r/technology • u/cambeiu • Mar 21 '23
Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email Business
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/20/tech/google-layoffs-employee-culture/index.html2.4k
u/PassengerStreet8791 Mar 21 '23
I remember a colleague who joined Google and when I met him for lunch on their campus I asked so how is the new job going? His first response was “Do you know if I die Google gives my wife 50% of my salary for the next 10 years and my kids get $1000 a month each till they go to college!!”. The guy was 32 at the time. He never left. Still around after the layoffs probably counting the days till he’s dead and his family gets that cushy payout. :p
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u/holypig Mar 21 '23
Lol this is my favorite perk even though it means I'm worth more dead than alive. It's also 2yrs salary and all your stock vests immediately. It's really over the top good life insurance
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u/bwrca Mar 21 '23
Given the average age of employees and the very very low odds a significant number of them are going to die soon, I say this is a very cheap (for them) but powerful benefit
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u/aquoad Mar 21 '23
they've even been sued for trying to discourage and get rid of older employees.
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u/981032061 Mar 21 '23
IBM seems to get sued for that about every five years too. The last time they actually used derogatory language in emails while discussing specifically firing older workers for being old.
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u/DrBoomkin Mar 21 '23
It really is just collective life insurance which is quite cheap. Not sure why people are so excited about it.
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u/therealhood Mar 21 '23
RCA ...24 hr cafeteria would make anything you wanted always $1.50. 2500 ppl employed at our location. GE bought us and 24hrs later ..2300 were laid off
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u/xtrsports Mar 21 '23
GE though is a truly terrible company which is why they keep getting split into different companies.
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u/spoopypoptartz Mar 21 '23
it’s mostly the fact that they’re still recovering from 2008 since GE financialized their business and overleveraged themselves tits up prior to the great recession.
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u/down_up__left_right Mar 21 '23
I'd say they're more so still recovering from Jack Welch even if it took until 2008 to see the damage he did to the company.
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u/jazzzzz Mar 21 '23
Jack Welch started fucking around in financial and insurance markets a manufacturing conglomerate had no business in. Jeff Immelt did some fucking around of his own (blowing billions trying to start a giant software arm from scratch w/ GE Digital and Predix, issuing massive stock buybacks trying to keep the price up) and found out when the insurance liabilities that started accruing under Welch came to light, and Predix failed to make any money back on billions invested. GE is still stuck w/ massive contracts w/ AWS/MS and others tied to Digital that have them on the hook for committed spend in the billions
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u/brufleth Mar 21 '23
Are you suggesting that long term care policies and consumer debt weren't good investments!?!
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u/YallaHammer Mar 21 '23
Yes. Jack Welch’s legacy is understated.
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u/LordoftheSynth Mar 21 '23
"Got an org full of rock stars? Fuck 'em, fire 10% anyway and the rest of them will be scared shitless and live at work. They totally won't go find other jobs." --Jack Welch
Welch got a $417 million severance payment in the end. I don't believe in Hell, but if it's real, I hope that fucker is there.
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u/sayaxat Mar 21 '23
When I was young,naive and ignorant, I read his book and thought he was the shit, until one day I came across a reddit comment mentioning him.
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u/therealhood Mar 21 '23
Yeah he is considered a fucking genius by buying profitable companies and splitting them up and selling them off.
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u/PineSand Mar 21 '23
A lot of companies emulated whatever GE was doing, so collectively, a fuck ton of US corporations fucked themselves.
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u/brufleth Mar 21 '23
That's not even the meat of it. He leveraged GE's capital because he could borrow at a better rate than banks. Then he took bigger risks than banks because the lower rate meant they could afford it, right?
That ended up not being how that works. Those risks were worse than the rates were good.
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u/therealhood Mar 21 '23
RCA owned Hertz and NBC and a slew of other successful companies. RCA sold Hertz for a record $1B CASH.... and controlled one of the largest company funded retirement accounts. That's what Welch (intentional spelling) used to fund his purchase. This directly lead to legislation making it illegal to raid a company pension fund. He personally left thousands of retired and near retirement age employees with nothing.
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u/BezosLazyEye
Mar 21 '23
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Companies are not your friends and even less your family members. Remember that.
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u/jaxxon Mar 21 '23
At my last job, I reported to the founder and CEO. When I was laid off, he apologetically told me that he thought of me as his friend. In all the years I was at the company, he never invited me to visit his home or to hang out while other employees were invited to hang with him regularly. Many of them were laid off as well. “We are a family” was tossed around casually all the time. I know he did feel bad. Nobody likes to lay someone off. But he was delusional about having any kind of meaningful relationship with his employees. Business first. Always.
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u/TheDemonator Mar 21 '23
You learn real quick when you ask them to lunch or coffee sometime as well. Similar to a woman/guy you're hanging out with....if its casual...invite them over sometime. They will likely decline and get upset that the jig is up.
I had never even considered this, until someone I know had a woman ask the same of her. She was like at my old job I asked my boss to do this and was written up by HR, of course I was like RED FLAGS....but whatever
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u/nox_nox Mar 21 '23
CEO of my company whom I previously reported directly to and have known since I started there wants people back in the office but knows well enough not to force them.
It was the day I asked if he'd like to meet for a working lunch (well in advance to schedule had he wanted to) that he's not "my friend" even though he plays the buddy role all the time when trying to get people in the office.
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u/Beliriel Mar 21 '23
I fear I'm that walking red flag but not because I can or won't commit. But because I'm ashamed of showing somebody my absolute travesty of a mess of an apartment. But if someone steps into my flat and doesn't judge me, you have another problem on your hands because now I want to keep that friend and become clingy.
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u/Swiftcheddar Mar 21 '23
There's people at my work that I've never once interacted with after or off hours, that I'd still consider friends. I don't really see why he has to invite you around for BBQ to be friends with you.
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u/IamBabcock Mar 21 '23
Yea I just consider some people "work friends" but I also don't really have non work friends I hang out with either so that might be why it doesn't seem weird to me.
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u/Dredly Mar 21 '23
Bethlehem Steel was beloved as an employer... until it shut everything down and moved to WV and anyone under X tenure either moved or lost their pension too
this is BAU. We just haven't been exposed to Tech Capitalism for a while because its been growing non-stop. suddenly the growth stops, every industry shows their true colors, which are always the same, and people act surprised
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u/charlie2135 Mar 21 '23
Worked at a mill in the 80's and we had to take on poison pills to prevent the vultures from taking over to steal the pension funds. Went from being a well funded business to teetering on the edge and finally falling over when companies would buy subsidized foreign steel.
Fun times.
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u/ohiotechie Mar 21 '23
I‘ve worked for some really good companies and the one thing they all had in common was they were amazing to work for, right up until they weren’t.
You’re not family. There’s no loyalty. It doesn’t matter how much you may have sacrificed for the company over the years, how many of your kids soccer games you missed to deliver on a deadline, how many late nights you spend on zoom calls instead of being with your wife. When your name is on the wrong column of the spreadsheet none of that matters.
Live your life and use your employer to pay for it but never make the mistake of thinking they care about you. They don’t. Your family, spouse, kids, friends, etc are ALL more important.
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u/prostynick Mar 21 '23
t doesn’t matter how much you may have sacrificed for the company over the years, how many of your kids soccer games you missed to deliver on a deadline, how many late nights you spend on zoom calls instead of being with your wife.
I understand there are many professions that require you to do all those things in ordering to keep the job and not get rid of at some point, but that's not in software development. I care 9 to 5. After that I'm out. Very occasionally if it's truly need I'll do anything above that. Lucky to be in this profession
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u/ohiotechie Mar 21 '23
The devs I work with very, very rarely put in a 9-5 day. I suppose it's all about company culture but across several companies I have yet to see a dev team work 9-5. (I'm a PM). That's especially true for escalations, crunch time for big feature releases, etc.
Consider yourself lucky to work for a place where that's the norm - the rest of the industry it most definitely isn't.
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u/Slap-Happy-Pappy Mar 21 '23
Recently learned about the WARN act. Companies of a certain size need to give State/Fed notification 60 days prior to major layoffs. Search WARN act plus your state to review for your employer every now and again. Might not be bulletproof but I did catch a friends employer on the list and it got them looking sooner than later for a new job.
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u/cambeiu Mar 21 '23
Google went around this by keeping everyone they laid off on payroll for 60 days after the announcement.
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u/majinspy Mar 21 '23
That doesn't feel like "going around it" its....adhering to it in a normal way, no? I'd rather have 2 months of salary and zero expected work than have to actually show up for 2 more months out of spite.
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u/Consistent_Ad957 Mar 21 '23
Epic, so employees with a stellar resume and the confidence of knowing they're good enough for Google have two months paid to look for a new job. What's the issue?
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u/RedditBlows5876 Mar 21 '23
If you're in tech, having Google on your resume is pretty stellar. You could likely set up months of straight interviews at every tech shop in the midwest. You would only be making $150-200k and those places wouldn't be as nice to work, but don't expect people to feel very sorry for you.
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u/x3knet Mar 21 '23
Much more than just 60 days.
We’ll pay employees during the full notification period (minimum 60 days).
We’ll also offer a severance package starting at 16 weeks salary plus two weeks for every additional year at Google, and accelerate at least 16 weeks of GSU vesting.
We’ll pay 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time.
We’ll be offering 6 months of healthcare, job placement services, and immigration support for those affected.
Outside the US, we’ll support employees in line with local practices.
https://blog.google/inside-google/message-ceo/january-update/
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u/Consistent_Ad957 Mar 21 '23
Mate people need to direct their energy into things that actually matter rather than feeling pity for people that are more than likely going to be doing absolutely fine lol
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u/CaptainPeachfuzz Mar 21 '23
Yeah I keep seeing all this shit on Google for firing people, ir that "poor" woman that was pregnant? Anyway, they paid out a massive severance for everyone they fired. I'd still work for them.
When my department got cut we got a week's severance after being there for almost 10 years. Again, give me google any day.
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u/Swiftcheddar Mar 21 '23
When my department got cut we got a week's severance after being there for almost 10 years.
Damn, we get a month's severance added for each year we've worked. A week alone sounds insane.
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u/zeusdescartes Mar 21 '23
Exactly. My friend worked at Google and got laid off, she was there for so long that she got severance until end of Nov 2023.
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u/PolicyArtistic8545 Mar 21 '23
There are articles about people trying to get Google to pay out maternity and paternity leave to those that already had it scheduled. We will see if that happens though.
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u/gerd50501 Mar 21 '23
that isn't getting around it. they gave massive layoff packages. if you keep people on payroll for 60 days they also get subsidized medical insurance. your better off with 60 days on payroll than layoff cause you get pay and medical insurance.
Googles layoff package on top of the 60 days notices is 16 weeks plus 2 weeks per year with the company. That package is insane. No one outside of big tech gets that.
your just making stuff up.
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u/thuktun Mar 21 '23
Basically, this was WARN notification, they just locked everyone affected out of physical and network resources as of the announcement.
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u/suxatjugg Mar 21 '23
It's called gardening leave and it's not something to be mad about. They're paying you but you don't have to work.
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u/OhioVsEverything Mar 21 '23
Honest question that I thought of seeing the headline.
What's considered the proper way to layoff an employee who works from home?
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u/Blrfl Mar 21 '23
I was a remote worker at a startup that laid me off on its way to going under in 2015. It went pretty much as it should: my boss called and said there was to be a meeting with him and HR in 30 minutes. The three of us got on a call and I was let go pretty much like it would happen in person. It was the first time I'd ever left a company at their request rather than mine and, while that aspect of it sucked eggs, I have no complaints about how it was handled.
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u/vozome Mar 21 '23
The google lay-off email was sent at 2AM pacific time / 5AM East coast time to US employees, in the night between Thursday and Friday. Most employees come to the office Tuesday through Thursday as per company policy. So affected folks were not in the office by design.
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u/Electronic_Permit300 Mar 21 '23
AOL was also a beloved employer, until their weren’t. Empires rise and fall.
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u/boot2skull Mar 21 '23
Seems like the good days coincide with stock growth. Once the stock growth reduces or stagnates, or the board gets restless for more profits, the heydays are over. No shame in hopping from company to company to take advantage of this. They don’t hesitate to fire to make someone else money.
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u/makesterriblejokes Mar 21 '23
Yep, just happened to me and my now former company. Had great startup energy with a very young and personable c-suite. Then they started growing, acquiring new companies, and then sales started to dry up and client churn rose towards the end of 2022 to now. I made it until the 3rd round of layoffs.
Company went from about 150 employees when I joined over 450 before the layoffs began. This was in a 3 year span that includes the start and end of the pandemic as well. Grew way too fast and now share holders are panicking.
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u/HorseRadish98 Mar 21 '23
They've reached the maximum the market can give them, literally controlling the industry. Investors of course want even more, can't be content with thinking of Google as a stability stock, and thus will tank the company as they look in the short term - cutting staff, cutting operating costs, cutting anything that doesn't make the stock go up until it IBMs itself.
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u/m0rogfar Mar 21 '23
The problem with Google as a stability stock instead of one that does even more, is that they spent roughly 40 billion dollars in 2022 trying to do even more, instead of paying them out as dividends to investors. That’s not really what you’d expect from a stability stock, and they’ve painted an enormous target on themselves to deliver growth by doing that, because if they just sit there, where did all the money go?
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u/cujo195 Mar 21 '23
And if they're not going to spend all that money on R&D projects trying to do more, then what do they do with all of the talent they hired specifically to do exactly that? They'd have to let go of a large percentage of their workforce.
Either way you look at it, the company will need to downsize unless it can continue developing new technology to generate new income.
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u/Uncertn_Laaife Mar 21 '23
Hence, I joined a Govt sector. Making less but peace of mind in the midst of these layoffs.
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u/eyalane Mar 21 '23
These big tech companies got so much free PR by offering cheap employee perks that were the gold standard for valuing employees for years. Employees filled out best place to work surveys, wore branded everything, made the tech company they worked for their personality.
But these are businesses. They care about shareholders and making money. They rebranded HR to “employee success” and “people ops” to make it seem like you mattered, they cared. They never have.
Unfortunately most people learn this the hard way during b.s. layoffs. Learn it before you drink the company kool-aid. Take a job at face value. Take the paycheck and go home. Bond with coworkers, not the company. You’ll be happier at work and won’t feel so personally victimized if you’re ever fired. It’s just business.
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u/HorseRadish98 Mar 21 '23
I've seen so many companies with HR departments being "Quirky" and "Fun" with titles like "Department of PEOPLE" and "Head of personalities" all so gung ho on company culture. All fun and games until they have to lay off 10% of the staff, then you don't hear HR being so quirky.
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u/Uncertn_Laaife Mar 21 '23
Don’t forget the coveted Yoga, That’s dime a dozen outside of the campus for $25/month. Younglings out of college love these meaningless perks.
I haven’t started on the fucking ping pong tables.
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u/Logical___Conclusion Mar 21 '23
All fun and games until they have to lay off 10% of the staff, then you don't hear HR being so quirky.
That does bring up an important question.
What would HR rebrand themselves as if they were trying to be fun and quirky during layoffs?
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u/MightApprehensive222 Mar 21 '23
Department of head hunters?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fold466 Mar 21 '23
Department of head choppers
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Mar 21 '23
Is it a game where everyone has to stand up and introduce themselves plus three intreffing faccs aboot yurserf for the one new person that’s only there for the day to give the news?
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u/dak-sm Mar 21 '23
Hi! I’m Beth. I have a Golden Retriever, love pizza, and knit hats for the homeless in my free time. I brought one for each of you.
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u/EnglishMobster Mar 21 '23
I worked at a big gaming company that had layoffs recently. My entire studio was shut down, and all my coworkers (plus myself) were fired.
"For any questions, please see your People Practices Partner!" 🥲
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u/patchwood Mar 21 '23
The only thing that really stand out to me is how all these articles write about being laid off by email. Like.. does anyone actually want to be laid off in person?
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u/sotired3333 Mar 21 '23
You’d expect your manager to talk to you but with ten thousand plus laid off I’d expect your manager gone too.
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u/charlesdarwinandroid Mar 21 '23
Cheap employee perks? Google has nearly a hundred completely free restaurants on their campuses that serve breakfast and lunch, and several serve dinner. They have rental cars to complete errands. They provide thousands of bikes to navigate campus. The microkitchens have thousands of dollars of free snacks, all free, all stocked daily or twice a day. Cheap employee perks isn't how Google does perks.
And I would say, that you are right about the business not caring about the employees... but they did care at one point, and that's why so many Googlers are disenfranchised. It used to be a community that you could directly ask the billionaire founders hard questions and they would answer and change things that were concerning. Now, the lawyers write the responses, and the founders aren't available.
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u/ProfessorPhi Mar 21 '23
It's genuinely a smart move. The 1000s of dollars in snacks are amortized across a large population. I think I remember seeing a figure that it was <5k per employee spent per year, and this is a recent figure.
You cut down wasted time when people go on lunch breaks, in other firms, it was common for people to take fairly long lunches (as they would walk to the restaurant, stood in line for food, looked for a table, ran an errand, walked back), while those that provide it would have people done and dusted in 30-40 minutes max. Also less time having lunch with friends, maybe hearing about other job offers haha.
When people are all paid 130k+ it's a really good deal. Additionally, it's heavily valued by employees. If they bought lunch every day, that's like 5k which is like 9k pre-tax. But for the company it's a tax write off, so it's discounted for them. It's a very smart benefit and any place that pays well should be doing it by default. It looks expensive in aggregate, but it's actually very good bang for buck.
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u/Kyanche Mar 21 '23
You cut down wasted time when people go on lunch breaks, in other firms, it was common for people to take fairly long lunches (as they would walk to the restaurant, stood in line for food, looked for a table, ran an errand, walked back), while those that provide it would have people done and dusted in 30-40 minutes max. Also less time having lunch with friends, maybe hearing about other job offers haha.
Also teams/coworkers go to lunch together and talk about work things. Then it's like they never actually took a break. No context switch needed. LOL.
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u/DrBoomkin Mar 21 '23
I work in a tech company that isn't Google and I have all the perks you mentioned. Most of it isn't even relevant anymore now when most people work remotely and show up in the office maybe once or twice a week.
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u/charlesdarwinandroid Mar 21 '23
My point was that it's the exact opposite of cheap to provide most of the actual perks. Swag shirts, cheap. A one stop shop campus, not cheap.
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u/BruinBound22 Mar 21 '23
Honestly an email would be my preferred way. Want me to waste time in a meeting or commuting in just to be let go? It's not like any questions about the layoff will actually be answered.
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u/pfroo40 Mar 21 '23
Having been through this process recently, there is really only one question anyone has: "Why me?". And they will never give you the real answer.
Easier to accept that your value to them is only as a line item on a spreadsheet and move on.
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u/throwaway_coy4wttf79 Mar 21 '23 edited Mar 21 '23
Having been through this process recently, there is really only one question anyone has: "Why me?". And they will never give you the real answer.
Director here who's had to do layoffs a few times. Here's the real answer:
If your whole division/team/group was laid off, then it's just bad luck. The company needed to divest in something and that's about it -- it never was about you, personally. There just wasn't enough money to feed the capitalistic machine (earnings for shareholders) and pay your department as well. Between the two, shareholders win.
If you were laid off but others right next to you weren't (and the management structure stays mostly intact), then it's because you were stack ranked against your peers with a cut line. Sometimes you're cut because you're the runt of the group (which at a place like Google probably means you're still in the top 10% of developers worldwide, but when surrounded by excellence it doesn't take much.) Sometimes it's still bad luck. (A manager picks their top 7 out of 9 that they want to keep, but the cut line is at 5, so they start flipping coins). Some bosses do this based on output and business impact, other bosses do it based on who they like. Some bosses are quietly happy to get rid of people they didn't have the guts to fire. Some bosses lament the decision for days on end. Everyone is different. People are people. Bosses have bosses too.
We often can't admit to stack ranking because it can get get dicey wrt discrimination law, but there's wide latitude in layoffs -- managers can point to the tiniest bit of documented negative performance and the courts clear it. So it happens behind the scenes.
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u/FreshEclairs Mar 21 '23
Want me to waste time in a meeting or commuting in just to be let go?
They sent the emails out at 2am. A bunch of people did commute in, only to discover that their badges didn't work.
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u/megamindbirdbrain Mar 21 '23
It's a fun time to be looking for a job in tech rn 😔🥔
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u/Beachdaddybravo Mar 21 '23
I got laid off (not from Google) last month and have been taking my time to unplug and study for some certs before finding a new sales gig. Even hired a career coach. Sure, it’s a terrible time, but I’ve been able to distract myself about it so far. Here’s to hoping we (and all the people laid off) find new better gigs soon.
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u/Garlic_Bread_God Mar 21 '23
Has your career coach been helpful or is it too early to tell?
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u/TheB1GLebowski Mar 21 '23
Can't there just be decent places to work 30+ years and retire with money in the bank? I've worked for some pretty major companies, they're all a shell of their former glory. I just want a place I can happily work, get paid, put years in, and retire. Shouldn't be so fucking depressing.
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u/TheSpatulaOfLove Mar 21 '23
GenXer here. I was told this was how it worked…and it was a lie.
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Mar 21 '23
They hired one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever met to run their HR. Not even remotely joking.
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u/lenzflare Mar 21 '23
HR works for management. Anyone heading HR will reflect this in spades.
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u/Stonebagdiesel Mar 21 '23
I know a girl who was laid off from google back in January. She got about a $120k severance package. She found a new job in 3 weeks and it pays more than google did. Getting laid off sucks, but getting laid off from google definitely sucks the least.
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u/spamky23 Mar 21 '23
The title reminds me of a joke: you can build bridges all your life but you fuck one donkey...
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u/racknstackmack Mar 21 '23
I was one of them.
Google poached me from a comfortable job at a competing tech firm a year ago, promoted me in December, then remote shut off my computer at the end of January with a pregnant wife at home.
I had to tell my own boss I’d been let go.
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u/DrBergeron Mar 21 '23
Same with direct management not knowing, I emailed mine to say what the fuck, you couldn't have given me a heads up in our 1:1 the day before and he had also been laid off 😅
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u/TRAFICANTE_DE_PUDUES Mar 21 '23
Same. My job at Google was laying people off. And I got laid off by seeing my name in the list of people to lay off that month. I went ahead laid myself off - I actually reserved a 1-hour 1-1 slot with myself (e.g. a 1-0 slot) and gave me the bad news.
A week after I was re-laid off by email, with a worse package, so I denied and showed them the agreed previous package. So there's that
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u/Worried_Lawfulness43 Mar 21 '23
I think these big tech companies realize that they don’t have to do the song and dance of caring about their employees, because there will always be fresh new minds lining up around the corner to get hired at google and work on the most cutting edge technology. This will not be the case forever based on their treatment of people, and every giant falls sometime.
Plus if you have thousands of employees you can just say fuck ‘em and determine you don’t truly have the time to nicely and ethically lay everyone off.
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u/ramoneguru Mar 21 '23
Heard some gnarly ones, but this one sucked since he was laid off twice by the same company LinkedIn post
Imagine going into work and your badge doesn't let you past the gates. You tell security there's a problem and they have to break the news to you like, "we were told there were layoffs today and that some badges might not work anymore." Can't even let you go face to face, letting email do the dirty work.
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u/h2ogal Mar 21 '23
It’s the business cycle. It’s usually best to work at a place that is growing and profitable.
Once it peaks the only response is cost cutting. Lower raises and bonuses, cuts to benefits, scrutiny of expense reports.
Time to go. Find a company on the way up.
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u/MyBeesAreAssholes Mar 21 '23
A friend of mine was fired while on maternity leave after 15 years with Google.
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u/LaniusCruiser Mar 21 '23
Employers are not to be loved nor respected, they are to be used as a means to an end.
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u/odelik Mar 21 '23
At least they got an email.
Amazon has been announcing large sweeping business changes via press release lately.
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u/gizamo Mar 21 '23
Amazon makes the announcements, but they also contact people directly.
Source: friends work at Amazon. Some were told their jobs were not in jeopardy. Some were laid off via email, and some in person with an HR rep.
That said, I'm not shilling for Amazon. They've tried to recruit me, and I have no interest in working for them.
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u/aquoad Mar 21 '23
everybody I know who's worked there, from fulfillment centers to software development, has said it's an awful employer.
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u/LemurianLemurLad Mar 21 '23
I'm sorry. Our metrics indicate that you took an extra 3.2 seconds to write that post. I'm afraid you've been preemptively fired from Amazon.
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u/Xylth Mar 21 '23
Last time I did a round of job interviews, every single company I interviewed at one of the interviewers spontaneously warned me not to work for Amazon.
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u/cinemachick Mar 21 '23
I work in the media, I was laid off via a news article once
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u/flecom Mar 21 '23
hah, same, someone posted an article to reddit about the demise of a company I was working for, called my boss and asked when my last day was, he was confused, emailed him the article... "uhhh... I'll call you back"
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u/essaitchthrowaway3 Mar 21 '23
Their CEO has done irreparable harm to the company.
If you asked just about anyone 12 months ago if they could see Google failing, they'd look at you like you were crazy. This was one of th3 most valuable companies on the planet. Cutting edge tech and a seemingly endless stream of new innovations. They might have been known for canceling projects prematurely, but because they always had something in the oven, you knew there was some new Google product that you'd be interested in.
I'm not so sure anymore.
These cuts seem to have been done so poorly and so haphazardly, that I really feel like they've ruined that culture of innovation that they used to have that drove them forwards. I've read a lot about both how the cuts were implemented and I feel that even the people who remain, won't be as enthusiastic with generating fresh new ideas like in the past. They really seem to have shot themselves in the foot, I feel, and Google moving forward will not be the same as Google of the past.
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u/Ilyketurdles Mar 21 '23
I hope sundar is the balmer of Google and there are better things for the company ahead.
But I’m ex-Microsoft and currently at google so I’m definitely biased.
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u/essaitchthrowaway3 Mar 21 '23
He needs to be removed quickly, but it doesn't look like he is going anywhere any time soon since the Board is probably only focused on short-term profits right now.
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u/Ilyketurdles Mar 21 '23
Oh yeah, for sure agree on both points. I didn’t mean “hope things are better right away”, but in the future.
Morale is kinda low I think. People are worried because top performers were let go, so how hard you work or how good you are didn’t save you from being laid off.
Google hasn’t been giving great offers lately either. I’ve gotten offers from other companies paying much more recently. They handled Covid poorly and now are forcing people into offices when there really isn’t a need to.
The town halls are often a shit show and it’s clear when sundar is dodging a question with some canned response.
Idk, it’s frustrating because the name does have a lot of prestige still but that only goes so far, and is also falling.
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u/WhoaEazzzyTurbo Mar 21 '23 •
There was a time if you worked for big blue IBM, you were set for life. The benefits alone wouldn’t be believed by those coming into the workforce today.