matdevdugJan 27, 2024

The thing about #tech #layoffs that people who haven’t been through it often don’t understand is that morale never recovers. The employees who remain will never have the same relationship with that company, bosses or peers.

Watching people you respect pack their stuff and crying on the phone with their spouses is something that never goes away. When I survived a layoff in my 20s I became a “do exactly what the ticket says” person. I stopped suggesting ideas, providing feedback, believing anything a manager told me.

If you are a company considering layoffs, especially a profitable company, you should approach it as “this department will have 100% turnover”. The second I got another job offer I left that company and six months later nobody who had been there at the time of layoffs remained.

I’ve seen that pattern play out multiple times.

Show threadStrange Culprits HAS MOVEDJan 27, 2024

@matdevdug
This is a difficult subject for many people who don't work in tech. On the one hand, it's awful that skilled tech workers are treated like so many interchangeable cogs by their executive overlords. But on the other hand, these same workers are beneficiaries of a rapacious, profit extraction machine that is literally undermining civil society: none of the tech workers are complaining before the layoff rounds, when bonuses and stock options are plentiful. These same workers take their outsized income and drive up property and commodity prices to the point of harming their own communities and society at large.

We want to support working people. But please, tech workers, be honest with yourselves about the underbelly of the tech economy: instead of feeding at the trough until the bosses cast you aside, how about more of you save up your bonuses to start your own small businesses, to contribute to your community?
@jstatepost

Show threadRAK

@strangeculprits @matdevdug @jstatepost: "how about more of you save up your bonuses to start your own small businesses, to contribute to your community?"

Unfortunately, I have nothing of the social or organisational skills required to set up my own business; were I put into a position where that was the only way for me to operate in society, I'd be completely lost.

Jan 28, 2024 at 10:41pmWeb
Show threadStrange Culprits HAS MOVEDJan 29, 2024
@raktheundead
That's a fair point, though we do hope our sentiment isn't lost on you: that the people who call the shots in the tech economy only care about themselves. The sooner more tech workers choose to reject that system --opening a business is one way, but there are others-- the sooner that system stops perverting the rest of the economy.
@matdevdug @jstatepost
Show threadC.Suthorn Jan 29, 2024

@raktheundead @strangeculprits @matdevdug @jstatepost

Gibt es eigentlich ein englisches Wort für Genossenschaft (Raiffeisen-Genossenschaft, Schrebergarten, Genossenschaftsbank, Verein (nicht "Club"), Gewerkschaft (nicht Union), Betriebsrat, Sozialpartnerschaft, soziale Marktwirtschaft, Realpolitik). Klar, es ist möglich, dies auf Englisch zu beschreiben, es gibt Wörter (Lehnwörter oder native Wörter die zur Beschreibung genutzt werden), aber eindeutige Namen, bei denen alle sofort ohne Erklärung wissen, was gemeint ist?

Show threadStrange Culprits HAS MOVEDJan 29, 2024
@Life_is
We think the closest English term is 'worker owned cooperative'
@raktheundead @matdevdug @jstatepost