Employee laid off by Meta says he got a package from the company marked 'leaver' | Hacker News Reader

Employee laid off by Meta says he got a package from the company marked 'leaver'

businessinsider.com

34 pointsaflag19 comments

> "On background, we packed and shipped items left on impacted employees' desks. These items were shipped to him on the assumption that they were his personal items," it read.

This… isn't what "on background" means? I don't know if the journalist here is not-so-subtly taking a dig at Meta's request to not be quoted or if the journalist just isn't aware of the practice.

Reporter graduated in June.

And people say millennials are clueless.

Millennial Assignment: take a social media post and write a 400-word story about it.

Afaik “on background” means: you may quote this but may not attribute this to the source by name.

That is what on background means.

Seems like a non-story: "we packed and shipped items left on impacted employees' desks [..] on the assumption that they were his"

At least a little tone deaf for them to label it “leaver”

Do you think the office worker who ships fired peoples stuff cares about tone?

Do you think they should care?

Over my long career I've seen people come and go from companies all for different reasons. Seems either deliberately or inadvertently hostile being labeled a leaver. Especially if the employee left on good terms. My industry is small enough that there is only a handful of companies, so you know most of the major people, I suspect Meta probably doesn't have these exact issues though. This is, I think, what causes Bureaucracy in large companies, each individual doesn't specifically have to care, but the outcome is the same. A little humanization of a large hierarchy can be condescending though, so not sure it is seen as worth it either.

I was openly and directly referred to that throughout my last job's (voluntary, non-layoff) exit process, including paperwork for returning my work computer. It's also not an uncommon legal/HR term.[1]

Am I supposed to take it personally? Honest question. It just seemed procedural to me.

1: https://ledgy.com/us/blog/good-leaver-bad-leaver-clauses/

If you quit you're a leaver but not if you get laid off.

Are you supposed to take what personally? I think most, if not all, would consider being labeled a “leaver” after they were, without warning and after getting good reviews, an insult.

Whether or not it’s an HR term doesn’t really matter —- it’s insensitive to write on a box sent to someone in this circumstance.

I mean they “left”.

Getting upset by the word seems a bit ridiculous.

What should it say? “Loved employee who had to be paid off due to challenging financial situation”?

They were fired. They didn’t “leave”.

Why not write their name? It’s not that hard.

Add it to Stanford's list.

The term leaver is a common HR term. As in joiner, mover, leaver, being three different types of common HR actions (onboarding, team changes, and offboarding).

Could have started the article with the last sentence

The word ‘leaver’ reminded me of lever.co (the applicant tracking system). Perhaps there is a need for a business that specializes in dealing with the possessions and effects of departing employees?

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