Discovering that people you worked with for years have been laid off only because you randomly notice their slack is deactivated has to be one of 2024s gifts to humanity.
As employees we now have more clarity about the state of layoffs and hiring decisions that most of the management team does.
I suggest doing the same within your org if you can.
When management eventually found out they were seemingly supportive, but in the next layoff they made sure to reach out to the owner to make him “pause” the tool just before the layoffs started.
When the mailing list was unpaused again the laid-off folks weren’t mentioned, as if they’d never existed in the first place. Felt very 1984-esque.
The layoffs the last 2 years have been interesting in that the people aren't officially gone when they are laid off, as Google continues to pay them for 60 or 90 days. So a bunch of people who appear on this list all at once 60 days after they let go.
There's even some automations around leadership calendar meeting titles+invitees that I might or not have heard about. If leadership wants to play games people can play games back.
I worked at a place where this sort of thing was done. It became practice to setup fake meetings or conduct real meetings with vague titles as a misdirection.
The other scenario is if you let consultants inside the firewall. Big 5 guys always gather intel on org charts and goings on for more business. These guys aren’t very clever and are easy to manipulate with this sort of thing.
I say 99 not 100 because a certain VP in my org chart likes to schedule meetings called "News and updates" which is actually very innocent. Maybe he's playing the long con.
I don't get it.
You’re fighting with Big Consultant A. “Team Sync / Big Consultant B Principal”
When competing for resources, we’d sometimes imply that fake skunk works projects exist.
It depends on an environment toxic enough that people are spying on your calendar. Many big companies are.
I remember one email he sent me, paraphrasing: "You know that tech demo you gave the C-Suite last week for that really cool thing you invented in your off-time? Yeah, well they are having their lawyers figure out if your employment contract means that they own it already."
But I had to learn that as a lesson as well, since I might've learned something from them and left e.g. some commands that I use once every few months in the chat, now gone forever. This is also literally the only reason I have Linkedin, so I don't suddenly lose contact with those people (I don't have FB).
I guess I don't tell all teams and all our 200 engineers that this random guy is no longer with us.
Most recently, during COVID, I was laid off with no contact with my manager and no explanation. My recruiter called right before my access was terminated at 5pm.
I've never seen this happen personally (15yrs US tech) but maybe that is unusual
Apparently he himself found out after most of his logins were shut off.
Corporate world is as gutless as it is soulless
It just seems really cold to not let people say goodbye and point their colleagues to their LinkedIn so they can get some recommendations and such. For the companies that allow this I salute you.
Cutting off access prior to or immediately following notification of termination is more or less the only remedy to prevent data exfiltration from such a person.
Even if there were some programmatic way to ensure they could only email internal addresses, there are still some risks. I think it'd be worth implementing myself, though I can see it being rather difficult or impossible to set up depending on how the company's email is run.
I guess I just wish the US borrowed some parts of European work culture when it comes to stuff like this.
I too found slack to be the layoff lookup tool.
I know when I worked in a big company 20 years ago I would have no idea who was let go in another office.
So everyone is sitting at their desk, too keyed up to do any work, just waiting to hear who's desk phone is going to go off next.
My call came late in the afternoon (about the time I was starting to think I was safe). Everyone in the cube farm knew you just got hit as you walked toward the boss's office where the boss and the HR lady were waiting.
Not sure it's much better :D
Of course, because they can't say that they have to come up with other narratives which wind up sounding disingenuous at best.
Step 2. The list is shared on social media.
Step 3. A former employee that's on that list sues the company.
People who need to know find out who is gone, it just takes a little longer.
You think that started in 2024? You sweet summer child
Agreed that the condescension is the worst part of this, but a close 2nd-place has to be how cliché this is by now.
“Dave is no longer with us”
“Oh no! What do we do? Send a condolences card to his partner? Do we have contact information? I worked with Dave for three years”
“Oh.. no he just has been let go.”
“Okay.. uh. So who will be the scrum master now?”
“You will have to take on some extra responsibilities while we transition to the new team structure”
“:sadparrot:”
Manager at a standup "got some news. Unfortunately Bob has passed out"
Confused looks.
"What do you mean passed out?"
"Oh I mean he's died"
Horror from everyone there.
No further information was ever given.
Managers are people too and will have their own emotions they are dealing with.
So sure, you have your own stuff to deal with - use the resources you have for that (eg your manager) but when it comes time to face your team, be a professional and don’t shut down in front of them. They need you too.
Source: I’ve been in management positions and had to deal with a bunch of layoffs and yes, the occasional outright actual death.
"Passed out" is just a verbal typo for "passed on", an accepted euphemism in English for someone dying. I think that slip is forgivable, clearly not ideal, but human beings make mistakes. I also agree with the parent comment that it isn't management's place to provide details about the death, but IMHO they have a responsibility to say that's what happened.