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(Axios)   Everyone should come back into the office because when you work remotely and are laid off, you miss out on the comforting 1-on-1 humanity and hugs from HR   (axios.com) divider line
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    More: Spiffy, hardest thing, tech workers, experience, younger workers, news, jobs  
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802 clicks; posted to Business » on 29 Jan 2023 at 11:50 PM (7 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



25 Comments     (+0 »)
View Voting Results: Smartest and Funniest
 
vudukungfu [TotalFark]
2023-01-29 9:31:38 PM  
Only question I have for HR if I'm fired remote us how much are you paying by the hour to drive to FedEx and return your spyware laden laptop?
 
Lsherm [TotalFark]
2023-01-29 10:58:56 PM  
My last company did layoffs online during the COVID shutdown. They handled it so poorly even though I wasn't let go I left the company. Out of 350 employees, they declared 22 essential, laid off the rest, and made everyone apply for 225 new positions.

It was an absolute shiatshow. To get around HR laws, they wouldn't hire people for the same job they had before, so we had traditional site engineers moved to cloud teams, programmers moved to sysadmin jobs, and web designers moved to project management. Then they all expected it to magically work.
 
RogermcAllen [OhFark]
2023-01-30 12:07:14 AM  
Work happens at work on work devices, friendship happens on personal devices.  If you actually wanted to talk to someone outside the context of doing your job, then you should have already had a sidebar text conversation going with them on your personal device.
 
blackminded
2023-01-30 12:17:45 AM  
An interesting post-mortem on all this is going to be a generation of young workers who have never been terminated and who spent a bulk of their careers with pandemic lockdowns and remote working figuring out how to deal with all this. 2008 was formative for a lot of us, and some of us are old enough to remember 2001. We at least had social skills. And drinking problems.

/I'm just waiting on the zombies
//Is El Reg still up?
///brb, posting on BOFH
 
Dangl1ng
2023-01-30 12:24:47 AM  
Layoffs are a feature of capitalism. Paying people so little that they will lose everything when they get laid off, is a feature of capitalism. Lack of universal healthcare so that people get sick when they get laid off, is a feature of capitalism.
 
SafetyThird
2023-01-30 12:31:11 AM  
Worthless people, unemployed. News at 11.
 
GaperKiller
2023-01-30 12:35:19 AM  
Someone I know got laid off from Google after 20 years. He took it in stride but his biggest beef was he didn't get to say goodbye to anyone. And he was only partially remote, in the office twice to three times a week.
 
beakerxf
2023-01-30 12:36:17 AM  
Was mass laid off in 2001 from a dot.com in a group meeting. There was no opportunity to say goodbye even then. It was "sign these papers, here's the number for unemployment, and now this sheriff will watch you box your stuff." I'd rather get the remote lay-off so there's no awkward eye contact with the still employed. Also, I should already have a phone number of anyone I want to continue contact with outside of the job.
 
GriffXX [OhFark]
2023-01-30 1:11:09 AM  

SafetyThird: Worthless people, unemployed. News at 11.


imgs.search.brave.comView Full Size
 
padraig
2023-01-30 1:22:10 AM  

SafetyThird: Worthless people, unemployed. News at 11.


You actually think that only worthless people are laid off? In our current corporate culture?

That's the most naive view of the job market I've heard in a long time. Do you also think that job seekers should hit the pavement, enter companies without an appointment, and then ask to meet the hiring manager to give him your resume?
 
HempHead
2023-01-30 2:18:00 AM  

GaperKiller: Someone I know got laid off from Google after 20 years. He took it in stride but his biggest beef was he didn't get to say goodbye to anyone. And he was only partially remote, in the office twice to three times a week.


Contra opinion :  none of the coworkers wanted to say goodbye
 
HempHead
2023-01-30 2:20:57 AM  

Lsherm: My last company did layoffs online during the COVID shutdown. They handled it so poorly even though I wasn't let go I left the company. Out of 350 employees, they declared 22 essential, laid off the rest, and made everyone apply for 225 new positions.

It was an absolute shiatshow. To get around HR laws, they wouldn't hire people for the same job they had before, so we had traditional site engineers moved to cloud teams, programmers moved to sysadmin jobs, and web designers moved to project management. Then they all expected it to magically work.


My company did the same but only brought back 75% of the younger employees.
 
Lsherm [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 2:35:04 AM  

HempHead: My company did the same but only brought back 75% of the younger employees.


My company reached their goal and got rid of 75% of the older employees without violating federal discrimination lwas.
 
Lsherm [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 2:35:15 AM  
laws
 
Incontinent_dog_and_monkey_rodeo
2023-01-30 2:40:30 AM  
Some of them may be a bit difficult to call in:

Fark user imageView Full Size
 
beakerxf
2023-01-30 4:19:44 AM  

GriffXX: SafetyThird: Worthless people, unemployed. News at 11.

[imgs.search.brave.com image 473x466]


This is exactly what my layoff looked like. Leadership said they were responsible, but phoned in remotely to lay folks off and paid local cops to escort former employees. "We screwed up. Also, you are potential criminals who have 15 minutes to box company branded merch off of your desk."

At my next job 3 months later during the same recession the CEO casually joked lay-offs was a politically correct term for termination for cause. Fark that. It wasn't my idea to pour a billion dollars into laying a broadband cable network without getting the necessary connection licenses or consumer contracts to make the network legitimate. It wasn't my choice to ultimately shutter all US presence and focus on Europe. I did the work I was hired to do.

These experiences just as my career started has shaped a cynicism of capitalism.
 
H31N0US
2023-01-30 6:49:40 AM  
Log off, shut down the PC and put it in a drawer until the return shipping box comes. Go outside.

It was a pretty seamless process.
 
cryptozoophiliac
2023-01-30 6:54:01 AM  

Dangl1ng: Layoffs are a feature of Americancapitalism. Paying people so little that they will lose everything when they get laid off, is a feature of Americancapitalism. Lack of universal healthcare so that people get sick when they get laid off, is a feature of Americancapitalism.


Fixed for exceptional accuracy.
 
tobcc
2023-01-30 8:28:05 AM  

vudukungfu: Only question I have for HR if I'm fired remote us how much are you paying by the hour to drive to FedEx and return your spyware laden laptop?


had a WFH job lay me off. We negotiated that I got a 2 week payout, on top of the legal 2 week + vacation payout for me to drop off there laptop and cell phone at a fedex store. I wasn't going to box it up, just drop it off. The other option was that I would put in on my front porch and my boss could drive 300 miles to get it before someone else did.

I did get to keep the  2 monitors and misc other stuff.  I just had to ghost their clients and not tell them I was gone.  They knew the non compete was BS and not enforceable but tried to hold that over me.
 
jake3988 [OhFark]
2023-01-30 8:36:28 AM  

beakerxf: Was mass laid off in 2001 from a dot.com in a group meeting. There was no opportunity to say goodbye even then. It was "sign these papers, here's the number for unemployment, and now this sheriff will watch you box your stuff." I'd rather get the remote lay-off so there's no awkward eye contact with the still employed. Also, I should already have a phone number of anyone I want to continue contact with outside of the job.


Layoffs give notice (60 days required by law) and compensation (1 month severance minimum, generally, though it depends on the state.  The company I work for when they did there's was 1 week of severance per year of employment.  I don't recall there being a minimum beyond 1, but there may have been.  I was not impacted.)

If you're being led out of the building and being told to apply for unemployment, that's a firing.  Just because it was done as a group does not make it a layoff.

/Layoffs don't even have anything to do with the person, they're eliminating a position.
 
blackminded
2023-01-30 9:51:44 AM  

beakerxf: It wasn't my idea to pour a billion dollars into laying a broadband cable network without getting the necessary connection licenses or consumer contracts to make the network legitimate. It wasn't my choice to ultimately shutter all US presence and focus on Europe.


Global Crossing? I interviewed there around 2005. In retrospect, probably best I didn't get the gig.
 
blackminded
2023-01-30 9:55:43 AM  

jake3988: Layoffs don't even have anything to do with the person, they're eliminating a position.


Which is great if that makes you feel better, however when you are interviewing and asked to explain a gap in your resume I assure you that HR will not appreciate the nuance. A hiring manager might if you make it that far.

/might
 
bbmaru
2023-01-30 10:44:41 AM  

jake3988: beakerxf: Was mass laid off in 2001 from a dot.com in a group meeting. There was no opportunity to say goodbye even then. It was "sign these papers, here's the number for unemployment, and now this sheriff will watch you box your stuff." I'd rather get the remote lay-off so there's no awkward eye contact with the still employed. Also, I should already have a phone number of anyone I want to continue contact with outside of the job.

Layoffs give notice (60 days required by law) and compensation (1 month severance minimum, generally, though it depends on the state.  The company I work for when they did there's was 1 week of severance per year of employment.  I don't recall there being a minimum beyond 1, but there may have been.  I was not impacted.)

If you're being led out of the building and being told to apply for unemployment, that's a firing.  Just because it was done as a group does not make it a layoff.

/Layoffs don't even have anything to do with the person, they're eliminating a position.


Oh you sweet, summer child..
 
thenewflesh
2023-01-30 11:00:38 AM  

vudukungfu: Only question I have for HR if I'm fired remote us how much are you paying by the hour to drive to FedEx and return your spyware laden laptop?


Might be different in the US, but at my WFH job in Europe (which was mandatory relocation pre-pandemic, now we have at least 40% staff who couldn't physically commute if they wanted to), I've needed a laptop upgraded recently. They sent the new one, then got a courier to collect the old one from my home the next day. I don't see why the procedure for collection of my current laptop would be any different.

But, then, I am talking about a company that gave a bonus *and* paid for 200+ staff from all over Europe to go to a party near the head office in Munich to reward high profits, wheres it seems that US companies are intent on getting rid of staff regardless of performance, so your mileage might vary, and they tend to focus on actual results rather than micromanaging through spyware.
 
morg
2023-01-30 1:53:52 PM  
I was doing telecom work in central America during the first of many rounds of layoffs. People are dropping like flies, I'm waiting for my manager to get in touch. Finally around 7pm I reach out to him and he says, "Oh, it's a good thing if you don't hear from anyone. You're fine." farking prick.
 
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