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Comment by MattBearman | Hacker News Reader

  "Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to 
  give it to you straight."

Three paragraphs later...

  "So we have made an extremely tough decision: we plan to part ways with 
  up to 336 people from across the company."

Edit: My bad, I should have been clearer in what I meant. There isn't really any corporate speak, but I wouldn't call 3 paragraphs of fluff 'giving it to you straight'

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It's not great, but it's certainly better than something like "We've decided to move forward with a new strategic initiative that will involve a synergistic restructuring of our organizations and in that process it's possible that some people may find themselves seeking opportunities"...

Gah, I really hate those "our firing you is your opportunity" lines.

It's more like "our incompetence has forced us to fire you but of course we, the incompetent ones, will stay; think of this as your opportunity to find a better company without incompetent management, good luck with that".

Where I work, they called it a "workforce rebalancing," which I thought was a nice touch.

Or "plan social" in french.

Meh, same shit... Somebody got fired after working very hard on a product, that's all I know.

None of the people who got fired are like "OMG... Jack is such a great guy for firing us without so much fluff"

If anything is just good for him, and press, just for him, if anything his message basically say "We want a strong twitter and you are weak".

That is very clear communication. A very specific number of people to be let go.

Corporate speak usually refers to deliberately obfuscatory language, and I see none of that in what he wrote.

How is that corporate speak? I'm sure it was a tough decision and "parting ways" while maybe isn't the most direct way to say it, is far from obscure corporate jargon.

Because there are two intervening paragraphs of corporate speak between the "giving it straight" and that which was supposedly given straight.

What about that seems like corporate speak to you?

not OP, but what was announced 3 paragraphs later could have been written in the same sentence: "Emails like this are usually riddled with corporate speak so I'm going to give it to you straight: we plan to part ways with up to 336 people from across the company."

For a half-page email, this seems awfully nit-picky :)

I'm not OP but I'm guessing "...we plan to part ways..." - however, twitter is hardly going to say "...we decide to sack..."

Probably saying 'part ways with' rather than 'lay off'

Specific numbers like that makes for a nice change. So far touch wood I've never been in a company where layoffs have happened, but people I know who have been often just get notice that "some" layoffs will happen and it rarely seems like most of management has a clue how many they're intending to cut, with there being some target $$ value in salary reduction or similar in mind.

Often the process then more broadly resembles a farce, with managers trying to protect their mini-empires by sabotaging others. Giving an explicit number seems to indicate that Twitter has a clear idea of exactly what they're trying to do here.

Even getting notice that layoffs are happening is doing well. At one company (somewhat awkwardly in my first week there) everyone was rounded up into a meeting area, and it was announced that layoffs were happening, and by the end of the day we'd know if we still had a job.

Later on in that job they handled it even worse, with a gradual attrician over several weeks of people suddenly finding out they no longer has a job, and would be paid their notice period. No idea how things went from there, since that was when I jumped ship.

(And hello! I still find it a bit odd when I see people I know commenting on Hacker News.)

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