Comment by ma2rten | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ma2rten | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Am I the only one, who feels like there is something odd about this article?

250 Disney employees were told [...] that they would be laid off.

Is it really big news that 250 were laid off?

Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.

What does it mean to train your replacement for a software engineer? Did they teach them how to write code? 3 Month is not enough time for that. Did they explain how their existing code works? That would be quite a normal thing, but 3 month is really long for that.

"because of his superior skills and “outstanding” work, he had saved the company thousands of dollars"

The average software engineer should be able to save a company hundreds of thousands of dollars, not thousands, provided they are given the right resources. If he only saved the company thousands of dollars and did not generate new revenue, that explains why he was laid off.

His résumé lists a top-level skill certification and command of seven operating systems, 15 program languages [...] “I was forced into early retirement,”

If he was really so skilled, why did he not find another position at Disney or elsewhere?

If he was really so skilled, why did he not find another position at Disney or elsewhere?

Agism is a real thing. Maybe he couldn't.

This is exactly what happened in my situation. I'm 54. I was laid off in November 2015 after 25+ years of service at on company. Even though I send out several responses to job posts, I get no responses. Fortunately, I'm financially independent due to saving and investing religiously.

Lesson for all you younger professionals: Save and become financially independent. You will never know exactly when they come for you during a round of layoffs. If you are older than 40, watch out. You are likely on their list.

>Is it really big news that 250 were laid off?

It is big to the 250 people being laid off.

> If he only saved the company thousands of dollars and did not generate new revenue, that explains why he was laid off.

It is not the job of the software engineer to generate revenue. A software engineer is a part of the process it's not his sole responsibility to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars. The point is to not get bogged down by the semantics of the performance review, the employee being laid off performed exceptionally well according to his supervisor despite which he is being laid off which the supervisor is not aware of.

> If he was really so skilled, why did he not find another position at Disney or elsewhere?

One reason could be the age old old-age problem in the tech industry. The article mentions he is 57 years old(which should be irrelevant when hiring).

This article leans on that 250 number pretty hard. The executive quoted in the article states that 120 of that 250 found other work within Disney by January 30. The end result being little more than an internal transfer of roles. 40 retired, and 90 "did not find new Disney jobs"

This article says nothing of the underlying restructuring that occurred where the focus of the department was shifted from sustainment to development.

It mentions nothing of the laid off employees out of that 90 that found jobs with the consulting companies that would be handling the sustainment work and ultimately sitting at same desk, doing the same work, for more money.

Also, the 40 that retired weren't simply offered 3 months salary and let go. They had the choice to look for other work within the company, look for other work elsewhere, or use the many years of experience they had vested with the company and take a retirement package.

There are also those that lost their jobs as part of that "90" (not 250) on January 30, that were able to rehired at the company in subsequent months in other roles.

Source: I actually work for Disney, in IT, in the building pictured in the article.

"If he was really so skilled, why did he not find another position at Disney"

Because they replaced their internal workforce with H1-Bs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com