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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

Yes, you're missing something. Namely this:

> That number is roughly 4 percent of the company’s total employees. It comes just weeks after Riccitiello told explicitly employees in an all-hands meeting that layoffs weren’t coming.

So if the "top minds" at the company decides layoffs aren't on the table, but does them anyways, something is seriously wrong. If they knew layoffs are coming but told people they are not, something is seriously wrong.

No matter how you turn and twist it, that quote makes it clear that something is seriously wrong in the management at the company. If I was working there, I would also be stressed out at this point, especially since my first thought would be that 4% wouldn't be enough, and I'm next.

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Every time I lived through layoffs, they were absolutely not going to happen.

No manager wants the fire in building attitude with everyone running away.

I think you hit the nail on the head there.

Eh it's also a polite way of saying that they're getting rid of the worst performers. There's a balance. Firing bad employees can improve productivity and morale of those that remain. I'd say at most of the companies I've worked for there's been at least 4% of employees that we'd have been better off firing and rolling the dice finding a replacement.

Sure, I have nothing against companies doing so, at long as they are up front about it. That's not what happened here. It would be like they are saying "We're not gonna fire people for poor performance" and then some weeks later announce "We're gonna start firing people for poor performance". It just looks really bad on management.

Running a business isn't easy. And the right decision last week can be the wrong one today. I gag when I hear about employees wanting to share in the ownership of a company that didn't structure itself that way, especially when they only want to share the gains, not the losses.

I've been in companies that did layoffs. I've expressed to colleagues that I'd rather take a pay cut and keep everyone onboard. Most companies are not democracies. Execs make the hard decisions. Some are jerks, most aren't. I used to be friends with someone who was HR director for a women's beauty products company. He showed up for a sporting activity telling us he'd shut down a line of products and laid off nearly a hundred people. And he got a $60k bonus. i asked him how he felt about the folks laid off. He said "nothing he could do, it was happening with or without him". He didn't like my comment about it'd be nice if he donated that bonus to be spread across those former employees. He bought a bigger boat. We... aren't friends anymore.

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