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> You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go. That's how workers are treated and people should understand that.

I can't tell if all of this is due to the age of people who have joined the workforce over the last decade, when we were in a constant uphill swing.

Markets go through cycles, boom and bust. We happen to be in part of the cycle where interest rates are rising, inflation is high, profits margins are tightening and companies are laying off.

"You were used" is a bit much. You go to work to earn a paycheck. I'm not sure how many people bought into the whole "we're a family" stuff, but obviously these are for-profit corporations and they are beholden only to their shareholders. There was never the illusion otherwise, unless you truly believed that now that you're in, you're in.

I'm older so I've been through a number of these cycles, including having been laid off. Perhaps the decade+ of constant upward tragectory had people disillusioned that this was "normal". It wasn't, and now companies are downsizing.

> "You were used" is a bit much.

I'd generally agree. I think my sentiment was a counter-point to the whole "we are a family", "we care about you" that companies put out to employees.

Employees especially need to understand that's fine and good, but companies exist to make money. They _can_ care about you but only to the extent that it makes them money through your continuing loyalty. Your manager as a human can care about you, your manager as a boss cannot.

I don't think many top-level managers is fooling themselves into thinking this behavior is anything but company loyalty.

I am not quite entirely jaded, but I would certainly have choice words for my 24 year old self being overjoyed about my company buying me dinner at the office. It's a fun gesture but you need to understand as an employee what your company's priorities are and not get fooled into it being anything but a monetary transaction.

But yes, to summarize, my language was a bit more coarse and pointed than the situation probably calls for.

> I can't tell if all of this is due to the age of people who have joined the workforce over the last decade, when we were in a constant uphill swing.

I've lived through four recessions now and worked through two. My first working recession was while I was putting myself through college. We used to average one per decade, but now we're bordering on two. To understand the magnitude, my first working recession was a complete life reset for me. It's hard to look at businesses that are cash rich, posting record profits, and then doing layoffs as a result.

Recession timelines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Un...

>"You were used" is a bit much. You go to work to earn a paycheck. I'm not sure how many people bought into the whole "we're a family" stuff, but obviously these are for-profit corporations and they are beholden only to their shareholders. There was never the illusion otherwise, unless you truly believed that now that you're in, you're in.

There is a lot of corporate ink spilled trying to convince people of exactly this. The counter to this kind of treatment is a strong union. Hopefully this goes a ways toward convincing people they need that level of protection.

If people are always "protected" how do you deal with low performing companies?

If Zoom becomes unusable because it is crashing all the time and everyone switches to another service where do you think the money is going to come from to pay these "protected" employees? Fire the CEO, sure, but where is the money coming from for the thousands of other employees?

> If people are always "protected" how do you deal with low performing companies?

mentor them? help them find a better position? change managers? lots of things you can do before firing... also i think the word "protection" the previous commenter means is 'protection from random/mass firings/layoffs without cause' not firing for being lazy/sabotage etc

> mentor them? help them find a better position? change managers?

None of those help if you just need less people on payroll.

Mentor a company?

i have to admit, i completely read that as "employee".... though i wonder if the op also meant that...?

Even in areas with good strong unions, there isn’t some kind of company wide protection. If the company doesn’t fit in the market, it goes away. I’m not weaving some fantasy tale, these systems exist in other countries that still have free markets and profitable companies.

> You go to work to earn a paycheck. I'm not sure how many people bought into the whole "we're a family" stuff, but obviously these are for-profit corporations and they are beholden only to their shareholders.

That's "You were used" with extra steps. Why are you trying to rebrand this?

> There was never the illusion otherwise, unless you truly believed that now that you're in, you're in.

Just because people knew it was happening doesn't mean it's consensual or okay. Workers know that a system beholden only to shareholders isn't good for them, but they can't exactly go work elsewhere.

> That's "You were used" with extra steps. Why are you trying to rebrand this?

Of course you were "used". You were used to get work done in exchange for a paycheck.

That's how work ... works. I am confused by the outrage ... did engineers think signing on to a company meant they were set for life? That once they were onboarded they were sheltered from future storms?

The tides turn, and right now the tide is going out. Eventually, this process will reverse and the cycle begins anew.

"You were used" implies you didn't get anything in return. But if you got paid, maybe you came out ahead on the deal?

> "You were used" implies you didn't get anything in return.

It doesn't imply that you didn't get anything, it implies that you didn't get enough.

> But if you got paid, maybe you came out ahead on the deal?

Workers almost never come out ahead on the deal. Company sees 100% revenue growth (as a result of worker's labor), worker gets a 3% raise. Company sees 10% revenue loss, worker gets laid off. It's the same story every cycle: the people at the top reap benefits while the people at the bottom pay the losses.

It's only in the business echo chamber that anyone is even saying what you're saying. Everyone else knows that layoffs are bad for workers.

If the company saw 10% revenue loss, and the employee got 2 years' pay, then I would argue the employee definitely came out with the better end of that deal.

Of course layoffs are bad for workers.

I'm just taking the controversial position that on the other hand, jobs are good for workers.

So let me get this straight: jobs are good for workers, so when a worker loses their job, that's... somehow also good? Sure, they were depending on that job to feed their kids and pay their mortgage and now both those things are at risk. But the real story here is that they had a job for two whole years and should be grateful to have been generously paid a miniscule fraction of what their work gained the company for so long.

Is there any case where you'd ever admit that corporations can harm workers, or is it really just impossible for corporations to do any harm within your worldview?

Facebook had $40.7 billion cash on hand in 2022[1] and laid off 11,000 workers in the same year[2]. That's literally $3.7 million cash on hand per worker laid off, or $370K/year over the next 10 years, if the recession lasts that long. Meta could definitely weather this recession without laying off these workers.

But let me guess, they don't have any responsibility to workers. The only people companies are responsible to are shareholders, amirite? It doesn't matter who gets harmed, we just have to follow these arbitrary rules!

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platform... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/tech/meta-facebook-layoffs/in...

If you feel your work is so incredibly valuable you can either start a company yourself or become a gold-ticket consultant.

Either way you'll quickly learn that turning your hard work into revenue on your own with any decent amount of efficiency is not that simple.

> If you feel your work is so incredibly valuable you can either start a company yourself or become a gold-ticket consultant.

> Either way you'll quickly learn that turning your hard work into revenue on your own with any decent amount of efficiency is not that simple.

I work as a consultant in part because it makes turning my work into revenue easier. :D

But, that's overly-glib--I'm aware that my career is somewhat of an outlier here. The more important point to be made is that "value", in the capitalist sense of "the value of something is what people are willing to pay for it", has nothing to do with actual value. The pandemic highlighted this when it became apparent that all our "essential" workers also happen to be our least paid. The very basics of human survival would cease to be available without these people: food, water, etc.--do you really think the software which allows you to post pictures of your brunch for your friends is more valuable than not starving to death?

The reason for the disconnect between pay and value is that pay is determined by the people at the top, who obviously have an incentive to decide their own work is valuable and therefore they deserve the most pay. Unsurprisingly, the people with the power to enforce their opinions on what is most valuable, have decided that "deciding what is most valuable" is the most valuable skill of all! The narrative that a CEO is more valuable than a farm hand exists because it's propagated by those who have the most to gain from it.

I won't accuse you of being one of those people, but at the very least you've bought into a story which isn't true.

To be clear, the people at the top, don't have

The thing is, if you feel you're being paid too little for your work there are basically 3 reasons:

1 - you are wrong because you're not that good

2 - you are right, but the overhead necessary for the company to survive does not allow them to pay you as much

3 - you are right and they are exploiting you

The way to prove case 1 wrong is to start your own business or consultancy and earn more money than you did before. But to prove 2 or 3 you would have to create a very similar company and prove it can successfully operate while earning the employees much more money, which would be very difficult.

If, as you say, "there are basically 3 reasons", then disproving 1 should be sufficient to prove that 2 or 3 is true. You're just trying to place an unreasonable burden of proof on possibilities you disagree with.

There is no difference between possibilities 2 and 3. If the overhead necessary for a company to survive doesn't allow them to pay their workers, the company shouldn't survive. Mysteriously, companies that underpay their workers always have money to pay their execs and shareholders--you're just expecting workers to pay the overhead instead of the people at the top. All this is, is a shitty excuse for exploiting workers.

As for proving 1 incorrect: whenever essential workers unionize--analogous to starting their own consultancy--money suddenly materializes to pay them more. As it turns out, essential workers are essential, and the only reason they get paid less is that the people at the top can pay them less and keep more money for themselves.

We’ve just had a 15 year boom market. Layoffs are a distant memory

> profits margins are tightening

Not even close for many corporations.

> You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go.

Both sides got what they needed. The company got work done, and the employee got paid.

Calling either side "used" makes no sense to me. Employment is always a temporary relationship that can be ended by either side at will.

Just because it can be terminated at will doesn't mean people wake up every morning going to work thinking "hmm... wonder if I'll be let go today, or hey maybe I'll quit!"

Similarly most non-marriage romantic relationship can be trivially ended "at will", but people get plenty upset when those end early than one party had anticipated.

More important though is the inherent asymmetry: it hurts employees much more to be terminated from an employer than the employer hurts when employees leave. You know, unless those employees organize and all leave at the same time. And we know well that companies put a fair bit of energy keeping that from happening.

Historically the way to resolve this asymmetry was an implicit understanding that you won't arbitrarily get terminated unless the employer has no other choice. This implicit assumption has been weakening over time.

I mean, I definitely end a fair number of days thinking "I may quit" at various points in my career. I'm happy for the ability to do that.

I'm not arguing that layoffs don't suck for those involved, but if offered a contract where I couldn't be laid off or quit for N years, I probably wouldn't take it. Layoffs already have some legal protection in most places that require severance and other things that quitting or firing for cause don't.

I feel like this is a pretty naive take.

For all the companies like Zoom and Shopify claiming they thought the COVID gravy train would never end, there was never a chance of that. But they hired as if that was the reality because because of the asymmetry: Your output is .000001% of what the company needs to function.

Meanwhile even if you're saving 50% of your pay and living on the other 50%, that's many orders of magnitude more need

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So yes, either side can walk away tomorrow morning, but who's more likely to be hurt? Definitely not the company, so there's no real punishment for overhiring knowing you'll need to fire.

If anything you get rewarded by the market: If company A hires in a sustainable way that can weather headwinds (believe it or not, this used to be somewhat common) and company B goes full "feast or famine", the market rewards B for their growth, then rewards B when they lay off a bunch of people. Meanwhile A is punished for limiting growth, and not really rewarded for not having fired people, since valuations are bad at capturing nuanced ideas like "B just fired their best minds, while A has cultivated an effective workforce" (just check out Zoom's ticker today)

I think "used" is fine, but it doesn't imply any gross injustice.

I use a worker to build my house, but that doesn't mean I am abusing them. They are using me too. no hard feelings.

> I think "used" is fine, but it doesn't imply any gross injustice.

One of the primary definitions of that word describes a scenario where one person exploits another person for their own gain.

Any time the word is used to describe the nature of one’s relationship with another person, that definition is going to come to mind.

I can’t agree that there is no implication of injustice.

That is one definition, but not the only. I think it is interesting how people chose which definition to go with.

It all comes down to social expectations of if the nature of the transaction.

"I used Bob the contractor to build my house" has no implication of injustice.

"My ex-wife used me for money" has significant implications.

Used has no negative implication if used to describe a honest and mutually beneficial transaction.

"90+ percent of all internet arguments are over semantics."

I honestly wish HN would adopt a "no semantics arguments" rule. These debates over what one person thinks a word means vs what another person thinks they mean are just uninteresting and really never lead anywhere, especially when all sides pretty much agree on the underlying issue.

A couple days ago I made a comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34656626 , where I even started off by saying "well, perhaps word X isn't exactly the right word", and still the original commenter felt compelled to reply in 6 different comments why he was so sure his definition of that word was the right one and it was important that everyone else agree with him. :shrug:

I sometimes wonder if Americans are uniquely prone to focusing on words rather than the underlying concepts that the words, somewhat imperfectly, attempt to describe.

Once you learn a second language, you have to confront this reality. But many Americans only ever use English, and it's maybe easier to never have to think about this then?

But isn't this discussion literally about the idiomatic concepts involved? The whole argument of semantics is a "literally vs. figuratively" discussion. Workers were "used" in the way I use a tool to do a job, but potentially not "used" in a colloquial English way that someone tricks someone into doing something for them.

If anything, this is because Americans on HN think too much about the concepts underlying words and don't just take everything literally as defined.

I think you are both right to a certain extent. As the comment thread demonstrates, some people think the literal definition of used is exploitative. This begs the question of why people thank the literal definition is different. I think a reasonable hypothesis is that American English speakers communicate less with non-native speakers who have learned a textbook definition.

That makes sense - if you learn words and phrases from their common use vs. from instruction, you're more likely to know both the literal and colloquial version of the words.

That said, taking everything as textbook literal isn't viable in most languages. English isn't even close to the top of the heap of languages that use idioms and contextual clues to change the meaning of words and phrases. In the context of a thread where people are likely upset about layoffs, taking the use of the word "used" to have more of a negative than neutral connotation makes sense.

It's not as if we're looking at a textbook example with "Jack used their employee James" and you have to guess what definition of "used" is intended. No one is arguing that OP meant that Zoom literally picked up their employees and wielded them in combat, even though that could be a viable context-less definition for "used".

Words and language are how humans communicate information so I think it is worthwhile to talk about. That said, I think everyone would benefit from being more Curious and less dogmatic. It is ultimately subjective. I can choose to use the word up to refer to down. It would certainly cause some confusion, but at the end of the day nobody can force me to change. The best that they can do is point out that they use a different definition and why that makes sense to them.

That's all I was trying to do here, and in this other more interesting thread

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34697045

And in fact almost certainly what happened was the employees got paid to work on a bunch of new exploratory, speculative work that now all needs to get canned.

There's an AMAZING managing podcast that I never get tired of recommending called Managers Tools [1], where in one of their episodes they talk about hiring/firing: They correctly mention that, as a manager, you should be able/willing to FIRE people when you are asking to HIRE. If you say you need more headcount and thus more money for it, be ready to shrink it when you don't need it anymore. Nothing is forever.

That's what a lot of people fail to internalize: If a company is able to grow, then it must equally be able to shrink. Otherwise, you hire contractors or third parties.

[1] https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts

> Employment is always a temporary relationship that can be ended by either side at will.

No one is confused about this.

The disagreement is whether this is how it should be.

Even if you own 51% of the company you're disposable. The company itself is disposable. The CFO at a lot of Zoom's customers is asking why are we paying so much for Zoom when Microsoft will give us Teams for "free". It doesn't matter if Zoom is better, it's still disposable.

> You are not George from Engineering, you are employee #3223 and you cost $x per year.

I used to work for a company with nearly 300,000 employees. Our user names in Active Directory were randomly generated. So our user names were just gibberish, like "ughwyrt"

I always thought that was a bad PR move on their part, but whatever

> This sucks but something like COVID should normalize the idea in the minds of workers that all workers are disposable

I don't know who you're talking about but it should have only taken common sense to know you're disposable as an employee.

> You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go.

Workers get paid along the way, not sure that constitutes being "used". I think worker rights aren't great in the United States, but characterising US tech workers who are paid extremely well as having been used is a bit much.

> If you don't own 51% of the company, you are disposable.

If you own 51% of the company, not only are you disposable, but unlike any employee on earth, you can actually lose money by working.

You can also work and make $0 for your efforts, and that's not the worst outcome.

And there are no worker's rights or Marxist organizations ready to organize a riot for you. There are no shareholder unions either, just increasingly absent regulators, comically incompetent courts, and lengthy legal processes.