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Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

"Over a mass zoom" is not particularly humane. In a better world, laying someone off would be done in a more caring and sensitive manner, because it's a huge and often unexpected change for the recipient. Human beings deserve better than being forced to attend their own mass slaughter.

However, no matter what, someone will always be unhappy about the method. Which is probably why the axe people throw up their hands and just try to get it over with efficiently.

Edit: "Over zoom" -> "Over a mass zoom", since this was apparently poorly worded and distracting. I wasn't proposing the ridiculous move of forcing a remote worker to fly to an office to get fired.

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It's humane to enable remote work and employ people without regard for their physical proximity to your office, but it's inhumane to terminate that relationship in the same way?

I cannot agree. If you have a regular in-person presence then I agree, but if your typical form of working is remote then it's not inhumane to have that conversation remotely.

I'd argue that it's even more inhumane to force WFH employees to fly to the office to fire them.

You raise their expectations, waste their time, then destroys the possibility of having them enjoy the remainder of the trip.

I’m not driving 6 hours or flying in to the office to get laid off. Personally I would find that more insulting and a huge waste of time.

As impersonal as it is, virtual is what I’ve signed up for so wouldn’t expect anything different were I to get let go.

My company just had a round of layoffs. Preceding the actual announcement was an email strongly encouraging everyone to appear for that day (WFH still predominant norm).

All I could think, "Am I going to wake-up early and deal with traffic just so they can fire me to my face?"

Seriously. That's definitely more insulting. "You're going to dance for us in person one last time for no reason except that we want to see your face when we tell you you're fired" feels way more cruel than pulling me into a call and telling me I can immediately open my browser and start looking for another job.

What if someone is a remote worker? You want them to fly across the country just so they can get laid off in person? Or do you expect their boss to fly across the country and visit them at their home to deliver the news? Either one sounds ridiculous at best, grossly insulting at worst.

The way to 'humanely' lay people off is simple: give them a generous severance package. 6 months of pay/benefits should be plenty to find a new job without any disruption. The last time I was laid off as a mass lay-off (my group was laid off because the company decided to quit the product sector we were in), I got 4 months' severance and had a new (higher paying) job within a month, so I wasn't mad at all.

You'd think so but apparently these days the bar is set at first insult your employees, blame them for all of the companies problems, then lock them out of their computers and lie about their severance package.

In 2001 and 2009 I remember hearing about layoffs where they had a big (in-person) meeting to announce the layoffs. I seem to recall there were two ways: either you have two simultaneous meetings, one for the survivors and one for the axed; or you had one large meeting to announce them, and then people went back to their desk to check their email to see if they were affected. I'm not sure that announcing it over a mass Zoom is any different than a mass in-person meeting.

I would have a really hard time feeling guilty about firing someone after paying them a few hundred thousand dollars. It's not a day care, and it's not like I'm asking you for the money back. You can find another job.

And if I'm the one being fired, I really don't care how it's done, but if I had to choose, I'd prefer the option that wastes as little of my time as possible and doesn't require me to wake up at 8am to hear you fire me.

What is this "more caring and sensitive manner"? Should employees have to fly across the country to get fired face-to-face? Or over a text message? Email? If you work over Zoom of course you are going to be laid off over Zoom.

What people really want to get around saying is "no company should ever do layoffs", and well that's a whole different discussion.

> In a better world, laying someone off would be done in a more caring and sensitive manner, because it's a huge and often unexpected change for the recipient. Human beings deserve better than being forced to attend their own mass slaughter.

Layoffs are usually not “unexpected” if you can read the tea leaves.

Besides, I go to work everyday to exchange labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter. I never expect a company to “care about me or my feelings”.

I’ve also ensured that I have had at least 3-6 months of living expenses in the bank for the last 25 years. Yes - this was from the time when I was making $11/hour as a computer operator and I was saving my overtime.

There also has never been a point in my career that I didn’t “have my running shoes on” - an updated resume, a skillset that was inline with the market, a strong network, and an updated career documented.

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