Take the severance package. If they are offering a severance package then they are already planning a layoff and are just taking volunteers first. Trust me, this is exactly what happened in tech this year. Take the package or face layoffs / gatting managed out.
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
299 points (96.9% liked)
Technology
59575 readers
3393 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Going to hammer hard on this too! Happened to me a few years ago.
This is definitely the goal. And those "loyal" who stay have a dice roll chance to get laid off with nothing later down the line.
This is exactly what happened to my dad during the .com crash. He worked for Enron, worked in server maintenance. Waited around as everyone got laid off because they said they would keep him, he was the best but not the most senior. Push came to shove and with only 4 people left in the department the higher-ups had to cut one more or take less money. They decided to cut my dad. By then the industry in that city was packed with Enron refugees so my dad had nowhere to go. We lost everything. Seriously y'all, cut your losses it's not worth it. Just find somewhere else that's more stable.
Read the details first though and compare to what else you can find out. Some companies are sneakily reducing severance package standards just for remote employees. It may be better to just aggressively job hunt while still getting a full paycheck as long as possible.
Could be. But it’s also a wise choice even if they have no layoffs planned.
Let’s say they don’t offer voluntary severance. It’s just RTO or quit. Lots of people will grudgingly RTO while they look for a new job. That makes their time of departure unpredictable and it means they’ll be disgruntled as long as they’re still around. Why not just rip off the band aid, invite these people to leave immediately, and help them do so? You can move on from that.
And maybe by shedding these people, they can actually avoid a layoff.
Paid severance is a tip-off that a layoff may come, but RTO is also a big fucking deal and I could see it possibly having a paid severance component even with no layoffs in sight. Possibly, mind you.
What's the benefit of VR over IR? I'd have thought the terms would be better with IR, plus you get to be paid a salary for longer
It depends on the package they are offering.
Can't you just take the severance package when you get laid off?
Severence pay is not mandatory everywhere. So you might get nothing if you are laid off.
California it is. WARN act.
All these companies are following a single directive from McKinsey. That's why all their policies are the same. 3 days a week. Within 50 miles of an office you have to go in. If you don't you should get paid 20k less.
These numbers all come from this bullshit consulting firm with a long history of terrible advice. CEOs are seemingly incapable of critical thought.
At a lot of orgs, I think executive leadership are basically buying the service of assigning blame to the consulting firm if things go wrong. If that happens, they can tell the board they took the advice of one of the big consulting firms everyone has heard of. The consulting firm got paid and will still get business, so I doubt they care. Though they are certainly also farming out critical thinking at the same time.
I tend to agree with that, the backlash at my company has been wild. Lot's of people making "career inhibiting" statements on Slack out of anger of the new policies, and in my opinion the executives have been extremely rude and disrespectful in their responses. I believe they want their US employees to leave the company so they can outsource to lower cost labor markets. Which never works out in my industry and in the early 2000s almost destroyed the company I work for, but these people never learn or care. They just want their 5th house and 2nd yacht.
If that’s the case though, why wouldn’t the consulting company just throw the workers a bone since it’s no skin off their back either way.
Because McKinsey wouldn't want to follow that advice themselves. They want their analysts in the office where their MBA managers can micro-manage them and can make sure that they work 12-15 hours a day.
executive leadership are basically buying the service of assigning blame
My executive director said this in no uncertain terms. I had pointed out that some enterprise support was stupidly expensive, and that in my entire time with the institution, we hadn't ever utilized it once. And in fact, if it ever came down to involving lawyers for breach of contract, the CEO said "no, why would we ever bite the hand we have to work with? we'd part ways first".
And that's when the director told me on the side: It's a single throat to choke, something that can be pointed at and assigned blame, how to CYA at this level of the game.
Edit: And to clarify, a new SoW was being negotiated, and I was pulled in as a SME to advise on the technical aspects of potential support that we could possibly need.
Chainsaw consultants.
This is a layoff masquerading as "return to office".
I agree this is probably an attempt at veiled layoffs.
But I wish I could understand why executives are so desperate to have people back in an office. It’s like class warfare or something.
“Don’t let the proletariat spend more time in that box they already overpay for; make them come to the box that WE overpay for!”
I really think it is connected to the fact that many managers never had to think about how long something takes and how much work they actually need out of someone. It used to be, that if you stare at your screen from 9-5 you probably did all the work you could. But now they can't see you stare at the screen and they fear they don't get all the work out of you. For the first time management has to figure out how much work they need instead of going by time spent in the office. That scares them.
It's because they all have assets in corporate real estate, have massive amounts of debt that they just refinance latter and get more investors on board so they can ignore the problem. Now we have real pressures that would kill their inflated corporate real estate assets turning that balance sheet upsode down and they are in a panic because they haven't been effectively doing the job they are supposed to. Fuck them
Extroverts are disproportionately in places of power and authority and CANNOT understand people who don’t like being in the office. So if they don’t want to be in the office it’s because they’re lazy/anti-social/working multiple jobs. These extroverts are convinced that their preferences are the BEST way, because hey, they’re successful and that’s how they became successful.
It’s like class warfare or something.
Marx was right
One conspiracy theory I like is that it's a measure against people working at two companies, collecting two salaries.
It's really ironic when makers of socially interactive 3D experiences demand their employees meet in physical space. Even more ironic that they tell us that virtual property is valuable.
And all while pretending to give a shit about climate change and "reducing carbon footprint"
As a long time gamer, playing Roblox with my niece made me feel old for the first time. I have no idea why the hell kids play that game so much outside of the social media aspect with their friends.
It really seems like they are tapping into the addictions of children. I've wasted money on game DLC before, but the amount of crap kids buy on Roblox is insane. I don't think parents really know what they are giving them when they buy gift cards for it. If it makes them happy, okay fine, but I really think it's something psychological that the company is taking advantage of.
Rant over. I agree with everyone else. Something is about to go down. I hope they all take severance and leave. Three days is still better than what I get... which is like 20 WFH days a year... but ultimatums are never a good sign.
Gaming these days, at least multiplayer or those "games as a service" games, just seems so shitty. With all of the "gacha" aspects of lootboxes, or battle passes where you have to pay to play the game, or just plain predatory psychology manipulation to get you to buy random stuff... Games nowadays feel like you're basically working a second job, or you can pay money so that you don't have to work the second job because it's not fun.
My kids play it. 9 and 11. I've played it. I've spent money in it. It's the amount of content. The games are actually really good.
And it's super easy to make something and just send it to the world.
As a developer I used chatgpt and it just spits out whole games.
Edit: Some games are really good. Some games are crap.
Roblox is filled with "quality" content like this: https://www.roblox.com/games/8110845141/POOP-WITH-FRIENDS
My kids used to play on Roblox... then they invited me to try it... and I started watching what is going on in there. It's pretty bad. LOADS of grooming going on... shitty games... games that encourage anti-social behavior... horror games targeting under 5s... now they aren't allowed to play it anymore.
You just described the whole internet. You gonna ban them from that too? What about the crap talked about on the playground? You going to ban them from recess?
Flat out banning them is lazy and isn't doing them any justice in preparing them for how to handle these situations when you are not there to make the bad people go away.
You are the problem. Not roblox and some poop game.
Lol. You're not a parent are you?
It's not lazy, it's being involved as a parent. I teach them. I council them. I explain the good and the bad.
They don't have unfettered access to the internet either. I carefully limit to what is appropriate to their ages. As they get older and are more able to understand the implications I relax the restrictions.
My kids will survive just fine not playing in an environment that encourages bed behavior.
Hope they're ready to lose key employees...
They actually carved out a part of that for key staff. Basically anyone they deem to have deep knowledge doesn't have to return back.
This is one of the worst RTO requests I've seen because it's just so obvious what it is.
I hope they go down the crapper completely TBH, with their predatory practices targeted towards young people who don't know what they're being pulled into.
That and the various gamedev companies on that site exploiting child devs who truly deserve better than that
Roblox has always been complete garbage. If they don't give a fuck about kids gambling, they sure as fuck don't care about their employees.
Don't forget the grooming.
I’m sure par of the reason for this so they can lay off a bunch of employees.
What’s funny to me is that Roblox and other companies have to threaten peoples jobs to get them to come into the office. Surely if it was as great as they say people would just want to come in x number of days a week.
The people in charge at Roblox are evil and have been for a long time.
Every time I hear some government tries to destroy privacy "for sake of kids", I think "where have all you been when roblox exploited kids?". When I was a kid and went to municipal children library(most of books are for childern or about children) to ~~play Minecraft~~ do 100% legit research, I've seen some kids play Roblox and hear them talk about them spending insane amount of money. Thank Faust it wasn't me, this is really scary.
It's not flashy enough for the media to give a shit.
I am of the mind that one should always take the package. Clearly, some are working paycheck to paycheck, which sucks.
If you don't take the package, then start applying for other jobs like mad.
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/roblox/salaries
I refuse to believe that anyone at Roblox is working paycheck to paycheck, unless they literally burn the cash to heat their homes.
If you can swing a different FAANG-level gig, then sure, take the package. Otherwise it might be a pretty bad move as far as compensation goes.
What's that phrase? 'Shut up or fire me'