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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Losing your job is bad enough, but I hate how all these companies try to do some real Machiavellian shit when it comes time to give you the axe. There's never any heads up or courtesy. They do shit like schedule an all-hands meeting with a nebulous title and then shut down Slack right before changing the meeting name and only inviting people that were getting laid off. Worker professionalism is demanded constantly, but the same won't be extended to you no matter how long you're with a company.
The actual story on the above.
For many of the developers Polygon spoke to, the lack of clarity and communication around layoffs has made a bad situation even worse. On Sept. 28, Fortnite and Unreal Engine maker Epic Games announced it was laying off more than 800 employees — 16% of the company. The night prior, current and former Epic Games employees told Polygon, a mystery meeting got added to everyone’s work calendar. There was no information included, except for a directive: Cancel any meetings that conflict with this one, because this one is mandatory. “I jokingly messaged my team and was like, ‘I don’t feel good about this meeting. Is this how we find out we’re all getting fired?’”Another former employee said they started to panic when they first saw the meeting and its accompanying email; however, other team members didn’t assume it was a layoff, and posited the meeting might be about Epic Games’ ongoing legal battles. “Thursday rolls around — a totally normal day,” the former employee said. “I have my morning meetings, my standup. No one knows what the meeting is about, but everyone thinks it’s fine. There was not a singular whisper from my experience about layoffs.”
Right before the meeting began, though, the truth became clear. Epic Games suddenly shut down the entire company’s Slack workspace, which is its primary communication method. Then, the calendar event’s title was changed: It was officially a meeting about layoffs. “I was the only one who received that email,” the worker said. “The people who were with me did not. I just stared at it and started crying.”
The day I got laid off, it was announced in a meeting that was scheduled about an hour in advance that same day. Rumors started flying as soon as the "mandatory" meeting invite went out, and about ten seconds after the terse announcement, I got my email. I barely had a chance to ask my coworkers who else was getting axed and say goodbye before I was locked out of all the systems thirty minutes later.
but employees had to give at least two weeks notice to take any PTO lmao
btw I thought I was a jaded commie about selling my labor before, but the experience of getting laid off and the indignity of begging for work for almost six months now has turned me into a hardened hater
I had a company I used to work at hire McKinsey to do their thing. I found out about 7pm the night before the big layoffs hit because a coworker pinged me outside of work channels saying he couldn't log into Slack anymore, and that this was it. The next morning, 15% of the company didn't have a job, and half my team's functions (which were business critical, foundational level platforms) were now completely rudderless because they didn't think to check if they were firing the entirety of the people who managed them.