Googler... ex-Googler

Layoffs are a difficult thing for employees and their managers. I have seen people (one was a VP of Engineering) escorted out of the building, sent in a cab to home along with a security guard (this was in India), not allowed access to computer or talk with other employees. But, recently have had a very different experience. The current company I work for announced 30% layoffs. The list was made public within one hour of announcement. The CEO detailed the process of selecting people. The severance was very generous (3-6 months pay) along with health and other benefits. The impacted employees were allowed to keep the laptop and any other assets they took from the company. They even paid the same severance to contractors.

After the announcement, the laid off employees were given a few days in the company to allow them to say good byes. I love the CEOs comment on this ' I trusted them yesterday, I trust them today'. This was by far the kindest way of laying off employees imo. People were treated with dignity and respect.

Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else.

Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. People are moved to different jobs, helped with training etc...

Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay.

that’s very business hostile tbh. I wouldn’t start a company there.

Treating people with dignity is “business hostile”… welcome to Hacker News comment section.

I work for a paycheck. I can’t exchange “dignity” for goods and services. The guy got paid nice compensation for his labor.

Therefore, let's throw everything non-monetary under the bus because work should be purely transactional?

What else should it be? Do you believe that your company is like “your family”? Your coworkers or especially your manager are “your friends”?

Why else do you go to work?

You're taking "Human resources" a bit too literally.

We are resources. The one Big Tech company I have worked for has 1.556 million employees. What else was I besides a “resource”?

It's not a binary between "we are family" and "we are resources", it's a spectrum.

In your case, yes, you were absolutely a resource. This is exactly why companies of that size simply shouldn't exist - because they cannot not treat their employees as resources, with all the inhumanity this implies.

Yes because a small company could deliver a national same day shipping infrastructure and worldwide network of cloud servers including its own undersead cables.

And again, work is a transaction. I’m perfectly fine with being treated as a resource when I was getting a quarter million a year and working remotely…

I'm okay with not having same day shipping if this means that companies don't have to treat their employees like dirt.

But, more importantly, a company that large is simply too much concentrated economic power (which then translates to political power). Even if it was all just robots, I'd still say no. Our political system is in shambles in large part because of these kinds of entities.