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1602 points rebelwebmaster | 7 comments | | HN request time: 1.285s | source | bottom
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dblohm7 ◴[] No.24122017[source]
[I am a Mozilla employee, and yes, I do recognize how my position influences my perspective.]

One thing that always frustrates me a bit whenever Mozilla comes up on HN or elsewhere is that we are always held to impossibly high standards. Yes, as a non-profit, we should be held to higher standards, but not impossible standards.

OTOH, sometimes it just seems unreasonable and absurd. Stuff like, to paraphrase, "Look at the corporate doublespeak in that press release. Fuck Mozilla, I'm switching to Chrome."

Really? That's what's got you bent out of shape?

Sure, Mozilla has made mistakes. Did we apologize? Did we learn anything? Did we work to prevent it happening again?

People want to continue flogging us for these things while giving other companies (who have made their own mistakes, often much more consequential than ours, would never be as open about it, and often learn nothing) a relatively free pass.

I'm certainly not the first person on the planet whose employer has been on the receiving end of vitriol. And if Mozilla doesn't make it through this next phase, I can always find another job. But what concerns me about this is that Mozilla is such an important voice in shaping the future of the internet. To see it wither away because of people angry with what are, in the grand scheme of things, minor mistakes, is a shame.

EDIT: And lest you think I am embellishing about trivial complaints, there was a rant last week on r/Firefox that Mozilla was allegedly conspiring to hide Gecko's source code because we self-host our primary repo and bug tracking instead of using GitHub, despite the fact that the Mozilla project predates GitHub by a decade.

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hn_throwaway_99 ◴[] No.24125514[source]
I certainly don't think the corporate doublespeak is reason to switch to Chrome, but I do think the corporate doublespeak in this announcement is just awful.

When you're doing a layoff, just announce the layoff, show compassion to the affected employees, and if you want to announce other changes, do it in a separate announcement. Putting stuff about the fight against systemic racism in the opening paragraph of a layoff announcement is just inviting a tidal wave of eye rolls.

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vages ◴[] No.24126092[source]
I have to respectfully disagree. It is common for leaders to re-state their entity's reason for being as they bring bad news. See Churchill's speeches during the battle of France, for instance.

I think this opening was well-written and clearly communicated Mozilla's purpose. You can blame it for being populist, but don't hate the player, hate the game.

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KerryJones ◴[] No.24128465[source]
It was also common for leaders to own slaves. What is common does != what is right, meaningful, or that it should be used as a guide.
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1. asdff ◴[] No.24128650[source]
Bit of hyperbole there. This is a press release that their PR head pumped out in 5 minutes, using whatever techniques they teach PR heads at communications schools. Insert any company that can lay off 250 employees and keep ticking, and you will probably get about the same exact document from a similarly schooled PR head.
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2. tempestn ◴[] No.24128802[source]
You think their PR head would only spend 5 minutes crafting a post announcing the layoff of a quarter of their staff?
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3. asdff ◴[] No.24129335[source]
For a well trained and well paid one? Yeah, they probably have a template.
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4. KSteffensen ◴[] No.24130118{3}[source]
I wouldn't expect there to be a corporate template for a mass layoff press release. Having such a thing would be a warning sign for the future of the company to me.

Also, people who don't know anything about a task tend to underestimate its complexity. I can't remeber the name of the effect but it's a variant of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

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5. j-krieger ◴[] No.24130331{4}[source]
Mass layoffs are and have been standard procedures in any company, regardless of size. Writing such templates in good times instead of wasting resources elsewhere is just good risk management.
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6. KerryJones ◴[] No.24135175[source]
Agreed on hyperbole and I could have used a more realistic example. My point was to bring up faulty logic, which is still equally valid.

As others have mentioned, layoffs should not be templatized, it is an indication that the company doesn't care much about the employees, the heart and soul of the company. I hope to God it was more than 5 minutes to draft a message to put 250 people out of a job in the middle of a Pandemic.

Putting it up to "well this is the standard of the industry" is bullshit, if you want more realistic examples, sexism in the work place is _not_ a hyperbole and is still very normal and very wrong.

7. tempestn ◴[] No.24138157{5}[source]
Whether you have a template or not, each mass layoff is going to be under specific circumstances, and is going to carry significant PR and HR consequences. It would be wise to take considerably longer than 5 minutes to consider and craft that message. I would agree that they could hammer out an initial draft for discussion with management in 5 minutes though.