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Comment by aperson_hello | Hacker News Reader

What's the better response here? (Other than not over-hiring in the first place).

For this specific case, not much. They've been soft-signalling this for at least weeks. H-1B holders have termination date + 2 months to find a new job (both in terms of 4 months severance & in terms of immigration law), so they're good til April. The rest of us have 4 months of income (2 months of pay + 2 months lump sum) so we're also good til April even if we have $0 in rainy day funds. The revenue/cost problem highlighted in the email has been widespread company knowledge since at least July, and sincere efforts were made out in the open to cut costs elsewhere so as not to incur this problem.

These layoffs have been signalled for at least weeks, and the signal's been clear enough that it's most of our internal Blind discussion.

I suspect the backlash on this thread is more ideological than anything. "Plaids" is not something I would even take notice of, let alone issue with, because this company has a genuine, strong, caring culture. Even the layoffs came with a personal touch with a barrage of 1:1's and offers to help. Insofar as the layoffs could not have been avoided without dampening the company's position in a competitive space, I do not understand why people are getting so mad on my and others' behalf. It was either this or a SaaS startups not being able to put SaaS margins and getting eaten by its competitors as it tries to figure out growth.

Certainly not referring to the people that just lost their jobs as "Plaids". Yuck

But "we're family!"

Nope; employees are just a tool to use in a branding exercise for VCs, shareholders, and Wall Street.

So glad these grifts are ending.

Why? That seems entirely innocuous?

I'll try to explain why I think it's gross.

All of these tech companies come up with cutesy terms for employees. "Googlers", "Plaids", "Metamates", "Splunkers", "Pinployees". It seems like a cheap way of tying workers' identities to The Company.

It's a cheap gesture used in an attempt to create a distinct "culture".

So in the context of a mass-termination, it really rubs me the wrong way to refer to these people as "Plaids". They're clearly not that, because you're sending them packing!

Lets get back to identifying our personnel with real terms. Employee, technician, associate, etc.

EDIT: NYTimes does a good job with this: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/technology/metamates-goog...

Hi, I was affected by this layoff unfortunately.

Plaid just gave me 16 weeks of pay, 6 months of insurance premiums, waived the vesting cliff I hadn't hit yet, and let me go with way more dignity than I've ever seen in my 20 year career (19 of those years spent at "normal" non-silicone Valley companies)...

...they can call me whatever the hell they want at this point and I'll be OK with it lol

Isn't it absolutely amazing that VCs are willing to pay you 4 months worth of income to do absolutely nothing?

Having worked at tech companies with cutesy employee nicknames, I really think that's overthinking it. It is probably a way to try to have more corporate unity, but it does not do so to a noticeable extent. And IMO it's more about tech companies trying to capture the whimsy of early Google - it's trying to have the vibe of "hey, it's a casual place - we call ourselves a stupid, silly nickname in our stupid, silly named company, as opposed to [Name] and [Name] corp." It worked better with Google, because Googler, and Noogler are extra ridiculous, but that's pretty much it.

I can guarantee you that the letter referred to Plaid employees as "Plaids" is quite literally the last thing on the minds of any current or ex Plaid employees. It's not that big of a deal. It's not particularly dehumanizing, nor brainwashing. It's mildly cringy, half by design, but that's about it.

They're ex-plaids. Some dark humor could be done with a Monty Python sketch about a parrot.

My take on it is I don't really care. Anything they say is meaningless because it has no cash value to me. If they need to say something to make themselves feel better or make their investors feel better, well, that doesn't involve me at all. When I get laid off, my immediate focus is on finding another job, because I have a family to take care of.

not firing people when profit line goes down somewhat

If profit goes down somewhat, you don't layoff people. If do, well, as a manager / company you do your job poorly.

If profits turn down a lot, or funding runs out, you have to layoff people. If you don't, or do it to late or in not sufficient or too high numbers, as a manager / company you do your job poorly.

Saidly there seem to be companies that do their jobs badly. Currently I have the feeling that the second option applies in my case...

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