
Company survival does not imply job survival - jalvz0
https://whilewest.com/things-might-get-worse-2b5b88caa54
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kasey_junk
> People are laid off when they are not necessary to a company’s future.

I think it is important for everyone to note that no one is necessary to a
company's future. If you work for a company where that is true of you, or any
other employee, it is a bad position to be in. You work for an extremely shaky
employer.

At the end of the day, layoffs do not happen based on merit. They happen based
on cost, or revenue, or a wide variety of other factors outside of your
control. I've been in meetings where 1 group that was demonstrably better by
every metric we picked was still let go over another group. The reason was the
lease terms on the office space they were in.

Anyone that tells you that you can save your job in the face of layoffs due to
changing your working habits is manipulating you.

~~~
pmiller2
This makes perfect sense. I like to describe corporations as sociopathic
entities that will do anything to anyone if it makes or saves them a buck in
the long run (including firing your ass).

~~~
benjohnson
As an employer, I agree.

As an individual, I'm a pretty nice guy, but as an employer, my motivations
are much more directed toward the bottom line - balancing the company's
business in a short term and long term view.

~~~
akjetma
I don't mean to single you out, but I just think it's bizarre that people
cease to be humans when they go to work and have an ultimate duty to their
organization above human dignity. Or that there is this bifurcation of work
reality and 'life' reality. It really commoditizes the idea of being a good
person.

~~~
ghaff
I'm not sure where you're reading "above human dignity" into the comments. In
many situations, companies will try to accommodate people who are having
issues of whatever sort; it's not always red of tooth and claw. But sometimes
it does just have to be "just business," especially at the macro level for the
benefit of not only investors but also other employees.

It's not that different if someone is just doing some work for me personally.
If they have a personal issue someday, by all means they should go deal with
it. But I'm not going to cut endless slack for poor workmanship or whatever
just because I know they really need a job.

~~~
pmiller2
> In many situations, companies will try to accommodate people who are having
> issues of whatever sort

That's probably because it's easier and cheaper to accommodate people to an
extent rather than replace them. Think about how little tolerance minimum wage
food service jobs have for peoples' personal life. That's because you can
literally replace those people off the street and a brand new employee is
extremely productive relative to an experienced employee in a very short time.
None of those things are true in a professional environment.

~~~
ghaff
There's certainly some truth in that--although I'm not sure how unique to
business relationships it is. The more one has invested in a relationship
generally, the more they'll generally put into smoothing over a rough patch or
making changes that allow the relationship to continue. Conversely, the more
transactional the arrangement is, the more likely you are to terminate it if
the immediate benefits aren't worth it. This applies whether employees,
suppliers, plumbers, or whatever.

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pmiller2
I wonder what this means for the 1x engineer -- the 50th percentile person who
does good, solid work.

~~~
bigiain
Probably the same as it's always been - VC backed unicorn-aiming startups
aren't a great idea as a long term career spot. If you are a genuine 10x
engineer _and_ you have a single digit employee number, a wanna-be-unicorn is
a gamble that's worth at least evaluating. If you want a family/social life
outside of work, and you're only prepared to put in enough effort to be "just"
a good solid employee, startups have probably never been a great idea.

Not that the non-VC fuelled "corporate world"or even the small/medium business
sector is any less intrinsically sociopathic towards employees and their drag
on the legal requirement to "increase shareholder value" \- we don't live in
the world out fathers/grandfathers did, where doing "a fair days work for a
fair days pay" every day pretty much guarantees you a livelihood until
retirement.

We're already seeing problems amongst the 50+ year old demographic finding it
increasingly common to be looking for new jobs at the same time as finding
their skills and employability are significantly less relevant to modern
businesses. I suppose that's always been happening, there's not too many jpb
openings for 55 year old buggy whip makers, or even automobile welders, but I
_think_ the rate of change is getting faster and I seriously wonder what the
job market and economy is going to look like with another decade or generation
of people who spent the first half or more of their careers in serious debt
and don't have the capital to live out a retirement, nor a skillset that'll
allow then to remain employed...

~~~
HillRat
And even _having_ a retirement was a mid-century innovation that garnered its
share of opposition. America has always made the political and economic
tradeoffs to maximize employment, but politically it seems difficult to
sustain a system that results in lower wages, fewer benefits, greater
uncertainty _and_ higher unemployment (plus ancillary social stress markers
like opiate addiction) -- the Trump/Sanders dynamics this year may presage a
future boom in populist politics on both sides of the political spectrum.

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michaelbuddy
Pretty sure everyone knew this was true. In fact, I've never heard anyone say
the opposite. Every 1st quarter you can see where company survival means job
survivial is tenuous.

