Auth0 truly did an amazing job on hiring for culture, being transparent and living their values.
The pre-acquisition Glassdoor reviews were astounding and back this up.
For myself, working at auth0 was truly life altering. It was the first time I was in a long standing multi-national environment.
It was the first time I was deeply exposed to other cultures and ways of living.
As a side effect of working at Auth0, This exposure completely reshaped my worldview and thoughts on luck and privilege. Watching Argentina inflation fluctuate as people I spent 8 hours a day with struggle to pay their bills and provide for their families as I live stably with no worry I really internalized how much pure raw luck plays in setting us up for life: Who we’re born to and where we’re born.
I traveled some in college to not so tourist friendly places and then worked as an expat in IT and I feel so fortunate for the same takeaways I am bitter and cynical as an American but defend the other at home and abroad because it made me keenly aware of our shared perspective It always makes me often wallow in guilt it took a privileged family to kick that off and let me learn it far away and not build up such empathy at home.
When I read shared experiences like ours on the Internet it reminds me of what I think is the one true value of this tool for humanity I wish it was used for that the majority of the time by most people but oh well!
Word choice can help your thinking. We all receive different struggles and decide how to respond.
The way you describe your 'luck', I read as "random good fortune" tinged with some guilt for being a 'have' when there are so many 'have-not's.
I prefer 'blessed', and not in the corny #blessed way, to describe my condition. To me, I was given much because so much is expected of me by God, by universe and by my higher self.
The extent to which I am blessed is a component of my calling to improve the total human condition.
If you lean in to that way of thinking, you obligate yourself and that can be as heavy a burden as you choose to make it. That choice and the freedom to decide how to fulfill that obligation are a part of the blessing.
To naval gaze and feel guilt is natural but fruitless stinkin' thinkin'. Motivating oneself with gratitude and humbling oneself by giving glory are ways to power through guilt.
> I was still caught a bit off guard. What about that high-priority project I was helping to lead? What about the training I was scheduled to deliver? What about the offsite next month?
This is the part that always confuses me. I understand why they treat employees as disposable, but it's like they don't care about continuation of business either.
I feel like everytime I've quit a job, I cared more about my succession plan than my employer just because I have professional standards I set for myself. It makes no sense to me.
> and learned an enormous amount about what it means to build and run a people-first company
Seems at odds with this bit at the beginning:
> And then it happened, I got the email. Slack didn't work. My laptop restarted and came back with accounts missing. It really, actually happened. And even though the writing seemed to be on the wall, I was still caught a bit off guard.
This industry (not specifically this company) fires people in a way that is not as people-first as all of the declarations make out.
If people want it to be people first through and through... know that every right that you ever had was earned through a union.
> and learned an enormous amount about what it means to build and run a people-first company
He's talking about Auth0.
> And then it happened, I got the email. Slack didn't work. My laptop restarted and came back with accounts missing. It really, actually happened. And even though the writing seemed to be on the wall, I was still caught a bit off guard.
Talking about how that culture no longer existed -- it's fully Okta now. The Auth0 culture essentially erroded until it finally just no longer existed. This of course happened at a different pace across differnt organizations. Unfortunately, I'd say ours was probably one of the earliest to get hit.
---
As an aside, I was part of same team (also laid off), and had an especially unique viewpoint.
I joined Auth0 in 2020 -- months before the acquisition. I joined because of the culture and the amazing people I get to work with and learn from. I had a lot of fun and we built some amazing things. After about 18 months I decided to join a local startup, itching to get back to a much smaller arena, building something from the ground up. Applying all the great things I've learned in my career thus far. Long story short, as most starups go, especially during COVID, it didn't pan out.
I kept in touch with my old colleagues, now my friends, who approached me with a potential new opportunity. They did warn me things were different now, but I was excited to get to work with great people again.
Coming back it was starkly different. Gone was the magic that was once there. A lot of familiar faces were still around, but so too were a lot gone now. I can feel the beating of the Okta drums more loudly now.. there just felt a lot of separation between leadership and us dreamers at the bottom. I felt like I was just back at a corporate company now, more worried about writing OKRs and how they made my boss/division look good verses actually making our customers lives better. There was a constant dread in the air.. verses excitement.
It's strange, but in some ways its almost like a feeling of mourning. That meme about not knowing when you're in the good old days is very true. Goodbye Auth0 <3
> know that every right that you ever had was earned through a union
This really isn't true. Lots of these perks are because there was loads of money sloshing around, and a competitive hiring environment drove the culture to be as attractive as possible for employees.
It has been interesting to read the comments here. At places I've worked I've always worked my full notice (usually months), however when other people have quit they've been locked out of their systems, and some escorted from the premises. Perhaps I come across as a naïve/nice/non-malicious. My roles have always been in some of the most sensitive positions within organisations. Often without a clear successor so perhaps the worry was about not being able to fix things if I was to become disgruntled. (Or simply not knowing if they could lock me out... as crazy as that sounds!)
That was brilliantly written and summarised. Seems that Auth0 really did walk the walk in terms of developer experience and support. Thanks and good luck!
> I was being exposed to engineering concepts that just weren't a thing in agency work: unit testing, CI/CD, git hygiene, release management.
As someone who’s worked at an agency that’s grown from twenty engineers to hundreds over the last five years, what? Even when we were small and scrappy we still wrote unit tests…
My experience was 100% different (but also 6+ years ago). Margins just weren't enough to build it into estimates and it was nearly impossible to sell it to clients as a line item.
It's difficult to find a good balance between engaging with your work and colleagues, and the reality that your employer-employee relationship is a business relationship that could be severed at any time. Reading this post reminds me of that.
I can’t help but wonder about all the people who can’t express themselves as well as this Author. No shade on them, Im glad to have read about their journey. But the cynical part of me wonders about all the other affected folks, and what their perspective was about their tenure.
This was on my mind when I published it. I know, personally, other folks who did not have as fond of a memory as I do and others who are in a tough spot because of these layoffs (visa issues, financial hardships, etc). I certainly don't mean to imply that I represent all views here but it seems to have resonated with a lot of my former colleagues (who were the audience for this post).
I yawn at these posts because you should expect in life to be churned and when flavourless thrown out. Pick yourself up and move on.
Should I care that someone worked at Auth0, SpaceX, Amazon or Google when they're just another company that pays you money? How is it any different to where I work?
I've done them all, banks, animation studio, enterprise, corporate, sme, porn and can tell you every single one is the same.
It's the corps vision of fairy dust that alludes the employee wrong is what. "Work for us and live a life of wonders and giggles *"
Do a lot of companies actually fire people via email? That seems very cold! Most of the companies I've worked for they will call you into a meeting with your boss and HR and then have security walk you out after gathering your things. Not ideal, but at least has a human element. If this person was remote then it could at least be done via phone.
It's to no one's advantage for employers to give a reason. It just invites pushback/argument. Better to just say "you can't fight management/VPs/people above our pay grade" and move on.
The bitter truth is your employer has a lot more lawyers than you do. For all the talk about how well-compensated and in-demand tech workers are, the reality is usually different.
You need someone in your corner to help you fight for your rights.
Well I worked in both EU(Ireland) and US for the same company on the same projects the comp difference is huge. So all the safety nets might buy you more peace of mind but pragmatically you are better off just having an extra rainy day fund from the portion of extra income you get in the US.
How does joining a union prevent someone from being laid off after a merger? Unions have their place, but I'm skeptical that someone–especially a presumably high-paid employee–could collectively bargain their way out of a planned post-merger mass firing.
Anyone have any idea how this would/could work for a company with employees in many different countries? Especially if the number of employees in your own country is low? (Single or low double digits.)
I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened during a farewell dinner. So much more humane.
At my second job, the company terminated an employee for poor performance and intended to let them stay on a short term to wrap things up and then start their severance. The first evening (or maybe the first Friday evening), that dev stayed late in the office and deleted the source trees from as many machines as he could get access to (this was 1996, so most machines didn't have logins) and wiped the hard drive on the revision control server.
That experience (and the amount of loss and wasted time in reconstructing as best we could) heavily colored my view of the risk-reward ratio of letting terminated employees have continued access to premises and systems.
If I have any doubts about the future behavior of someone who just received very shocking, disorienting, and angering news, it is my job to protect the company and other employees much more than it is to allow the terminated employee continued access.
Because they don't trust institutions, if someone that is working for a company and does something bad, or is shown to be corrupt, it will affect the public perception of the company, not of the individual.
Also, because Americans don't trust institutions, a lot of the internal processes and cultural values are upheld by the individuals, and how strongly this is done depends on the individual's power and ability to influence. This applies to all levels of the organization. This allows for the organization as a whole to be more dynamic and effective, but the downside is that this works only when the individuals have a vested interest in the organization.
When there is a layoff, or even when a simple individual is fired, this mutual alignment is removed and all bets are off. Except for fear of legal retaliation, the individual is no longer bound to the organization. This can lead to things like:
- Executives preempting the communication of their firing and using it to swing internal opinion, or even taking key team members away with them, like Sam Altman vs OpenAI.
- Employees with access to (supposedly) restricted areas copying sensitive information: E.g, sales reps getting data from all their clients to contact them and move them along.
- Plain old espionage / sabotage. Don't forget, if a company is laying people off it means they are not doing well, and if they are not doing well means they certainly want to keep as much of what is "really happening" to themselves. Fired employees can use their internal communications to gather evidence from their boss wrongdoings, find internal memos and share with journalists willing to get a scoop, etc.
Because losing your job is really a bummer everywhere, but in Europe you've got a lot of things covered by the welfare state (how well, it's a different discussion), so it's less stressful, which reduces the probability of people being really pissed.
In the US, you're probably out of healthcare in the blink of an eye, may have no severance, no coverage, no unemployment benefits, and in some cases it'd mean deportation.
I had that experience with a US mother company of a European subsidiary (of a subsidiary). CEO swings by, as he does once per year, and fires the whole dev team, including the local branch manager, because they'll take over in the US (they couldn't, and then bought a competitor instead; the original product is still running, 15 years later), and we were told to leave the building. I had a program building something for an unusual client project, but I had to close the laptop, and that was €60k down the drain, probably more if the project had been successful. Since then, I've avoid companies with US ties.
In some parts of Europe, it is very common to do “mutual termination”, since you cannot easily fire someone just on a whim. If you use the “redundancy” excuse, companies are usually prohibited from hiring again on the same position for 6 months. If you want to fire someone and not face this, there’s a very detailed process of what you have to do, before you can justify termination (documented first warning to the employee, steps they need to take to improve, second warning, proof that they didn’t so what was asked of them, etc).
Virtually no one goes through this, and they opt for mutual termination, and generally a person can negotiate a severance package for their signature (I have seen examples of people negotiating almost a year’s salary as severance), and they are out immediately.
But this is also a scare tactic and people get caught by surprise and sign anything, sometimes without any severance. During this past year, as mass layoffs were happening in waves, people got more informed about this and were smarter in negotiating their exits.
>I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one.
Not trying to single you out, but these kinds of comments always baffle me.
Around the world, we have different religions, cultures, languages, customs, currencies, holidays, skin colors, legal structures, etc. And then someone is confused why people on the other side of the world don't do things the same way.
For me, as a product of all of the things above in the US, if a company tells me they no longer need my services, then I am not going to keep working for a while. That doesn't mean I am going to be spiteful, but just that I acknowledge their decision, and so I will move on to something else. To me, continuing to work alongside (former-ish) teammates in a dead man walking situation seems strange, but I can see why it might work in Europe.
Not sure which part of Europe you are referencing, but from the layoffs I've seen and heard of (DACH) the procedure was always to lock the person out immediately after the layoff call/meeting. If that's good or bad is rather subjective, personally I would rather walk out the door right after.
One might have enough time to send their farewells, but that's about it - you are still getting payed until the end of the notice period of course. (let's not talk about severance packages, they are either non existent or a joke - you often also have to sign an NDA prohibiting you to talk about the package and the layoff in general).
So basically companies pull the same questionable stuff in Europe as well, it's far from the fairytale you sometimes read about. (there are always exceptions ofc)
I think the answer is pretty simply due to the difference in laws. In the US no notice is legally required. As you noted, employees that already know their employment is shortly coming to an end generally don't perform to the same level. Therefore it is in the company's interest to give no advance notice whatsoever until employment is officially, actually terminated.
In every European country, there's a legal requirement to give notice. And therefore there is an incentive for the company to maintain amicable relations during the notice period to try and prevent trouble.
This does seem to be a lot more common in the US, I actually had this happen to me while working for a US company and the author's experience was very relatable – I was immediately locked out of my accounts and couldn't even say goodbye to the people I had been working with for the last several years (I was working remotely at the time).
But I've seen it in the UK too... Specifically one corporate I worked for sent a mass email to everyone on a Thursday afternoon saying something along the lines of "please ensure you're in the office tomorrow morning". Then on the Friday morning people were called into a room one by one, told they had been made redundant and were immediately escorted off site by security. This was just a fairly regular retail business too. Nothing that you would think required such an extreme approach.
I suppose I understand it in some ways though... If you've just told someone you've lost your job you're probably not going to be very motivated to continue to work. And suppose there is some risk people might try to disrupt business activities in protest... I think it probably is better to give employees their redundancy pay and let them move on rather than waste their time for several weeks. That said, I'm not sure why the security escort was needed in this case. The layoffs came from McKinsey's infinite wisdom though, so it wouldn't surprise me if the security escort was their recommendation to reduce risk.
I find the "lock out and leave immediately" thing to be pretty weird, and perhaps US-specific.
But! The Nordic approach is also bizarre! The norm is that employees keep working for 3 months after giving notice. There are, of course, plenty of exceptions. The "normal exception" is that if someone quits and the business thinks they are going to go to a competitor, they'll leave the premises within a few days, but continue as a paid employee for the remainder of the time -- known as "garden leave."
In either case, though, the employee doesn't start working at their new job for three months!! In my experience, it's super-stifling, especially for startups, since three months is an eternity for a new company. Of course, in the tech industry, nobody really does all that much work for at least the trailing two months, since who's going to get assigned to a new project just before they leave?
I guess this is perhaps sorta how things play out in areas of the US that allow noncompetes to be enforced, too.
> I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one.
Personal bias? Layoffs/Firing etc. in Austria in IT look very much the same. You're locked out, your devices are taken, you are escorted out of the office. That has nothing to do with being afraid, it's just a clear cut process. Why make it ambiguous?
This is not the "European culture", which I am not sure exists as one on this issue.
I have seen many times people be quickly "locked out" when being laid off. A term for this in the UK is "garden leave" because you're still paid but you're told not to work or come to the office anymore.
As the case may be this makes sense in order to avoid any issues (from bad blood in the office to actively malicious actions) and, realistically someone being laid off is not exactly going to do their best work, anyway...
Edit: Personally I think a quick cut is better as it avoids having to continue going to the office when you know it's pretty much pointless and it allows to focus on your next step. The thing is that it brings home the fact that this was all a business arrangement despite all the emotional attachment we may develop over time.
It’s not talked about as much but one of the main reasons for American and European software developers being let go is outsourcing to places like India.
Companies save 90% of the cost of hiring someone in America.
Very soon we are going to see what happened to manufacturing jobs happen to software jobs in the US unless the government steps in. Unfortunately I don’t see anyone talk about it
[+] [-] dm03514|2 years ago|reply
The pre-acquisition Glassdoor reviews were astounding and back this up.
For myself, working at auth0 was truly life altering. It was the first time I was in a long standing multi-national environment.
It was the first time I was deeply exposed to other cultures and ways of living.
As a side effect of working at Auth0, This exposure completely reshaped my worldview and thoughts on luck and privilege. Watching Argentina inflation fluctuate as people I spent 8 hours a day with struggle to pay their bills and provide for their families as I live stably with no worry I really internalized how much pure raw luck plays in setting us up for life: Who we’re born to and where we’re born.
[+] [-] 616c|2 years ago|reply
When I read shared experiences like ours on the Internet it reminds me of what I think is the one true value of this tool for humanity I wish it was used for that the majority of the time by most people but oh well!
[+] [-] EdSharkey|2 years ago|reply
The way you describe your 'luck', I read as "random good fortune" tinged with some guilt for being a 'have' when there are so many 'have-not's.
I prefer 'blessed', and not in the corny #blessed way, to describe my condition. To me, I was given much because so much is expected of me by God, by universe and by my higher self.
The extent to which I am blessed is a component of my calling to improve the total human condition.
If you lean in to that way of thinking, you obligate yourself and that can be as heavy a burden as you choose to make it. That choice and the freedom to decide how to fulfill that obligation are a part of the blessing.
To naval gaze and feel guilt is natural but fruitless stinkin' thinkin'. Motivating oneself with gratitude and humbling oneself by giving glory are ways to power through guilt.
[+] [-] activitypea|2 years ago|reply
This is the part that always confuses me. I understand why they treat employees as disposable, but it's like they don't care about continuation of business either.
I feel like everytime I've quit a job, I cared more about my succession plan than my employer just because I have professional standards I set for myself. It makes no sense to me.
[+] [-] ethanbond|2 years ago|reply
There’s almost no single person, project, process, or piece of knowledge that is truly existential to a moderate sized organization.
[+] [-] matwood|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buro9|2 years ago|reply
> and learned an enormous amount about what it means to build and run a people-first company
Seems at odds with this bit at the beginning:
> And then it happened, I got the email. Slack didn't work. My laptop restarted and came back with accounts missing. It really, actually happened. And even though the writing seemed to be on the wall, I was still caught a bit off guard.
This industry (not specifically this company) fires people in a way that is not as people-first as all of the declarations make out.
If people want it to be people first through and through... know that every right that you ever had was earned through a union.
[+] [-] loloquwowndueo|2 years ago|reply
Fairly clear to me.
[+] [-] johnnyAghands|2 years ago|reply
He's talking about Auth0.
> And then it happened, I got the email. Slack didn't work. My laptop restarted and came back with accounts missing. It really, actually happened. And even though the writing seemed to be on the wall, I was still caught a bit off guard.
Talking about how that culture no longer existed -- it's fully Okta now. The Auth0 culture essentially erroded until it finally just no longer existed. This of course happened at a different pace across differnt organizations. Unfortunately, I'd say ours was probably one of the earliest to get hit.
---
As an aside, I was part of same team (also laid off), and had an especially unique viewpoint.
I joined Auth0 in 2020 -- months before the acquisition. I joined because of the culture and the amazing people I get to work with and learn from. I had a lot of fun and we built some amazing things. After about 18 months I decided to join a local startup, itching to get back to a much smaller arena, building something from the ground up. Applying all the great things I've learned in my career thus far. Long story short, as most starups go, especially during COVID, it didn't pan out.
I kept in touch with my old colleagues, now my friends, who approached me with a potential new opportunity. They did warn me things were different now, but I was excited to get to work with great people again.
Coming back it was starkly different. Gone was the magic that was once there. A lot of familiar faces were still around, but so too were a lot gone now. I can feel the beating of the Okta drums more loudly now.. there just felt a lot of separation between leadership and us dreamers at the bottom. I felt like I was just back at a corporate company now, more worried about writing OKRs and how they made my boss/division look good verses actually making our customers lives better. There was a constant dread in the air.. verses excitement.
It's strange, but in some ways its almost like a feeling of mourning. That meme about not knowing when you're in the good old days is very true. Goodbye Auth0 <3
[+] [-] morgante|2 years ago|reply
Leaving terminated employees with access to sensitive systems is poor security practice.
[+] [-] CalRobert|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robertlagrant|2 years ago|reply
This really isn't true. Lots of these perks are because there was loads of money sloshing around, and a competitive hiring environment drove the culture to be as attractive as possible for employees.
[+] [-] flumpcakes|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] planetjones|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brightstep|2 years ago|reply
As someone who’s worked at an agency that’s grown from twenty engineers to hundreds over the last five years, what? Even when we were small and scrappy we still wrote unit tests…
[+] [-] joshcanhelp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yellow_lead|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pm90|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshcanhelp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doublerabbit|2 years ago|reply
I yawn at these posts because you should expect in life to be churned and when flavourless thrown out. Pick yourself up and move on.
Should I care that someone worked at Auth0, SpaceX, Amazon or Google when they're just another company that pays you money? How is it any different to where I work?
I've done them all, banks, animation studio, enterprise, corporate, sme, porn and can tell you every single one is the same.
It's the corps vision of fairy dust that alludes the employee wrong is what. "Work for us and live a life of wonders and giggles *"
* until we get bored of you
[+] [-] nu11ptr|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hasty_pudding|2 years ago|reply
Youre paying ALOT for what you can do with a JWT.
[+] [-] oars|2 years ago|reply
It's to no one's advantage for employers to give a reason. It just invites pushback/argument. Better to just say "you can't fight management/VPs/people above our pay grade" and move on.
[+] [-] subarctic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edent|2 years ago|reply
The bitter truth is your employer has a lot more lawyers than you do. For all the talk about how well-compensated and in-demand tech workers are, the reality is usually different.
You need someone in your corner to help you fight for your rights.
If you're a tech worker in the UK, you can get three months free membership at https://prospect.org.uk/join/
[+] [-] qaq|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dontlaugh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evantbyrne|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vinnl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxehmookau|2 years ago|reply
https://utaw.tech/join/ also good.
Think of it as having an employment lawyer on retainer for £8 a month. Well worth the money.
[+] [-] pjmlp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rollulus|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sokoloff|2 years ago|reply
That experience (and the amount of loss and wasted time in reconstructing as best we could) heavily colored my view of the risk-reward ratio of letting terminated employees have continued access to premises and systems.
If I have any doubts about the future behavior of someone who just received very shocking, disorienting, and angering news, it is my job to protect the company and other employees much more than it is to allow the terminated employee continued access.
[+] [-] rglullis|2 years ago|reply
Because they don't trust institutions, if someone that is working for a company and does something bad, or is shown to be corrupt, it will affect the public perception of the company, not of the individual.
Also, because Americans don't trust institutions, a lot of the internal processes and cultural values are upheld by the individuals, and how strongly this is done depends on the individual's power and ability to influence. This applies to all levels of the organization. This allows for the organization as a whole to be more dynamic and effective, but the downside is that this works only when the individuals have a vested interest in the organization.
When there is a layoff, or even when a simple individual is fired, this mutual alignment is removed and all bets are off. Except for fear of legal retaliation, the individual is no longer bound to the organization. This can lead to things like:
- Executives preempting the communication of their firing and using it to swing internal opinion, or even taking key team members away with them, like Sam Altman vs OpenAI.
- Employees with access to (supposedly) restricted areas copying sensitive information: E.g, sales reps getting data from all their clients to contact them and move them along.
- Plain old espionage / sabotage. Don't forget, if a company is laying people off it means they are not doing well, and if they are not doing well means they certainly want to keep as much of what is "really happening" to themselves. Fired employees can use their internal communications to gather evidence from their boss wrongdoings, find internal memos and share with journalists willing to get a scoop, etc.
[+] [-] artyom|2 years ago|reply
In the US, you're probably out of healthcare in the blink of an eye, may have no severance, no coverage, no unemployment benefits, and in some cases it'd mean deportation.
So yeah, two different worlds.
[+] [-] tgv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mickeythug|2 years ago|reply
Virtually no one goes through this, and they opt for mutual termination, and generally a person can negotiate a severance package for their signature (I have seen examples of people negotiating almost a year’s salary as severance), and they are out immediately.
But this is also a scare tactic and people get caught by surprise and sign anything, sometimes without any severance. During this past year, as mass layoffs were happening in waves, people got more informed about this and were smarter in negotiating their exits.
[+] [-] brk|2 years ago|reply
Not trying to single you out, but these kinds of comments always baffle me.
Around the world, we have different religions, cultures, languages, customs, currencies, holidays, skin colors, legal structures, etc. And then someone is confused why people on the other side of the world don't do things the same way.
For me, as a product of all of the things above in the US, if a company tells me they no longer need my services, then I am not going to keep working for a while. That doesn't mean I am going to be spiteful, but just that I acknowledge their decision, and so I will move on to something else. To me, continuing to work alongside (former-ish) teammates in a dead man walking situation seems strange, but I can see why it might work in Europe.
[+] [-] glitchalumni|2 years ago|reply
One might have enough time to send their farewells, but that's about it - you are still getting payed until the end of the notice period of course. (let's not talk about severance packages, they are either non existent or a joke - you often also have to sign an NDA prohibiting you to talk about the package and the layoff in general).
So basically companies pull the same questionable stuff in Europe as well, it's far from the fairytale you sometimes read about. (there are always exceptions ofc)
[+] [-] sushibowl|2 years ago|reply
In every European country, there's a legal requirement to give notice. And therefore there is an incentive for the company to maintain amicable relations during the notice period to try and prevent trouble.
[+] [-] kypro|2 years ago|reply
But I've seen it in the UK too... Specifically one corporate I worked for sent a mass email to everyone on a Thursday afternoon saying something along the lines of "please ensure you're in the office tomorrow morning". Then on the Friday morning people were called into a room one by one, told they had been made redundant and were immediately escorted off site by security. This was just a fairly regular retail business too. Nothing that you would think required such an extreme approach.
I suppose I understand it in some ways though... If you've just told someone you've lost your job you're probably not going to be very motivated to continue to work. And suppose there is some risk people might try to disrupt business activities in protest... I think it probably is better to give employees their redundancy pay and let them move on rather than waste their time for several weeks. That said, I'm not sure why the security escort was needed in this case. The layoffs came from McKinsey's infinite wisdom though, so it wouldn't surprise me if the security escort was their recommendation to reduce risk.
[+] [-] pcl|2 years ago|reply
But! The Nordic approach is also bizarre! The norm is that employees keep working for 3 months after giving notice. There are, of course, plenty of exceptions. The "normal exception" is that if someone quits and the business thinks they are going to go to a competitor, they'll leave the premises within a few days, but continue as a paid employee for the remainder of the time -- known as "garden leave."
In either case, though, the employee doesn't start working at their new job for three months!! In my experience, it's super-stifling, especially for startups, since three months is an eternity for a new company. Of course, in the tech industry, nobody really does all that much work for at least the trailing two months, since who's going to get assigned to a new project just before they leave?
I guess this is perhaps sorta how things play out in areas of the US that allow noncompetes to be enforced, too.
[+] [-] the_mitsuhiko|2 years ago|reply
Personal bias? Layoffs/Firing etc. in Austria in IT look very much the same. You're locked out, your devices are taken, you are escorted out of the office. That has nothing to do with being afraid, it's just a clear cut process. Why make it ambiguous?
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|2 years ago|reply
I have seen many times people be quickly "locked out" when being laid off. A term for this in the UK is "garden leave" because you're still paid but you're told not to work or come to the office anymore.
As the case may be this makes sense in order to avoid any issues (from bad blood in the office to actively malicious actions) and, realistically someone being laid off is not exactly going to do their best work, anyway...
Edit: Personally I think a quick cut is better as it avoids having to continue going to the office when you know it's pretty much pointless and it allows to focus on your next step. The thing is that it brings home the fact that this was all a business arrangement despite all the emotional attachment we may develop over time.
[+] [-] RhondaAyala|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] chayesfss|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] CarenMuessig|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Ignacio3z|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] victor106|2 years ago|reply
Companies save 90% of the cost of hiring someone in America.
Very soon we are going to see what happened to manufacturing jobs happen to software jobs in the US unless the government steps in. Unfortunately I don’t see anyone talk about it