@matdevdug Well said. If there is one small upside of these layoffs, hopefully it will help dispel the Silicon Valley mythology that these companies often traffic in.

Free lunch and a foozeball table is a poor substitute for job security and human-focused management.

@matdevdug My gut has been telling me that companies are fooling themselves into thinking 100% turnover is fine, actually, because workers can just be replaced now that so many are on the market, and institutional knowledge didn’t matter that much in the first place (lol).

Sound right?

@matdevdug the first time I went through a #tech #layoff I really struggled with “what did _I_ do wrong?” It took me a long time to recover from that.

My first time as a manager having to lay people off was one of the toughest days of my 35 yr career. A year after that there was 100% turnover in that team, including me.

My current place has had a round of layoffs. We learned to manage employee growth in a way that we haven’t had to do it again. We’re now profitable and have an amazing team.

@matdevdug @dave Went through the dot-com blowup of 2001 and the banking fuckup of 2008 and various other layoffs. Every time, the remaining people spent months mostly with polishing their resumes.

I’ve never seen any upside, since frequently promising projects or client relationships died in those layoffs, certainly eating up any conceivable savings from the lower payroll.

@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

@matdevdug I worked at an office that abruptly let go one of its more talented workers. I could hear her sobbing as she packed up her belongings.

Later, as I started to get enough freelance income to leave, I left that job without the customary two weeks notice.

@matdevdug got through one last year and basically my manager who i deeply respected and who was one of the key points that kept me there got fired.

We had profits. So many people got fired cause the profits werent high enough.
None of he executives did resign or anything alike, even though the profit loss was baiscally their fault as they decided to overhire during covid times.
I went from "putting a lot of Energy and resources into this job" to absolutely hating it and burning out within a few months.

And bottom line decided to never ever work in this industry again.

@matdevdug my current company did layoffs back in June with pathetic severance packages.. and people have been quitting enmasse ever since.

The other thing to remember is that many of these former employees will end up at customers or potential customers who will now NEVER look at your product and will actively discourage other people from even taking your calls...

There is a knock on effect to layoffs.

For two weeks severance I'm not signing a non disparagement agreement.

@matdevdug it's not just those left behind. I was laid off back in 2001 and it's coloured my relationship with every employer since.

We broke our backs for that company, and they dismissed us without a second thought. Now I expect every employer to do the same and plan accordingly.

@matdevdug I have been through it multiple times. It would appear that it is not a suicide pact, further away from Silicon Valley. There is a bit more activation energy involved in switching employers.

But it's still not good.

I have been through enough that my default is to assume that the company wants to bleed me dry and throw me away. Never stop updating your resume.

It would also be great if we had a professional cartel that could successfully embargo these profit-goosing dipshits.

@matdevdug my last k public sector) employer handled a big budget cut with a round of layoffs.

A humane place would offer a severance package, wait to see the effect on payroll count, and then do layoffs after if necessary. They did the reverse. I'm 100% comfortable it was because the deputy minister in charge was a vindictive petty little asshole, and he didn't want to risk the people he resented leaving with dignity. He wanted them humiliatingly escorted out by security.

@matdevdug

There are pluses to these mass layoffs in tech and journalism:

1. Other industries now have access to skilled labor for long delayed IT infrastructure projects.

These industries have not been able to compete in recruiting in years.

These workers were in short supply for too long because the big five hogged the labor market.

The public sector in particular is benefitting from these counterproductive layoffs.

2. It releases skilled journalists from mainstream ...

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