeks pay for every year I was there (15 years). It sucked, a lot. But with COBRA I was able to keep my HMO medical insurance through the birth of our child and a pregnancy that would have ended up expensive after a few days in NICU only ended up costing us $100. Shortly after my child's birth I found a new job and have been with them for nearly 10 years.
*** Edit for clarification. COBRA does not pay for your insurance, it only allows you to continue to have your company insurance if you pay the full cost for it. So my severance was not only taxed I also paid out of pocket for 6 months of insurance with no company chip in.
*** #2 I just looked through some old emails. $1,400 a month for my COBRA in 2013. I paid that for 6 months while unemployed. $8,400 of what I was provided in severance went towards insurance, that doesn't count paying for anything outside of coverage or deductible. That was roughly 1/3 of what I received after taxes of my severance.
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u/jerekhal Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23
I really wish articles like this would use appropriate terminology.
I know it's a small distinction but there's a world of difference between "laid off" and "fired" when it comes to safety nets at a minimum, but also your potential for hire at other locations. From the sound of things she was one of the layoffs so there's not necessarily a negative mark on her work history at least.
I know it's small solace but people conflating fired and laid off has led to many people I know being denied unemployment or facing severe scrutiny on their work history because people don't understand terminology. And articles like this absolutely don't help.
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u/BobBelcher2021 Jan 23 '23
This was written outside of the United States; in some countries there is no distinction between the two terms. I’ve had to explain this to friends in other parts of the world.
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u/andreibrcg Jan 23 '23
Of course there is. In my country a company is forbidden for a year (i think) by law to hire on a position if someone else previously had that position and was laid off. This way companies are a little careful about who they lay off and who they fire. I think its the same for all EU
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u/DrChucklesNorris Jan 23 '23
Interestingly, the method of laying people off almost entirely randomly has the benefit to those laid-off that the whole industry knows it was random. There is no (or little) stigma that it was performance based. Whereas if Google laid off 12k and said these were our lowest performers, those individuals would be in tough situation to land their next role. It’s like corporate benevolence by manner of complete indifference.
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u/Anyone_2016 Jan 23 '23
Whereas if Google laid off 12k and said these were our lowest performers, those individuals would be in tough situation to land their next role.
I'm not sure it would make a big difference; Google has a reputation for high standards. It's like the people graduating in the bottom 10% of the class at MIT -- they're still better than the 95% of applicants who weren't admitted.
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u/absentmindedjwc Jan 23 '23
Layoffs don't necessarily mean everyone is shit - generally, layoffs are either a percentage of each team or a reduction in budget. In the former, it might be based on future outlook potentially making a talented employee redundant.. in the latter, it might be clearing up a certain number from your team's budget, meaning several lower cost employees, or one high cost employee.
The type of layoff and methodology might not even be the same from team to team - it generally is an organizational decision on how layoffs occur, with an edict from higher up saying "reduce costs" and letting management figure out the best way to do so.
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u/PolyamorousPlatypus Jan 23 '23
There's no way for the next company to know if you were fired.
Source: was fired and no company ever knew it unless I told them after the fact.
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u/Briarsaunt Jan 23 '23
I'm about to lose my job of 20 years. My department is being phased out. It's a tragedy and a trauma for me. I legit loved my job. :(
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u/irissteensma Jan 23 '23
That sucks. I’m sorry. Losing a job you loved makes it doubly awful. Hope you can start a new chapter soon.
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u/ChocoboToes Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 24 '23
I'm in a similar boat.Got this job at a start up back in 2019 and it changed my life. Was hired as just a code pounding programmer, but when they needed design work, I offered my skills in that. I got a ton of praise for it, two straight performance reviews of promotions and raises, being told that the career path for me was the department lead for product design.Que a few weeks ago, they fire a ton of people, my boss quits, and I'm told "We're not sure there's enough work for you long term, but you're so passionate about design, we're not going to put you back on the developer team"
gotta love the bait and switch. I haven't been laid of, yet, but idk how much closer I can get than "we're not sure there's enough work, but we don't have plans for you to do anything else"
Edit: yes. I'm obviously updating my resume and applying to jobs. Just sharing my own fucked-over story.
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u/AngryWizard Jan 23 '23
Time to update your resume and start looking. Maybe they are actually giving you this time to do so, without directly saying that, if it's a smaller company.
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u/xlinkedx Jan 23 '23
Part of my anxiety problems is that I have never once in my entire life felt secure at a job. I live with the constant worry that I might be fired the next day at work, despite "exceeding expectations" every 6 months for the last two years.
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u/anonymouswan1 Jan 23 '23
Not sure if you are capable of doing so, but if you are, try your best to get a little savings going. Having enough savings as a cushion is a huge stress relief, even if you can just gather enough to last you a couple months. I have a good enough savings where I could last a while and it has completely changed my attitude at work. I don't give a fuck about work anymore and do the absolute bare minimum because I am expendable like everyone else.
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u/panconquesofrito Jan 23 '23
I empathize with you! I am like this most of the time. I have moments of bliss usually on a Friday where I felt like the week concluded well, and I don’t feel like I am going to lose my job. My anxiety comes from previous layoffs and one time getting fired. The only thing that has helped me some has been my emergency fund. I am at eight months, and going for 12.
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u/andio76 Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23
Gen X here,
After TWO Dot.Com crashes, Three Recessions (including the Great Recession), the Pandemic layoffs, ....
If you think that my Generation has any. I mean ANY faith in the Business world....you've been smoking what they have been shoveling....
I don't give two weeks notice.....I just quit and leave.....
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u/Alternative_Belt_389 Jan 23 '23
You don't owe companies ANYTHING. Went freelance after burning myself out time after time because I gave my everything and no one cared.
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u/hiddencamela Jan 23 '23
Learning that lesson first hand has made me bitter.
It has taught me however, that good leads/managers are worth working for. They'll usually have your back, and they'll usually be good to other people as well. People above may not like them, but they can easily bring a wave of workers with them if they wave a hand.
I'm more loyal to the manager who fought to keep me from burning my weekend to work, vs the production team that expected me to do it without even asking (thus making it "legal".)47
u/jameyiguess Jan 23 '23
Do you have any resources on freelancing effectively? I can do basically anything web-related except iOS development and complicated ops at this point. I started my career freelancing, but it was on tiny projects paying beans and I really didn't know what I was doing 12 years ago.
I would love to freelance if I could find higher grade work in terms of interest/complexity and pay, and if I could keep it to around 30 hours per week on average.
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u/DjGhettoSteve Jan 23 '23
Xennial, can confirm. I am spreading the corporate cynicism to all my younger friends. Just doing the lord's work.
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u/firemage22 Jan 23 '23
Just doing the lord's work
You might mean that as a joke but never forget that Jesus was killed for a "rebellion" when he chased the money changers out of the temple going for a semi-radical street preacher to a threat to their $$.
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u/FCkeyboards Jan 23 '23
"Never forget in the story of Jesus the hero was killed by the state."
People always conviently forget that he wasn't killed by random rebels or peasants. He was upsetting the people with money and political power.
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u/SaltLakeCitySlicker Jan 23 '23
I've been trying to do the same to a buddy who I used to work with. Guy is fresh out of his master's at 25 and wants to be loyal. I'm like "no. Be loyal to yourself. They don't care about you outside the value you bring. Plus it's the easiest way to get a larger salary and title change"
Got through to him, so that's good
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u/Baconshit Jan 23 '23
Fellow tech xennial! There must be dozens of us!
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u/DjGhettoSteve Jan 23 '23
Do you too have 6 kinds of USB cables in your junk drawer and cptsd from layoffs?
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u/Drunken_Ogre Jan 23 '23
I have some junk in my USB cable drawer, if that's what you are referring to.
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u/PiningForTheFnords Jan 23 '23
Another Gen X here - with ageism becoming a thing in tech yet again (not that it ever really went away) it’s unlikely that I’m going to get a job easily after our company goes on a layoff spree. Maybe I should just say fuck it, capitalize on everyone’s misery and depression, and open a bar where we can day drink our savings away.
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u/darkenedgy Jan 23 '23
I don't give two weeks notice.....I just quit and leave.....
Not that I have any faith in companies, but why would you burn every bridge like this every time
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u/Squeakies Jan 23 '23
Probably very obviously a millennial but I have gotten quite a few jobs through people I had worked with previously. Sure I could've said fuck it to the company and left with no notice, but it would've screwed over the people I was working with too. Leaving on good terms has left me with a great network of people.
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u/darthfrankthetank Jan 23 '23
Two weeks notice in my experience is more for your coworkers and immediate supervisor than the company itself. They're the ones who are going to have to suddenly scramble and put in extra work without warning. So giving no notice just fucks them over more than the company.
If you hate your boss and coworkers and never want to come back then sure, don't give notice.
If you hate your boss and coworkers everywhere you go..... You should probably take some time to self reflect, because you're probably just an asshole.
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u/ThrowingPandas21 Jan 23 '23
I'm from the Microsoft side of this. I it wasn't about performance. It was about who was new and who had been there quite some time and made more salary. If you fit in that nice little middle band, you survived.
I saw plenty of 10+ year employees just let go. Then i saw people like me within the 5 year band get removed. They just took a percentage and chopped us out. Doesn't matter who was positive or not.
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u/biscuit_pirate Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23
Be selfish with your career. Learn as many transferable skills as you can. Make connections everywhere. Ask all the business units what they do. Don't tell yourself no before you apply for a role, internal or external, let them have the weight of that decision. It might be yes. If they say no, see if you can ask why.
Edit: added some more Edit 2: ok yes, learn transferable skills, as many as you can with a solid depth of knowledge which allows you to reproduce work at a new company if you need to.
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u/V6TransAM Jan 23 '23
What goes up, must come down. You're a number and owe them zero loyalty, Most will never figure that simple fact out an most never bother to go find another job while they still have one.
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u/GarlicBreadRules Jan 23 '23
And always remember, HR is not your friend.
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u/Orcus424 Jan 23 '23
I've been telling people that for years and years. Every so often you will get someone trying to defend HR.
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u/billfitz24 Jan 23 '23
There’s a big difference between being fired vs. being laid off.
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u/Deto Jan 23 '23
The article says it like it's surprising for someone with a positive performance review to be laid off. I thought that's just common in layoffs - companies just remove positions and divisions wholesale based on balancing budgets and business projections. The whole reason the distinction between layoff and fired is used is that a layoff is understood to be not personal.
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u/petophile_ Jan 23 '23
The article is intentionally incendiary. Layoffs arent about individual performance, you literally cant even legally do them that way.
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u/rcl2 Jan 23 '23
I got an “exceeds expectations” annual review, and it was my second year in a row getting that. I had a great FY and my boss even helped me begin the promotion process.
But a couple months after that review the whole team (boss included) got laid off.
Personally, I think companies don’t care about performance reviews - I thought they were used as a speed bump or “barrier” to block people from asking for raises or promotions. They certainly aren’t used to decide who to retain during a round of layoffs.
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u/wumbovii Jan 23 '23
Google announced that the affected employees will get six months of healthcare, job placement services, and immigration support.
The title makes it sound unfair, but the severance looks very generous.
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u/dragonbab Jan 23 '23
After 7 years and countless achievements for the top Telco in Europe on an international level, having sat with the Board of Directors and led a company-wide project for half a year, I was let go from the company. Nothing in particular. They just "didn't know what to do with me." That was their explanatiom, I shit you not.
Fuck em.
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u/RunningPirate Jan 23 '23
Sometimes it’s more about what position or department you’re in. Had a cohort in sales, won’t a top performer award that year…but she was in the wrong region and they decided to get out of that market and that was that.
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u/therealist11 Jan 23 '23
I was watching the Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson movie called The Internship on Hulu yesterday and could not stop thinking about how drastically Google has changed from the time that movie was made, which was ten years ago.
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u/escape_of_da_keets Jan 23 '23
I worked at the company as an engineer for 5 years and was also laid off on Friday. My wife is also pregnant in her third trimester.
I can tell you that it was never like that while I worked there. The movie is just propaganda for Google.
There are lots of fun events and free food and stuff, and most of the people are great. However, the essence of the company has, at the top level, always been about trying to quantify everything and reduce it to a metric, including people.
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u/Opux Jan 23 '23
I first started working at Google around 9 years ago, and quit 2 years ago. Each year the culture got worse and worse. If I had to put a date on it, things really started going to shit when the CFO was replaced in 2015.
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u/Ill-Poet-3298 Jan 23 '23
The CFO is terrible. She's managing for Wall Street, not the long term, and Google is suffering for it. GOOG jumped 5% on the news of layoffs. Good job, CFO!
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u/nox66 Jan 23 '23
Lol, GOOG is down 33% since the fall of 2021. I'm guessing she's part of the reason why Google has been so aggressive about cutting projects and gained a reputation for not having its shit together. A massive infusion of labor fundamentally cannot fix shitty management.
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u/Jknaray Jan 23 '23
"Too big to fail" is rather quickly becoming "too bloated to survive."
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u/congmingdexigua Jan 23 '23
I am always puzzled by these articles that try to put faces to business decisions. Are they claiming Google fired her because she was pregnant? In that case she has a legal case - if not why highlight it and who cares for her shaking?
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u/f_ptr Jan 23 '23
I think it’s more trying to garner sympathy for the employees by highlighting some situations they’ve been placed in.
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u/TankVet Jan 23 '23
The Google separation agreements were about as generous as any I’ve ever heard of. That’s really as good as it’ll get anywhere.
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u/Slyguybuyfry Jan 23 '23
16 week severance package + 2 weeks for each year of service. Full pay. 16 weeks of accelerated share vesting and 6 months of healthcare. I get it. Being laid off sucks.
But this is part of normalizing and right sizing and these people are well taken care of.
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u/FCkeyboards Jan 23 '23
Plus: their 2022 bonus, unused PTO payout, 6 months of professional job placement services, mental health support, and an additional bonus of 150% of your annual bonus amount if you stay until your separation date and don't slack off/cause drama.
Finding a comparable job will be the hardest part, but that's truly an insane severance package.
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u/eveningsand Jan 23 '23
Agreed. There were 12000(?) employees fired. Of that, there were bound to be a few in this exact category, as remarkably crummy as it is.
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u/Justagreewithme Jan 23 '23
She wasn’t fired, she was laid off. There is a distinct difference, which answer the very question your title raises. Lay offs are not performance based, so her performance was irrelevant.
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u/timelessblur Jan 23 '23
I can bash them for layoffs but it was not about being pregnant. I saved my former employer from a lawsuit working massive over time saving their ass. Day after it was finished they laid me off. I was the team lead, I was the technical expert. I was moving to a different project and was going to be an advisor to the last one.
Now how they did the lay off my former employer can go to hell. My former manager who I know was in on it can be F off as how the layoff was done was very spinless. Save his ass then next day let me go.
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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '23 •
Your job will never love you