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Comment by kennend3 | Hacker News Reader

> Saying you'd rather be fired is such a privileged position to be in.

it is rather generous of you to completely invalidate her opinion/views because they don't match yours.

I guess in her opinion, given a choice of being dehumanized and forced to quit, or being fired upfront she would rather "rip the bandaid off quickly" and be fired instead.

The end result was the same, she left but didn't need to be forced to quit first simply to avoid paying her severance.

People have different experiences, her's was she would rather be fired, perhaps you would rather be shuffled around and forced to quit instead and that is just fine.

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Being given an incredibly easy, remote role at your existing salary is dehumanizing? Seems a pretty mild circumstance to throw that term around for.

That is your take on the article?

I read it much differently:

"In the weeks that followed, Eliza’s professional life became much quieter. Instead of formulating the London-based events agency’s marketing strategy from the office or attending live shows as part of her remit, her main duties now consisted of simply being available between 0900 and 1800, sending the occasional email and completing the odd routine task from home. "

Seems she was doing important work, then made to do degrading work in an attempt to get her to quit.

When she joined, did she apply for a position doing this work? Did she apply for an internal transfer from her current position to this one?

It is astonishing that people such as yourself cant see what is clearly taking place here. She wasn't given an easy remote job.. she was transferred so she would quit and avoid a severance payout.

She was transferred...to an easy remote job. Yes it was not the exact job she had before, but I would hardly call that 'dehumanizing'. That was not my take on the article as a whole, merely a response to some overly-hyperbolic (IMO) language in the comment I replied to.

Do you really share the opinion that being fired on the spot is less dehumanizing than being given a chance to look for another job while being given a steady paycheck?

I'm not trying to be generous -- I don't want to live in a world where it's the norm for employers to rip the floor up from under people. I don't care if some people are so secure in their finances they prefer that world.

> Do you really share the opinion that being fired on the spot is less dehumanizing than being given a chance to look for another job while being given a steady paycheck?

Did you read what I wrote at all? SHE had the opinion that she would rather be fired...

She didn’t like the job and the expectations made of her. The job was a “poor fit”. She “feared the worse” (getting fired? I thought that is what she preferred). She was given a job that was less stressful and within her abilities, but that was “dehumanizing”. I suspect she was not doing the job adequately and that necessitated the company to make a change. Could there be a more gentle change?

In my opinion, she was given a gift. The opportunity to find another job while working with a safety net that would likely last much longer than a severance if it took a while to find the next “right” opportunity.

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