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Comment by itslennysfault | Hacker News Reader

Several years ago I was working at one of the largest tech companies in the world, and there were rumors of layoffs in our org. We had a huge all hands meeting (over 1000 people in the room), and at the end the VP asked if there were any questions. I straight up asked him if that was happening. Every eye in the room glared at me in surprise. He assured me that was just a rumor and we had nothing to worry about, and "as far as he knew" there were no cuts upcoming. THE NEXT DAY they laid off 100 people. I was not laid off, but I started looking for other work because he lied to my face. About 2 months later I was turning in my badge and was very blunt on my exit questionnaire about the reason.

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I'm no apologist for overpaid middle management, but... I'm not sure what the best response would actually be to this kind of question. If you answer "yes," but the final layoffs aren't finalized... you initiate widespread panic, because everyone worries that they could get laid off. If you answer "no," you're a dishonest snake. If you know exactly which departments are facing layoffs, you could answer "yes" and just jump the gun to announce they layoffs right at that moment, but... you'll still end up stressing a lot of people out and hurting general productivity.

Not trying to make up excuses for the lying here, but I'm genuinely curious what a VP should do in this position. Lie for the good of the many? Or be truthful to keep a clean conscience?

When it happened at my previous company several years ago, the CIO was honest and upfront. We were on our 2nd down tick in retail and he said in the next few months they would be letting contractors go. A few months after that he told us they might be laying off or outsourcing certain departments. A few months after that he told us which areas would be effected and that individuals would know if they are being let go on one of 2 days back to back. Everyone knew if they made it through those days they were safe. Then they gave those employees let go 6 months to offload responsibilities, and helped them find new jobs.

That's impressive. It is very hard to communicate this kind of news without getting tangled up in your own emotions.

IMO the fact that the employees anticipated that layoffs were coming and leadership still didn’t preemptively quell that sentiment means someone already made a mistake. I’m sympathetic to how difficult it can be to relay unpleasant news, but it’s sort of like getting the lifeboats ready before your ship hits the iceberg.

Are MBAs still taught the duties of leadership? Or are they just told to get out with enough cash for their next venture?

A core tenant of any MBA program is to inculcate a duty to shareholders vs. employees. Your duty of leadership extends as far as it takes to optimize organizational outputs for quarterly goals that move share price up.

Employees should take the exact same attitude with their job. Your duty as an employee is to optimize your compensation ( However you define compensation it doesn't have to be just money).

Same thing with honesty. If the employer isn't going to give you advanced notice that you may be fired, you have no obligation to tell them that you are thinking about quitting.

Agree.

At almost every place I've worked there's this super pervasive "family" notion as-if they wouldn't eject you the moment it was in their best interests. I wish we could drop that pretense - it's just dishonest.

Then drop it. I’m serious. If the company wants to do that whole “we are a family” thing, let them.

While you don’t have to be an aggrandizing ass in going about it, you don’t have to reciprocate the “family ties” either.

Be the distant uncle, if you have to (this probably works less the higher up the chain you go, however)

This is about to be a ton of _personal_ anecdotes that outline why "then just drop it" isn't always as simple as that.

I often use the "office beers" analogy on here to discuss the prevalent requirement of socializing in the workplace these days. To me, I have no interest in knocking off at 2pm on a Friday to participate in office drinking culture and it's 100% screwed me in the past.

To me, I should be able to just work. I have no obligation to go go-karting, to drink with you, to talk at your toastmasters, to go bar crawl on a RAGBRI bus... whatever it may be. I add value by fulfilling my obligation of labor. Not by "team building." And, with that - I feel that if I achieve my deliverables then I should be able to go home and live my private life. Simple.

> Be the distant uncle, if you have to (this probably works less the higher up the chain you go, however)

You are 100% correct - the higher up you want to get the more you have to socialize and pander to the corporate "family." I've found this to be ubiquitous across employers to the point that I prefer more contract/smaller-shop work where it is not as prevalent.

Also, I want to note by being the distant uncle you are often hurting yourself for advancement. You have to go buddy-buddy with folks to get on their radar, and in a sizable team on the west coast there's a good chance one of your colleagues is doing just that with your management. Regardless of output - it's oft the person who has socialized/marketed more that will get the advancement.

Sorry - but in my _personal experience_ it is very much not as simple as "just drop it" in regards to that family pretense. If you even remotely want to "climb the ladder" you must participate at some level...

Also, I want to note by being the distant uncle you are often hurting yourself for advancement.

If you don't mind trafficking one personal anecdote for another, I've heard this since I entered the corporate workforce at 19 (got a wee bit lucky there), and in my mid-to-late 30's, I've been demonstrably more protective and distant of the boundaries between work and self

the result in the last six years has been making more money and adding the word "Principal" to my job title.

These are mere anecdotes, I think we've found common ground admitting that much, but I don't think I buy into many of the notions that continue getting harped on about what will and wont "hurt" my career advancement anymore; as most of them have just been means of corralling behavior and only brought me burnout and stress.

> Are MBAs still taught the duties of leadership? Or are they just told to get out with enough cash for their next venture?

Actively taught or not, capitalism specifically optimizes for the latter.

So your idea is that if you're a VP and your choices are to tell everyone the truth or lie to everyone, you'd rather lie to save yourself a single day of uncertainty.

Meanwhile, the people you're about to lay off are definitely getting laid off anyway, and the people you're keeping now have zero reason to trust you or your leadership. And your rationalization for this is you're doing it for the "good of the many."

This has nothing to do with "a clean conscience." This has to do with whether your employees feel that you're being honest with them. Even the career-focused snakes don't want to work for a boss who lie when asked a direct question.

This. The correct answer is yes we're really sorry there will be layoffs.

If there is one thing I've learned in life is that once you've betrayed someone's trust it can never be regained to the original state.

That's why the correct answer is 'I'm not aware of any, but I wouldn't necessarily be made aware in advance.' It's still a lie but not one you can be called out on without insider knowledge.

"We believe we are in a stable situation, but depending on how the market performs or our sales projections (insert whatever here) we may be forced to limit additional hiring or even let some employees go. If we get to that point, you'll be the first to know as security drags you screaming from your desk."

(Probably not the last point, but a decent joke might actually work, or, better yet have a "layoff emergency warchest" so that everyone knows if they DO get laid off they'll get X months severances, or whatever.)

We had open new all hands meeting and allowed questions for management at my stint at big defense company. People asked pointed questions (why aren't our raises keeping up with inflation? was one I remember. The company doesn't owe us raises was the agitated response). Management looked terrible.

After a couple of those meeting, questions where to but submitted by email in advance.... I left not long after.

Who else read that story and is finding themselves having trouble figuring out what should have been done between “lie” and “don’t lie”?

Just curious.

Give a non-answer explaining that you need to keep all options on the table at all times.

Don't have all-hands meetings with open, unknown questions where you are forced to decide between lying to your staff or terrifying your staff.

I think by the time you get to that point, you have no good options.

However, if the status of the company is more adequately described to the employees over time, you can "boil the frog" as it were, and never have to actually lie but still admit that layoffs may be coming if X or Y doesn't happen.

I bet it's much MORE common for the lie to happen in pre-public stages, where they're still trying to "sell" the company as perfectly sized and poised to grow to investors, VCs, etc.

Speak the truth. "I can't answer this kind of a question. If I answer 'yes', then there will be undue stress on the people that are not getting laid off. If I answer 'no', but the business requires layoffs, then I will be lying."

The problem is, it is to the advantage of every manager who is not laying people off to say “Absolutely not”. Every employee is aware that managers have this incentive, so anything other than “Absolutely not” is likely to mean “Yes”. There is no collective incentive for managers at different companies to all answer “I can’t say” in order to give each other plausible deniability.

Correct. And sometimes the world will literally feed you to the lions for speaking truth. Yet some choose to speak truth anyways.

[No, I don't have that kind of fiber myself, sadly.]

If I heard that, I would definitely be thinking "yes".

Could be. Perhaps the question was asked some time ago, received the same answer, and there were no layoffs. Consistency is paramount.

The answer is to to be straight up and make it clear that you can't answer that specific question in that instance because of how the real world works... but reassure people that you will be as straightforward and fair as you can be when you can answer.

Anyone with more than two brain cells will see that as a yes.

You have the all hands on the day after the layoff rather than the day before the layoff so that the question, if it is asked, is asked in private rather than in public.

>what a VP should do in this position

"I don't recall having been told that any layoffs are imminent, but even if I had been told that they were, that would be confidential information and I wouldn't be at liberty to say."

I have learned the hard way that CEOs are some of the most dishonest people on the planet, right up there next to salespeople.

Just to provide a counterpoint, my personal experiences with the CEO of my company have been consistently positive. I consider him worthy of my trust, and I am a naturally skeptical person. The company has grown to hundreds of employees, but he's still approachable and direct as ever.

It puts a smile on my face when upper management squats in a conference room I need for a scheduled interview, and I can tell the candidate they just booted the CEO and director of engineering.

I've met a few, and they are a rare treasure, but in nearly every case my time with them is limited as something always happens that sees them gone. Whether it's retirement, getting ousted by the board, selling the company, or death (by cancer), it seems like whoever is brought in afterwards is always worse.

It really seems like wherever I get hired, the situation always changes dramatically after 1-2 years and the workplace goes downhill. My work life is like a continuous series of bait-and-switches. It is really, really tiresome.

Here is to hoping that self-employment is not so dramatic.

I've been at 2 smaller companies when layoffs were on the table. One handled it great, one like crap.

Company #1 had a meeting and just plain out said it.. "we need to cut 20% of the payroll budget. So we need to decide between 20% layoffs and 20% pay cuts." We took the latter option as we liked our team and the company recovered in a couple years.

Company #2 did the traditional "everything is fine" even though everyone knew it was bullshit and no one was surprised when they announced the layoffs. Most of the people already had started looking along with a lot of other people. They laid off around 25% but due the the way they handled it they suffered around 50% attrition.

I've been in quite a few situations over the last three years where you want scream that shit is about to hit the fan because you have access to privileged info, but you can't. I did have to avoid a lot of conversation or point blank say I don't know. Not trying to excuse the CEO,but often it's a bit more complicated than yes or no.

If it's "one of the largest tech companies in the world", I legitimately don't think 100 people counts as a "layoff", does it? This company must have tens of thousands of employees if it's "one of the largest in the world" and has over 1000 people in a single room during an all-hands.

It is generally assumed that companies pull this shit. If I get fired the government pays me my salary for a year while I'm looking for another job.

I don't really blame corporations, the moment that they admit weakness is when the hyenas show up.

> If I get fired the government pays me my salary for a year while I'm looking for another job.

Theoretically. My experience was that getting unemployment benefits as a skilled worker is practically impossible. You have to interview constantly, and there are lots of companies interviewing recently laid off tech workers, and they offer crap salaries knowing that only so many offers can be turned down before your claims are rejected.

VP may have not know about it until the day.

The days we did layoffs at my previous company it came as a shock for everyone, including middle managers. The VP got into a long and sudden meeting and then they announced it.

His action was the only rational one. The fact you don't realize that does not make you look intelligent.

Respectfully disagree. The fact that you can't see the flaw in losing the trust of your entire organization does not make you look intelligent.

Over the course of the next 6 months all of the top performers left. Some stayed within the company and went outside of that VP's org. Most left for other companies. Most of these people had been with the company 5+ years.

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