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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Thank you. I always get frustrated whenever there are layoffs that everyone pounces on "but they didn't say exactly the right things, in exactly the right way, exactly how I expected!"

Layoffs suck, period. Like the good advice goes when starting a new relationship "Just ignore everything they say, and only focus on what they do." A generous severance package is loads more important than nitpicking the format of the layoff announcement. Plus, Atlassian famously has a global, distributed team that embraced remote work. Someone somewhere is getting the recorded clip regardless.

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>"but they didn't say exactly the right things, in exactly the right way, exactly how I expected!"

There is no right way to lay off someone. Only different shades of bad.

Yep, only worse and less worse

just make it fast and not painful at least

There are right ways and wrong ways to lay off someone. They aren't determined by words, but by actions.

If the company has a healthy cashflow it can afford to give the employees that have been laid off a larger runway in terms of how many months of salary they will still pay out. If you've given them stock options, you can give them more time to decide whether to exercise the vested option.

I'd gladly take a "Good riddance" with 6 months of salary and 2 years validity of my options over a "We regret that it has come to this point" with just a one-month notice.

I agree with the theme of your message, but it's actually very challenging legally to change an options expiration date after its issued, and likely has negative tax implications

I've heard this excuse a lot over my career, mainly from people trying to backtrack on a promise of issuing options to begin with.

I don't know what you mean by "bad" or "right" but a layoff isn't necessarily bad. It's inevitable unless you demand incredibly conservative hiring practices, only hiring if you're willing to commit to that role existing for their natural life. So, it happens. There is a right way to do it and that's without any BS. Sadly people don't get much time to say their goodbyes, especially in a remote situation, but if even 1% of laid-off people become disgruntled it's not smart to be really loose with access to important systems after you've laid someone off.

Now, if you mean "bad" as in it's unpleasant to hear or give the news, I agree with you, it's always the opposite of fun.

I mean, there is. Fundamentally it involves recognizing and respecting their humanity. Just like it is incredibly rude to break up with a significant other over text, it is similarly rude to lay someone off with a pre-recorded video message. The only reason one would do either of those things is for their own benefit, because it is easier for them compared to the alternative.

That's true in the current world. But back about 8 years ago I got laid off from my programming job and it was honestly a relief. I was happy. I got a pretty good severance, and I knew I'd have another job soon. I had 5 job offers within 2 weeks of interviews, all paying the same or more. But now? It would be devastating as there are very few jobs available and more competition for them. I used to have 5 recruiters a day contacting me, but now I'm lucky if I get contacted 1 time every 5 months or so.

I agree. Sometimes people don’t know how to deliver bad news.

When I was laid off I appeared stoic throughout the conversation. Because lots of people were laid off so there was no point to discuss “why”. The only question was severance. But then the HR got curious about my lack of reaction. He started questioning if I had job offers at hand and if my access could be cut right then (others were given a week).

I think that there are definitely bad ways to lay people off and those should be avoided. As a manager/company, not trying to do this as best you can reflects very badly in the workplace and in society.

It’s just a way of punishing a company for layoffs, probably a good thing because you want companies to be scared of layoffs.

No companies will ever be 'scared' of layoffs, especially when it benefits them financially (in the short-term)

> It’s just a way of punishing a company for layoffs, probably a good thing because you want companies to be scared of layoffs.

Why? Because that makes the average editor pleased with themselves? I'm sorry but I can't eat or wear that as a hat.

Personally I don't want companies to self-sabotage by not laying off people when they need to. Worst case you'll have companies file for bankruptcy en masse after turning human resources into hot air useful to nobody: now we've really fucked up. The more efficiently labor is allocated in an economy, the better everyone will be off.

And yes, I recognize that high churn through frequent growth and contraction phases is also inefficient, but bad leadership is a tangential issue at best.

I do, I want them to consider reducing executive pay, reducing overhead by letting people work from home, using more open source software to reduce vendor costs etc. before jumping straight to layoffs.

You're not going to iron out inefficiencies, fix bad leadership, and help them identify the correct course of action by indiscriminately applying fear to everyone. That's complete nonsense. The most likely outcome of that is people getting to use open source software from home - while searching for a new job at a company that wasn't stupid enough to give into that kind of pressure and go tits up. Every time you inflict another inefficiency upon a company, it's more likely they'll get out-competed by another that couldn't care less about your attempts to cancel and shame them on twitter.

In a modern tech company, all of those things you mention are virtually inconsequential compared to employee salaries.

But more importantly, layoffs are rarely just about cutting costs. They're often called "restructurings" because that is exactly what happens - usually whole departments or positions are let go when a company decides to exit business lines or make a significant change in direction.

Layoffs suck, but keeping folks around when there is basically no useful work for them to do isn't a solution either, it's just kicking the can down the road.

I don’t think companies shouldn’t layoff people, I just want to force them to consider all options rather than defaulting to it on a whim. Company buildings and vendor/licensing costs are a huge portion of a lot of companies.

Good leadership is not going to default to it on a whim - they understand the value of institutional knowledge and the upfront investment new hires represent.

If that sort of firing happens you have bad leadership and the company is screwed anyways.

Which of the recent high profile layoffs were amazon/google/etc exiting business lines and not management choosing to gamble positions chasing money on a recent temporary event (covid)? And did they not have other new products they were starting near the time of the layoffs?

Anthropomorphizing a company, or even a role at a company, usually doesn't lead to expected outcomes. I concede your point, that negative public sentiment is an input we can leverage to sway outcomes, but ultimately, I believe it's a weak one given the current climate.

I really, really doubt snarky HN comment sections are “scaring” any companies away from layoffs.

It’s not just snarky comments, it’s general societal perception that the comments are just a small part of. Comments, memes, jokes etc. all add to the global perception of something. If you’re dismissive of them you don’t understand how the modern world works.

Comments, memes, jokes etc. and other forms of slacktivism haven't exactly been persuading companies to have fewer layoffs either.

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