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Comment by kasey_junk | Hacker News Reader

> People are laid off when they are not necessary to a company’s future.

I think it is important for everyone to note that no one is necessary to a company's future. If you work for a company where that is true of you, or any other employee, it is a bad position to be in. You work for an extremely shaky employer.

At the end of the day, layoffs do not happen based on merit. They happen based on cost, or revenue, or a wide variety of other factors outside of your control. I've been in meetings where 1 group that was demonstrably better by every metric we picked was still let go over another group. The reason was the lease terms on the office space they were in.

Anyone that tells you that you can save your job in the face of layoffs due to changing your working habits is manipulating you.

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I don't disagree with your point, but I wouldn't say this is 100% true.

I've seen where layoffs happen and the management of different sections asked to make cuts get to pick the members they want to layoff. So while you may not be able to save your job in every situation, there are definitely cases where you can.

This makes perfect sense. I like to describe corporations as sociopathic entities that will do anything to anyone if it makes or saves them a buck in the long run (including firing your ass).

As an employer, I agree.

As an individual, I'm a pretty nice guy, but as an employer, my motivations are much more directed toward the bottom line - balancing the company's business in a short term and long term view.

I don't mean to single you out, but I just think it's bizarre that people cease to be humans when they go to work and have an ultimate duty to their organization above human dignity. Or that there is this bifurcation of work reality and 'life' reality. It really commoditizes the idea of being a good person.

Why do you find this odd? I consider my colleagues to be overall pretty decent people, but there are many, many things I would say to a friend of mine that I'd never say to a coworker or team lead -- especially a team lead.

I'm not sure where you're reading "above human dignity" into the comments. In many situations, companies will try to accommodate people who are having issues of whatever sort; it's not always red of tooth and claw. But sometimes it does just have to be "just business," especially at the macro level for the benefit of not only investors but also other employees.

It's not that different if someone is just doing some work for me personally. If they have a personal issue someday, by all means they should go deal with it. But I'm not going to cut endless slack for poor workmanship or whatever just because I know they really need a job.

> In many situations, companies will try to accommodate people who are having issues of whatever sort

That's probably because it's easier and cheaper to accommodate people to an extent rather than replace them. Think about how little tolerance minimum wage food service jobs have for peoples' personal life. That's because you can literally replace those people off the street and a brand new employee is extremely productive relative to an experienced employee in a very short time. None of those things are true in a professional environment.

There's certainly some truth in that--although I'm not sure how unique to business relationships it is. The more one has invested in a relationship generally, the more they'll generally put into smoothing over a rough patch or making changes that allow the relationship to continue. Conversely, the more transactional the arrangement is, the more likely you are to terminate it if the immediate benefits aren't worth it. This applies whether employees, suppliers, plumbers, or whatever.

As an emoloyer, I have also consider the income of my family and the income of my other employees.

A classic example is tolerating behaviour that generates legal liability: as a friend I like dirty jokes, but at the office the same joke may be unacceptable.

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