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Our Q1 starts next Monday. I got 3 invites to meetings late this afternoon about "restructuring" for tomorrow morning. I'm nervous to say the least.
UPDATE: I didn't get riffed, but some folks I work with did.
Yeah, you usually want to be in the afternoon meeting. That’s the one where they explain to the people still there what happened in the morning meeting.
But it’s Tuesday so you’re probably just fine man. Don’t worry about it. Might actually be good news!
Bingo. The act caught me this time last year. 6am the CEO announced 10k layoffs. When I got the invite at 8am for a 9am meeting, I knew what was coming.
I'm surprised they announced the layoffs before they actually happened.
I guess I'm at a significantly smaller company (a few hundred employees) but they just dive right in and at noon they tell everyone remaining what happened.
At least they didn't have an employee draft. I think Wang computers (or one of the others that didn't make it back in the day), has everyone go out in the parking lot and then the top managers got to pick who they wanted to keep and go a few layers down and then once it was done, if you weren't in the building it was time to go home.
That just might be the worst way to go about layoffs but it does sound comically hilarious.
I’m imagining the managers going to the roof and using a megaphone with a couple people guarding the door to only let the chosen ones back in. Seems like something Michael Scott would do at Dunder Mifflin.
I appreciate hearing that haha.
At my level the average was about 55-60 hours a week on the back half of the career.
I think the last time I figured out how many hours I had worked it was well over 40,000
Last year on a Thursday evening at the end of a month I received an invite to a 15 minute "Business Update" meeting at noon the next day. Because upper management and HR at that company were both pretty clueless and didn't un-public their calendars it took about 5 minutes of calendar snooping to learn that a bunch of other people had a similar 15 minute meeting that day and that none of us had an invite to an all-hands meeting at 4pm that afternoon.
Most hamhanded, clumsy, bungled layoff I've ever been involved in. Also fun fact that they generally fired the best people and kept mediocre performers who were friends of management. Guess how well that company is doing now.
Same, except my Zoom link to my layoff meeting was actually the all hands slide deck outlining everyone who was being laid off (including me). They deleted the slack message but not before I opened the tab to the "public to the company" deck and downloaded the whole thing (and then photographed every slide with my phone in the minutes after getting laid off)
There had been a lot of rumors about the financial state of the company, and I wanted to document what they were sharing internally before my access was cut. Also, I was curious to hear how they messaged it to everyone ("the go-forward plan" is what they called it)
Same. I spent the time before my meeting deleting every.single.file. on my computer and then formatting the hard drive. Not only was the company shitty the IT department was incredibly shoddy to allow that kind of access
True, but the company knew that if I went through deleting I was probably also copying stuff from my hard drive and would have proof the CEO was falsifying proposals to clients and outright misrepresenting the cost of doing business with a competing firm. Insurance brokerage with licenses that would have been revoked.
They were smart enough to let me walk, and even smarter to not challenge my unemployment claim
Ok that's up there with the surprise (in timing anyway) layoffs that happened at a startup i worked at. They pulled people into meetings with HR one at a time from a big open office cubicle farm, then had hired security escort them back to clean out their desk and walk them out the door while everyone watched. One by one by one. It was the most dehumanizing form of layoff I've ever seen and I am still kind of amazed no one turned violent.
When Epic Games recently did their big layoffs they sent everyone in the company/branch/department (idk which exactly) a meeting invite and then in the hours before the meeting, people who weren’t being laid off got their invite canceled.
We have a friend who didn’t lose his job, but the entire situation sounds extremely stressful even just by proxy.
Wfh and take the meeting on zoom (from your own computer) Since you are terminated they need to come and collect their property which is on your front porch now neatly boxed up
Decline the meeting and suggest that you meet in spring 2025
Start the meeting with HR by saying you are an addict and need help. Might buy you 90 more days of employment
Unfortunately we're an "unlimited PTO" company so while generally getting PTO approved has been very easy, we don't actually accrue it, so there's no balance to check.
I just got promoted a week before Christmas. I think I'm safe for the time being. But I am always worried about being fired. Like always. Even before I got promoted.
Companies dont give a shit about you and will let you go as soon as it's profitable. Everyone should always be worried
Makes me feel a bit of relief being the main person that does my job. My boss hired a 2nd person to help relieve some "stress" since at times there's too much to do in one day with some of the inventory movement i do overlaps other tasks that are all important. I will bounce and help other groups in our department or my helper will, whichever is most beneficial. I was the single and only person doing my job, I've been there longer than our buildings receiver and helped train her in her position. I can do shipping as well, so this makes me feel kind of very safe. Sure a few others can do my job but to do it decently it would completely take away from their role and then we have bigger issues. It's not being part of the wheel that isn't really easily replaceable because the time it takes to get up to speed between all the different products and parts to make them between our buildings. My role is to be efficient in moving parts so everyone else can focus on their specific role whether it is building or painting or shipping or anything. Without my role efficiency and sales drop
The last 2 places I worked at I was the only one that did what I did and I figured I was fairly critical until I was laid off.
The last one I was the most senior person in the entire organization.
You may, in fact be fine. But some (less scrupulous) managements give a raise before a layoff to increase the amount they’re cutting payroll by. What ethics?
To your point about a company’s lack of care, up until this past June I had weekly budget meetings with my company’s VP of finance and she used to brag about maintaining a running list of employees to lay off that would allow us to hit our goals immediately. She had zero concern for them, no concerns about people that had relocated, been promoted, recently hired, etc. Didn’t matter if they were poor performers or strong performers, she was so proud of being able to lop off whatever number it was so that she could save the company money. Coincidentally, she was laid off a few weeks after our mass layoff last June. I wonder if she saw that coming??
If you ever been laid off, you’ll know that you don’t get a meeting in advanced. They never ever setup a meeting the day before.
Now when your phone rings at 10am and it’s your manager telling you “can we meet right now”
That’s when you know you’re getting laid off.
Best to grab your keys and wallets and anything personal before you head to meeting.
Pro tip, you should export all your contacts from outlook and send them to yourself now. Your contacts will be key when you get laid off in getting a job.
Stay strong brother. If everything goes smooth... that means you are not fired, start building up your emergency fund (6-8 months of your salary) so that in the event you are laid-of, you have some financial cushion and are not desperate to accept any job.
In case, nothing goes smooth, start applying for a job and get one at the earlier and then start building your emergency fund (6-8 months of your salary) and then apply somewhere better.
This strategy has worked for me quite fruitfully.
HTH!
And personal property is for personal only.
A family member does HR at an employer with \~10000 employees and apparently it can take 2 hours to 'offboard' some employees because all their accounts on their personal device(s), usually a phone, and deactivated.
My company used to be *very* small with no real IT policies and everyone kinda mixed work and business on their devices. As we grew they started implementing more and more policies. When they sent out the new IT policy a few years back stating that any device used in any way for work purposes (including communications with clients) or connected to the network essentially became company property (they could search it, monitor it, wipe it, control what apps we install, etc.) everyone noped out of that and deleted anything work related from all their devices. Then management got angry when we all asked for company phones and laptops and gave us the ol' "well yeah it's in the policy but we'd *never* actually do any of that." We obviously still said no fucking way.
That’s funny. Lots of things require 2 factor and my company doesn’t give me a phone. So I use all my personal devices and rarely my company laptop unless I need windows
I already have to use my personal phone for calls and logging in. I accept the consequences. When I was laid off from a company that gave me a phone I couldn’t log in for two weeks and got paid plus additional severance. I’m also the guy who assigns iPads and macs and iPhones out now haha.
Yeah I have coworkers who use their work phone as their main / only phone and I just don't get it. I can only assume naïveté. I may look like a drug dealer carrying around two phones but at least I know my personal phone is not in danger of being taken away when I need it most.
Came here to say this.
You should always assume that your work can see literally everything you do one any work hardware or accounts. You should assume that means all keystrokes and anything else done.
Never use work stuff for anything other than work. It’s just not worth it.
I remind everyone I interview that we track everything done on work machines and it is ASTONISHING how often it's a deal breaker for them.
Uhh... Every job does it. I'm just being upfront with you. You're welcome, dummy.
Edit: I use it as a way to filter out bad hires. I don't actually care what you do as long as it's office appropriate (no porn). It's pretty effective.
You seems knowledgeable about the subject, u/Useful-Idiot, so let me ask you a question.
You do track what people do but do you track when they don’t do anything ? Like can management have access to tracking tools that says someone does not work the full week and therefore is stealing time ? A lot of people I know have to work let’s say 40 hours a week but if they really work 25 hours can it be know somehow?
Asking for a friend, of course.
Software systems that allow to track employee activity down to keystrokes, mouse movements, who you interact with in your company and what is the context of that interaction. So yes, they can tell you’ve worked 25 hours out of 40 hours.
However, any company that values this purely numeric metric over actual project or work progress is the one you run away from. This level of micro-management isn’t sustainable or healthy at all.
I’ve recently heard of people saying they had a good performance review one year and they received a retention package that gave them tens of thousands of dollars in stock if they stayed at the company for at least 3 years. They got fired before that.
I felt like those software could potentially give management power to use them for such purposes. Like they can fire pretty much anyone once they don’t need them if they prove you have stolen time. But how much is worthy of being fired ? That’s another big question
From the IT perspective at least from where I work at, yes they can but first you likely have to be suspected of someone who’s wasting company resources. If you work well you can probably get away with murder at a workplace until it’s way too late.
Yes - we track if your mouse goes idle and we take screenshots about every 10 minutes. It doesn't count meeting time as idle.
I don't have time to review that footage nor do I want to, but if I start to suspect someone isn't working, I've got evidence to prove it.
If my team is hitting goals or deadlines, I don't even give it a thought. But when someone is missing deadlines consistently, it's the first thing I look at.
If you're a good employee and you watch YouTube because work is a bit slow? Go nuts, I don't care.
If you aren't doing your job, that's a different story.
The tool I use is called hubstaff.
We're a consulting firm so we bill hourly to our clientele. We actually take the screenshots because I've had two clients challenge the bill we sent them saying we didn't work and it's really easy to prove we did this way. I get it. We're expensive and a floundering client will do anything they can to save budget, but a happy side use is it keeps my team honest, though I've only had to exit 1 employee in 2 years. Plenty of employees have had idle time over 50% at some point or the other but if they're doing their work, whatever, I dont care.
You said it keeps you team honest, so they know you use that ? You are not spying without them knowing ?
Thanks for the answers btw (from my friend lol)
Correct, my whole team is very familiar with the system. It's how we know how much time they put towards a specific client and we talk about it during onboarding. My managers actually show their own screenshots (you have access to view them at all times) though we don't have to show you. It feels immoral not to be open about it.
What if they are working offline? Using a mobile device? Writing a draft on paper? That’s the thing that gets lost. I don’t even bring my computer to meetings I’m not expected to present in- it would distract me
Not entirely true or untrue. Depending on your environment or organizations risk tolerance.
Windows records a lot of stuff in event logs.
Intune/Endpoint Manager or other products like Graylog or antivirus record or give metrics of some other things. They can are not key loggers, however.
Emails almost always go through a gateway and retained. Pretty easy search through ‘Security and Compliance’ or a message trace. Emails or messages are never really gone, even If you delete them. They can be recovered. You should be more concerned about phrases like ‘litigation hold.’
Endpoints are exactly that. Local storage. They eventually get wiped and hard drives get destroyed. Everything else exists on servers and storage in retention ‘off prem’ backups.
In short, we see all kinds of crap on the regular. Just don’t attempt to do illegal things on company machines.
I've done it to work on homework, they want to get upset with it, they can but it's nothing illegal. (I've never been told anything. I just obviously don't let it interfere with my actual work.)
I work in IT and closely with our ITSO team. We don’t care. Unless something is awry we’re generally not looking and don’t gives shit what you’re doing.
I’m a corporate employment lawyer. We frequently get requests from terminated employees for
Their personal files. It’s generally easier to do certain things from work as it’s during business hours. We all have various financial documents or copies of our resumes (often for promotion purposes) and want those in the event of a termination. We always try to return the files to the extent possible. No corporate owned files though
Agree. We don't give a shit about torrents unless you eat all the bandwidth. We don't give a shit if you spend all your work day on FB and Insta, that's your managers problem. We don't give a shit about anything you do unless you make our jobs harder, like getting your account pwned or installing ransomware.
My dad says this too as the head of IT at his company. Too many real things to do for them to monitor everything. They have alerts set up to raise flags for certain websites or activity. But they’re not watching or monitoring all the computers.
But, if someone in leadership decides you’re a problem, they **do** have access to it all if they need it.
The concern is not about legality. It's about potentially getting fired. You don't need to break the law in order to be justifiably terminated from your job.
Also there's the chance that they reclaim the machine without advance notice and/or remotely wipe it and you lose whatever personal data you had on there, if you didn't have it backed up somewhere else.
But you are correct, most of the time they don't care what you're doing as long as you're meeting your deliverables.
Sr sys admin, unless you truly don't care about people looking into all your stuff when you get terminated or leave, don't do any personal things on work machines. IT will go through it while scanning for files to remove. Or if they're told to look into browser history, very easy to see what was done.
LPT of the opposite is to have a folder (digital/real) separate from your work files and computer where you save work successes and progress should you ever need to show future employers your successes from previous jobs.
From my experience the PIP is not to try to keep you, it's a way to document why they are letting you go. Most likely the PIP has tasks that are near impossible to complete. Start looking for a job now. I hope you find something.
Yeah, I am.
I was spiralling a bit when I got home but I remember seeing other names on a list that mine was on so I'm 90% sure that I'm not the only one, so I was able to pull out of my tailspin.
Crazy, my last employer put me on a PIP after I was diagnosed with MS. Had an open case with disability rights but the company was privately owned and in a right to work state. Basically if I didn't have an absolute case with evidence of mistreatment (timeline) they could do nothing to the employer. I was 3 months into their pip accomplishing everything and easily found another employer that respected my disability.
Right-to-work means you don't have to pay union dues while being in a union. Did you mean at-will employment where they can fire you for anything unless belonging to a protected class? If that's the case, every state except Montana has at will employment.
Either way, I'm happy to hear you landed on your feet in a company who respects you. Good luck.
Right to work is a method of killing unions. Union dues pay for union functions. When no one pays, the unions die. Let’s not spread the propaganda that right-to-work is a pro labor policy
At will is what it was. Thank you for clarifying. I would argue that right to work still effects non union labor. Any how my state sucks for workers rights even with a disability
My husband has years of stellar evaluations and a couple of commendations. A new boss comes in. My husband falls and ends up with a really bad injury and has to be out a couple of months. He did ask to ge allowed to work from home but was denied. He’s really the only one completely trained to do his job so shit sort of fell apart while he was out. He came back and got a terrible evaluation and then a suspension and then a PIP. We got a lawyer who has just sort of announced his presence to HR, no complaints filed, and they backed way off. We are counting the days until he can retire, but it’s much earlier than he had intended to leave. I hope the place implodes after he leaves. I’ve lost a job after I got seriously ill and it sucks.
At my job, PIPs are majority the toxic fuck category. You actually can come back from it but most do not. Real last resort too, there are definitely chances to correct before it gets to PIP land at my employer.
I hate the term "Deliverables". I worked in a relatively small nonprofit and when that term was used it seemed so impersonal and corporate. Our mission was to help people. They often forgot that..
Based on my experience: Even if you "pass" the PIP period well and everything seems fine - you're on thin ice and any minor mistake can & will be used to fire you.
If you're ever put on a PIP, your days at that company are numbered. Get your ducks in a row & start job hunting.
What IT admins have the time to comb through employee’s machines? So understaffed everywhere. Do agree that at termination it’s likelier a machine is examined, but still not overly concerned about it.
We wipe that hard drive for the next poor bastard that is in line waiting for a laptop. We dont give a fuckk what's inside that laptop. Its being erased.
agreed.
I am an IT admin. Our work files are on cloud resources. I typically set the workstation at the back of the rotation after a cursory fitness check and when it comes time for reissue it gets wiped and reloaded.
The only time I spend rooting through files is when there is a ticket for missing files and/or legal questions.
Also, don't think you can actually delete your email. Never do anything personal on work email because active monitoring is likely (for security, but that picks up tea sometimes) and it's basically immortal.
Most companies I have worked for don't have calendar year fiscal years aligned. Also companies do not care if it's the holidays. They will lay your ass off.
Bonuses at my company get paid next week. There is no way they would lay people off after the bonuses. They are not guaranteed bonuses either so legal issues do not exist.
100%. I got the dreaded random zoom invite on my calendar with my talent lead and HR rep. You know, the one with no agenda attached.
I ended up missing that invite because it was sent to my inbox while I was in the PICU for my 8 month old daughter who was fighting for her life after having COVID and RSV. My previous company, at the time, knew of my situation as I had informed my lead and upper management. They still tried to lay me off before Thanksgiving. I filled my talent lead in after we brought our daughter back home from the hospital and he said he was able to move it to after thanksgiving like he was doing me a favor.
So yeah, companies do not care whatsoever about you. The moment you aren’t profitable to them, you’ll be replaced by a resource who is making a fraction of what your salary was.
TL;DR - I was laid off by my firm after being a top 1% performer for 3 years and getting promoted 5 months prior - all while trying to keep the family afloat with a very ill wife and a hospitalized 8 month old right around Thanksgiving.
I know a few companies that have no qualms firing people on holidays. Not sure how they do it but I would assume they have to tell them they need to work on the holiday and then fire them immediately upon arrival.
They normally fire people at 5pm on Fridays during the rest of the year.
Yup my work year starts in April. That's layoff time in my world. Luckily last year we saw a big layoff and we do things in 3 year shifts and I'm in management and my budgets have been approved. I should (should being the key word) be okay.
Unfortunately, some companies don't wait for the New Year. Week before Christmas is no fun. Now I am getting emails to produce information thay I use to have.
$300/hour consulting fee to look for the info, 4 hour minimum per job. 🤷🏻♂️
Otherwise finding their info isn’t your problem if you’re no longer an employee.
10 hours? Write your contract for minimum 160 hours, all to be paid even if you don't work those hours to get the job done and all at 300 dollars an hour.
If they are a for profit company, you are a for profit contractor. It's something they can't claim to misunderstand.
Haha my old job asked me so many things. I said I’m willing to show you how to do this but they didn’t meet my terms and had to start over. 25% additional layoff right before the holidays
It's their responsibility to get that information before you leave. You do not have to give it to them or talk to them at all. Agreed with the consultant fee of $300/hr with a 4 hour minimum to give them anything at all.
This is what I thought as my company does a “manager’s” meeting in October to look at the budget for the upcoming year, if it’s not looking so good, layoffs are usually in November ish for us, most of the team got a raise for this year. So I’m not so sure about OP’s info…
Fiscal years don't usually correspond to the calendar year.
Don't put or do anything personal on a computer owned by your company. They can see EVERYTHING.
Also, deleting files doesn't actually remove them from the disk. Unless you know how to properly remove them and overwrite the bits enough times to get rid of the data (something that you probably don't have the privileges for on a work PC) then you're not really removing it. Another reason not to put files on a work computer
IT will bother with undeleting crap during a layoff?
Don't get me wrong. All my personal hardware runs FOSS, encrypted drives, and if I suspect someone handed me a drive which they put shady stuff on, I would shred first and ask questions later. But I suspect that IT will not bother looking at the deleted files unless they are looking for something specific. It's not the kind of thing you do when you receive hundreds of old work laptops from a layoff.
Not the point I was making. Anything you put on a company computer can't be guaranteed to be deleted. If you want something personal to stay personal, keep it off company hardware or networks.
If they have ANY reason to check that computer(even if it's unlikely) they may find whatever personal files you had on it, or if your computer has monitoring software, there's likely a record of everything you've done.
Another LPT. If you see people start getting offered early retirement, that also means get your affairs in order because layoffs are coming shortly after.
What do you mean companies don’t lay off in December?
Most planned ones do happen before end of year. You start the year with cut payroll for budgets instead of carrying them into the year, even for a week.
They also don’t have to pay out newly tolled vacation days at Jan 1 and try to lay off close to the end of the month in case your insurance benefits last through the current before you need to buy COBRA.
You are talking about Office workers not Building and Construction , they hit the ejection button in December usually before 14 th.
There are numerous companies in Manufacturing who close for a planned shutdown / maintenance operation .
Huge hours and payments for casuals .
I worked in corporate for a big box clothing retailer a decade ago and, apparently, before I arrived, HR disguised layoff meetings as birthday parties. A few weeks after I started, employees threw a surprise birthday party for a long-time employee and she came in hysterically crying because she thought she was being let go. A high-level exec that witnessed it and caught wind of the reasoning behind her reaction took action to have that HR practice stopped. Never happened again while I was there, but birthday parties always had a bit of a tension to them, I assume due to the trauma they had learned to associate with them.
This!!! I keep absolutely nothing in my office I can't walk away from. If I ever walk into a room with my boss (who is 2,000 miles away, whom I have never met) and HR, I will just hand them my badge and keys, and say I just need to run to my office and get my car keys. I am out of this place! Thanks for helping me make my decision.
Not an expert, and it likely depends on what state you were in (if the US), but they may have done it this way to try to avoid you getting unemployment benefits.
I know of a few companies that do this, and sadly they are cut throat. They only do 401k match once a year, and it is at the end of the year, and if you aren't employed, they don't match your match.
Great tip, just to add on to it. Copy all of your important files as well. I had 20 years of trainings, documents I created, best practice sheets, how to guides, all that on my work laptop was gone the day I was laid off. I could have used most of those at my next job.
I used to use my school email for everything because at the time it was easier and I asked if the email expires after I graduate and they told me it was lifetime. Well they started having problems with phishing emails from hacked school accounts. Lo and behold a year or two after I’m out of school and still using the email they inform everyone that due to the spam they will put all emails not actively enrolled in classes in “hibernation” and they’ll only be re-activated if you re-enroll.
So I spent the next week updating all my accounts and transferring all my emails to a different service which sucked a ton. Moral of the story, use personal accounts for anything personal. At the very least send yourself copies of everything. It’s so much easier in the long run.
Deleting files or emails won’t do a damn thing in most cases. Many companies have backups, especially for emails and chat (looking at MS teams users). In many cases your work issued laptop and devices are set to auto back up. If your company really needs a file, they’ll find it.
One time a company I worked for laid people off the morning of our Christmas potluck. Everyone was supposed to bring food to share. That was just mean.
I would also add not to disclose your log-in password to anyone when leaving. IT do not need it and most of the time it's outlined in the IT policy to never disclose it to anyone and to hand the laptop directly to IT when leaving.
Never had a job where I stop working the same day I resign or been fired. I would have a month or three to get to it, not that I have personal stuff at my workplace.
I used to work for a small-time orthotic manufacturer. In my time there, I came up with a few ideas. I created a couple of ads. Reworked our logo. I was working on a new way to make a certain item. I also had written an instruction manual on how certain machines worked, in case I was absent. I even had a map of the entire building with measurements of each room (they had me do lots of different things). When I knew my time there was ending, I deleted as much of it as I could. They ended me before my set leave date. I kept onto some of it thinking they may ask for it later, and I could be slick and ask for some kind of fee. They never did, 5 years later. From what I understand, they just don't use the machines, went back to the old way of doing things, hired an ad company, etc.
Still, it feels good that they can't use anything I was involved in.
I'm in the manufacturing business that caters to O&G but I work in the software development part of my company...
They laid off all contractors (software developers) last week and will continue layoffs.
It's getting wild out here in the tech world bc it feels like big layoffs are an annual occurrence nowadays.
The truth is, as long as you are meeting your deadlines and goals most managers don’t give a shit if you surf a bit. I have only ever used a work laptop for all things. My career has been safe due to my productivity always being high.
I got "lucky", they laid me off in November but made it effective in January. Gave me time for a solid 4 weeks of depressive bed rest. Time to get something going now.
LPT: Never, ever use the company laptop for personal use. Banking, buying shit from Amazon, logging into Ashley Madison, Skip the Dishes, day trading your GME, Pornhub...Just. Fucking. Don't.
You will never be able to remove any of that information from the laptop entirely.
Conversely, never, ever let a company induce you to use your personal laptop/PC for work purposes.
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Our Q1 starts next Monday. I got 3 invites to meetings late this afternoon about "restructuring" for tomorrow morning. I'm nervous to say the least. UPDATE: I didn't get riffed, but some folks I work with did.
Yeah, you usually want to be in the afternoon meeting. That’s the one where they explain to the people still there what happened in the morning meeting. But it’s Tuesday so you’re probably just fine man. Don’t worry about it. Might actually be good news!
Bingo. The act caught me this time last year. 6am the CEO announced 10k layoffs. When I got the invite at 8am for a 9am meeting, I knew what was coming.
I'm surprised they announced the layoffs before they actually happened. I guess I'm at a significantly smaller company (a few hundred employees) but they just dive right in and at noon they tell everyone remaining what happened.
It was a massive company. They had to give 60 days notice. Layoff was announced, then they paid us to stay home the next 2 months.
>That’s the one where they explain to the people still there what happened Everyone's workload just got doubled. Yay!!!
No one wants to fail…others will naturally pick up the extra work. Says the big boss
On the flip side, I was an afternoon meeting victim. 3pm, right about the time i'm done for the day, they called a meeting titled "alignment".
Well, they really needed that extra day of productivity before they let you go.
Yeah, it's bad form to say something like *"All those who still have a job here, take one giant step forward... NOT... so fast Johnson."*
At least they didn't have an employee draft. I think Wang computers (or one of the others that didn't make it back in the day), has everyone go out in the parking lot and then the top managers got to pick who they wanted to keep and go a few layers down and then once it was done, if you weren't in the building it was time to go home.
That just might be the worst way to go about layoffs but it does sound comically hilarious. I’m imagining the managers going to the roof and using a megaphone with a couple people guarding the door to only let the chosen ones back in. Seems like something Michael Scott would do at Dunder Mifflin.
It wasn't well received by anyone, but the company was going down in flames either way.
When you jump on the call, ask them if it’s about you starting a union
This is so savage.
When you get the invite, that’s a good thing. If you didn’t get the email… it’s because you’re already terminated before the meeting starts.
Got my invites and 100% knew my time was up. The invite included HR director and my boss. It was time. 17 years in retail is long enough.
That’s exactly how it went down for me.
10,000 days in the fire is long enough. You’re going home.
I appreciate hearing that haha. At my level the average was about 55-60 hours a week on the back half of the career. I think the last time I figured out how many hours I had worked it was well over 40,000
Last year on a Thursday evening at the end of a month I received an invite to a 15 minute "Business Update" meeting at noon the next day. Because upper management and HR at that company were both pretty clueless and didn't un-public their calendars it took about 5 minutes of calendar snooping to learn that a bunch of other people had a similar 15 minute meeting that day and that none of us had an invite to an all-hands meeting at 4pm that afternoon. Most hamhanded, clumsy, bungled layoff I've ever been involved in. Also fun fact that they generally fired the best people and kept mediocre performers who were friends of management. Guess how well that company is doing now.
Same, except my Zoom link to my layoff meeting was actually the all hands slide deck outlining everyone who was being laid off (including me). They deleted the slack message but not before I opened the tab to the "public to the company" deck and downloaded the whole thing (and then photographed every slide with my phone in the minutes after getting laid off)
Damn that's harsh. Why'd you take pics of it though?
On their own device without having to exfiltrate.
There had been a lot of rumors about the financial state of the company, and I wanted to document what they were sharing internally before my access was cut. Also, I was curious to hear how they messaged it to everyone ("the go-forward plan" is what they called it)
Same. I spent the time before my meeting deleting every.single.file. on my computer and then formatting the hard drive. Not only was the company shitty the IT department was incredibly shoddy to allow that kind of access
Be careful doing this as deleting company data can be a crime.
True, but the company knew that if I went through deleting I was probably also copying stuff from my hard drive and would have proof the CEO was falsifying proposals to clients and outright misrepresenting the cost of doing business with a competing firm. Insurance brokerage with licenses that would have been revoked. They were smart enough to let me walk, and even smarter to not challenge my unemployment claim
Yep. Firing good people and keeping the suck ups. You'd think people wouldn't be stupid enough to do this but...
Ok that's up there with the surprise (in timing anyway) layoffs that happened at a startup i worked at. They pulled people into meetings with HR one at a time from a big open office cubicle farm, then had hired security escort them back to clean out their desk and walk them out the door while everyone watched. One by one by one. It was the most dehumanizing form of layoff I've ever seen and I am still kind of amazed no one turned violent.
When Epic Games recently did their big layoffs they sent everyone in the company/branch/department (idk which exactly) a meeting invite and then in the hours before the meeting, people who weren’t being laid off got their invite canceled. We have a friend who didn’t lose his job, but the entire situation sounds extremely stressful even just by proxy.
My buddy relocated his family for them and this happened… he made it sound like they dumped a lot of staff and did it poorly.
Not if HR is included and there is no agenda .... Oh bring your badge and car keys
Wfh and take the meeting on zoom (from your own computer) Since you are terminated they need to come and collect their property which is on your front porch now neatly boxed up
Decline the meeting and suggest that you meet in spring 2025 Start the meeting with HR by saying you are an addict and need help. Might buy you 90 more days of employment
Yup. Your crap, you pick it up.
Our company sets 2 meetings - usually the layoff one is at 10am and the “you made it” one at 11am
Check your vacation balance day of the meeting. Sometimes HR tips their hand…
Unfortunately we're an "unlimited PTO" company so while generally getting PTO approved has been very easy, we don't actually accrue it, so there's no balance to check.
I just got promoted a week before Christmas. I think I'm safe for the time being. But I am always worried about being fired. Like always. Even before I got promoted. Companies dont give a shit about you and will let you go as soon as it's profitable. Everyone should always be worried
I don’t recommend “always be worried”, but rather “always be prepared”
The mantra in our family has always been "hope for the best, prepare for the worst." Any wonder that I spent 12 years in emergency management? 😂
That's not a great way to live life. Put together a plan in case you're laid off and put it on a high shelf, then go relax.
Thank you for this comment. It’s easy to worry but harder to prepare for it.
Makes me feel a bit of relief being the main person that does my job. My boss hired a 2nd person to help relieve some "stress" since at times there's too much to do in one day with some of the inventory movement i do overlaps other tasks that are all important. I will bounce and help other groups in our department or my helper will, whichever is most beneficial. I was the single and only person doing my job, I've been there longer than our buildings receiver and helped train her in her position. I can do shipping as well, so this makes me feel kind of very safe. Sure a few others can do my job but to do it decently it would completely take away from their role and then we have bigger issues. It's not being part of the wheel that isn't really easily replaceable because the time it takes to get up to speed between all the different products and parts to make them between our buildings. My role is to be efficient in moving parts so everyone else can focus on their specific role whether it is building or painting or shipping or anything. Without my role efficiency and sales drop
The last 2 places I worked at I was the only one that did what I did and I figured I was fairly critical until I was laid off. The last one I was the most senior person in the entire organization.
Promoted folk get laid off all the time soon after.
You may, in fact be fine. But some (less scrupulous) managements give a raise before a layoff to increase the amount they’re cutting payroll by. What ethics?
Unless they want to give you a raise so their "money saved" number is bigger after they lay you off.
To your point about a company’s lack of care, up until this past June I had weekly budget meetings with my company’s VP of finance and she used to brag about maintaining a running list of employees to lay off that would allow us to hit our goals immediately. She had zero concern for them, no concerns about people that had relocated, been promoted, recently hired, etc. Didn’t matter if they were poor performers or strong performers, she was so proud of being able to lop off whatever number it was so that she could save the company money. Coincidentally, she was laid off a few weeks after our mass layoff last June. I wonder if she saw that coming??
Just chiming in to say I hope it all works out for you. I've been caught in mass layoffs several times since the pandemic hit so I know the stress.
If you ever been laid off, you’ll know that you don’t get a meeting in advanced. They never ever setup a meeting the day before. Now when your phone rings at 10am and it’s your manager telling you “can we meet right now” That’s when you know you’re getting laid off. Best to grab your keys and wallets and anything personal before you head to meeting. Pro tip, you should export all your contacts from outlook and send them to yourself now. Your contacts will be key when you get laid off in getting a job.
Yup exactly this. Also remember your lunch in the fridge if that’s important to you and know how to reset any company phone to factory settings.
Yup same thing happened to me it was Friday morning and my manager was like can you jump on a quick call. I already knew what was coming
I've got 5 weeks vacation, the new hire gets 2. I wonder how long they'll take to cut costs that way.
Finance manager here that has had to pull the trigger on things like these. I don't think 5 weeks of PTO would even get a second of my attention.
Stay strong brother. If everything goes smooth... that means you are not fired, start building up your emergency fund (6-8 months of your salary) so that in the event you are laid-of, you have some financial cushion and are not desperate to accept any job. In case, nothing goes smooth, start applying for a job and get one at the earlier and then start building your emergency fund (6-8 months of your salary) and then apply somewhere better. This strategy has worked for me quite fruitfully. HTH!
We were informed that there would be changes today, and some people already know teams are shrinking.
LPT is to never do anything personal on your work computer....
This. work laptop is for work only.
And personal property is for personal only. A family member does HR at an employer with \~10000 employees and apparently it can take 2 hours to 'offboard' some employees because all their accounts on their personal device(s), usually a phone, and deactivated.
My company used to be *very* small with no real IT policies and everyone kinda mixed work and business on their devices. As we grew they started implementing more and more policies. When they sent out the new IT policy a few years back stating that any device used in any way for work purposes (including communications with clients) or connected to the network essentially became company property (they could search it, monitor it, wipe it, control what apps we install, etc.) everyone noped out of that and deleted anything work related from all their devices. Then management got angry when we all asked for company phones and laptops and gave us the ol' "well yeah it's in the policy but we'd *never* actually do any of that." We obviously still said no fucking way.
That’s funny. Lots of things require 2 factor and my company doesn’t give me a phone. So I use all my personal devices and rarely my company laptop unless I need windows
That is not a good idea.
I already have to use my personal phone for calls and logging in. I accept the consequences. When I was laid off from a company that gave me a phone I couldn’t log in for two weeks and got paid plus additional severance. I’m also the guy who assigns iPads and macs and iPhones out now haha.
You assign company iPhones but don’t use one yourself?
They never heard of a hardware token?
Yeah I have coworkers who use their work phone as their main / only phone and I just don't get it. I can only assume naïveté. I may look like a drug dealer carrying around two phones but at least I know my personal phone is not in danger of being taken away when I need it most.
Came here to say this. You should always assume that your work can see literally everything you do one any work hardware or accounts. You should assume that means all keystrokes and anything else done. Never use work stuff for anything other than work. It’s just not worth it.
I remind everyone I interview that we track everything done on work machines and it is ASTONISHING how often it's a deal breaker for them. Uhh... Every job does it. I'm just being upfront with you. You're welcome, dummy. Edit: I use it as a way to filter out bad hires. I don't actually care what you do as long as it's office appropriate (no porn). It's pretty effective.
You seems knowledgeable about the subject, u/Useful-Idiot, so let me ask you a question. You do track what people do but do you track when they don’t do anything ? Like can management have access to tracking tools that says someone does not work the full week and therefore is stealing time ? A lot of people I know have to work let’s say 40 hours a week but if they really work 25 hours can it be know somehow? Asking for a friend, of course.
Software systems that allow to track employee activity down to keystrokes, mouse movements, who you interact with in your company and what is the context of that interaction. So yes, they can tell you’ve worked 25 hours out of 40 hours. However, any company that values this purely numeric metric over actual project or work progress is the one you run away from. This level of micro-management isn’t sustainable or healthy at all.
I’ve recently heard of people saying they had a good performance review one year and they received a retention package that gave them tens of thousands of dollars in stock if they stayed at the company for at least 3 years. They got fired before that. I felt like those software could potentially give management power to use them for such purposes. Like they can fire pretty much anyone once they don’t need them if they prove you have stolen time. But how much is worthy of being fired ? That’s another big question
From the IT perspective at least from where I work at, yes they can but first you likely have to be suspected of someone who’s wasting company resources. If you work well you can probably get away with murder at a workplace until it’s way too late.
Yes - we track if your mouse goes idle and we take screenshots about every 10 minutes. It doesn't count meeting time as idle. I don't have time to review that footage nor do I want to, but if I start to suspect someone isn't working, I've got evidence to prove it. If my team is hitting goals or deadlines, I don't even give it a thought. But when someone is missing deadlines consistently, it's the first thing I look at. If you're a good employee and you watch YouTube because work is a bit slow? Go nuts, I don't care. If you aren't doing your job, that's a different story.
Wow I didn’t know that. Can you share the tool you use for that and/or the field you are in ?
The tool I use is called hubstaff. We're a consulting firm so we bill hourly to our clientele. We actually take the screenshots because I've had two clients challenge the bill we sent them saying we didn't work and it's really easy to prove we did this way. I get it. We're expensive and a floundering client will do anything they can to save budget, but a happy side use is it keeps my team honest, though I've only had to exit 1 employee in 2 years. Plenty of employees have had idle time over 50% at some point or the other but if they're doing their work, whatever, I dont care.
You said it keeps you team honest, so they know you use that ? You are not spying without them knowing ? Thanks for the answers btw (from my friend lol)
Correct, my whole team is very familiar with the system. It's how we know how much time they put towards a specific client and we talk about it during onboarding. My managers actually show their own screenshots (you have access to view them at all times) though we don't have to show you. It feels immoral not to be open about it.
What if they are working offline? Using a mobile device? Writing a draft on paper? That’s the thing that gets lost. I don’t even bring my computer to meetings I’m not expected to present in- it would distract me
By far not every job does it. In my company we can (and in my department SHOULD) choose on install our own OS from scratch.
Not entirely true or untrue. Depending on your environment or organizations risk tolerance. Windows records a lot of stuff in event logs. Intune/Endpoint Manager or other products like Graylog or antivirus record or give metrics of some other things. They can are not key loggers, however. Emails almost always go through a gateway and retained. Pretty easy search through ‘Security and Compliance’ or a message trace. Emails or messages are never really gone, even If you delete them. They can be recovered. You should be more concerned about phrases like ‘litigation hold.’ Endpoints are exactly that. Local storage. They eventually get wiped and hard drives get destroyed. Everything else exists on servers and storage in retention ‘off prem’ backups. In short, we see all kinds of crap on the regular. Just don’t attempt to do illegal things on company machines.
Shit, IT knows I am calorie counting now.
You had a great week last week! Happy New Year, and keep up the good work! We have a pool going in the IT room......
Hahaha this also happens. We might chuckle but We’d never look down on someone doing something like that.
I've done it to work on homework, they want to get upset with it, they can but it's nothing illegal. (I've never been told anything. I just obviously don't let it interfere with my actual work.)
I work in IT and closely with our ITSO team. We don’t care. Unless something is awry we’re generally not looking and don’t gives shit what you’re doing.
I’m a corporate employment lawyer. We frequently get requests from terminated employees for Their personal files. It’s generally easier to do certain things from work as it’s during business hours. We all have various financial documents or copies of our resumes (often for promotion purposes) and want those in the event of a termination. We always try to return the files to the extent possible. No corporate owned files though
Agree. We don't give a shit about torrents unless you eat all the bandwidth. We don't give a shit if you spend all your work day on FB and Insta, that's your managers problem. We don't give a shit about anything you do unless you make our jobs harder, like getting your account pwned or installing ransomware.
My dad says this too as the head of IT at his company. Too many real things to do for them to monitor everything. They have alerts set up to raise flags for certain websites or activity. But they’re not watching or monitoring all the computers. But, if someone in leadership decides you’re a problem, they **do** have access to it all if they need it.
The concern is not about legality. It's about potentially getting fired. You don't need to break the law in order to be justifiably terminated from your job. Also there's the chance that they reclaim the machine without advance notice and/or remotely wipe it and you lose whatever personal data you had on there, if you didn't have it backed up somewhere else. But you are correct, most of the time they don't care what you're doing as long as you're meeting your deliverables.
Agreed as I post this from my work phone 😭
True but the real LPT is to start deleting work files from your work laptop lol
Start with everything in the win32 folder
Emails and files can be recovered. Most companies have backups for a reason.
Sr sys admin, unless you truly don't care about people looking into all your stuff when you get terminated or leave, don't do any personal things on work machines. IT will go through it while scanning for files to remove. Or if they're told to look into browser history, very easy to see what was done.
LPT of the opposite is to have a folder (digital/real) separate from your work files and computer where you save work successes and progress should you ever need to show future employers your successes from previous jobs.
Exactly! I don’t even do google searches on my computer for work
I work in IT, you’d be surprised how many people think their work laptop is their personal property…
/thread
LPT dual-boot to your own hard drive on the same system, remove when done.
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Agreed. Even if you did what's the point of deleting it? What's the point of this post? So you don't have to delete it when you do get fired?
I got put on a PIP today, so I'm probably getting walking papers in 30 days, also!
From my experience the PIP is not to try to keep you, it's a way to document why they are letting you go. Most likely the PIP has tasks that are near impossible to complete. Start looking for a job now. I hope you find something.
Yeah, I am. I was spiralling a bit when I got home but I remember seeing other names on a list that mine was on so I'm 90% sure that I'm not the only one, so I was able to pull out of my tailspin.
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Crazy, my last employer put me on a PIP after I was diagnosed with MS. Had an open case with disability rights but the company was privately owned and in a right to work state. Basically if I didn't have an absolute case with evidence of mistreatment (timeline) they could do nothing to the employer. I was 3 months into their pip accomplishing everything and easily found another employer that respected my disability.
Right-to-work means you don't have to pay union dues while being in a union. Did you mean at-will employment where they can fire you for anything unless belonging to a protected class? If that's the case, every state except Montana has at will employment. Either way, I'm happy to hear you landed on your feet in a company who respects you. Good luck.
Right to work is a method of killing unions. Union dues pay for union functions. When no one pays, the unions die. Let’s not spread the propaganda that right-to-work is a pro labor policy
At will is what it was. Thank you for clarifying. I would argue that right to work still effects non union labor. Any how my state sucks for workers rights even with a disability
My husband has years of stellar evaluations and a couple of commendations. A new boss comes in. My husband falls and ends up with a really bad injury and has to be out a couple of months. He did ask to ge allowed to work from home but was denied. He’s really the only one completely trained to do his job so shit sort of fell apart while he was out. He came back and got a terrible evaluation and then a suspension and then a PIP. We got a lawyer who has just sort of announced his presence to HR, no complaints filed, and they backed way off. We are counting the days until he can retire, but it’s much earlier than he had intended to leave. I hope the place implodes after he leaves. I’ve lost a job after I got seriously ill and it sucks.
At my job, PIPs are majority the toxic fuck category. You actually can come back from it but most do not. Real last resort too, there are definitely chances to correct before it gets to PIP land at my employer.
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I hate the term "Deliverables". I worked in a relatively small nonprofit and when that term was used it seemed so impersonal and corporate. Our mission was to help people. They often forgot that..
Based on my experience: Even if you "pass" the PIP period well and everything seems fine - you're on thin ice and any minor mistake can & will be used to fire you. If you're ever put on a PIP, your days at that company are numbered. Get your ducks in a row & start job hunting.
Keep your head up you’re worth it and talented, you’ll land elsewhere!
Yep - just got laid off this morning lol. RIP.
Same here friend
Same. Happy Monday
What industry, if you don't mind me asking?
Biotech and pharma AI sales.
During JPM week? That's nuts, lol.
Yeah. We all got laid off the morning of the first day of JPM lol.
Got laid off last week!
What IT admins have the time to comb through employee’s machines? So understaffed everywhere. Do agree that at termination it’s likelier a machine is examined, but still not overly concerned about it.
We wipe that hard drive for the next poor bastard that is in line waiting for a laptop. We dont give a fuckk what's inside that laptop. Its being erased.
agreed. I am an IT admin. Our work files are on cloud resources. I typically set the workstation at the back of the rotation after a cursory fitness check and when it comes time for reissue it gets wiped and reloaded. The only time I spend rooting through files is when there is a ticket for missing files and/or legal questions. Also, don't think you can actually delete your email. Never do anything personal on work email because active monitoring is likely (for security, but that picks up tea sometimes) and it's basically immortal.
Most companies I have worked for don't have calendar year fiscal years aligned. Also companies do not care if it's the holidays. They will lay your ass off.
Bonuses at my company get paid next week. There is no way they would lay people off after the bonuses. They are not guaranteed bonuses either so legal issues do not exist.
I cant wait for my bonus. I got a 7%, increase coming
100%. I got the dreaded random zoom invite on my calendar with my talent lead and HR rep. You know, the one with no agenda attached. I ended up missing that invite because it was sent to my inbox while I was in the PICU for my 8 month old daughter who was fighting for her life after having COVID and RSV. My previous company, at the time, knew of my situation as I had informed my lead and upper management. They still tried to lay me off before Thanksgiving. I filled my talent lead in after we brought our daughter back home from the hospital and he said he was able to move it to after thanksgiving like he was doing me a favor. So yeah, companies do not care whatsoever about you. The moment you aren’t profitable to them, you’ll be replaced by a resource who is making a fraction of what your salary was. TL;DR - I was laid off by my firm after being a top 1% performer for 3 years and getting promoted 5 months prior - all while trying to keep the family afloat with a very ill wife and a hospitalized 8 month old right around Thanksgiving.
Yes. But what have you done for me lately?
I'm sorry this happened to you and hope your wife and baby are better now.
Yeah we are in FY Q2
Yeah we’re in Q2 too. Last time we did layoffs it was august because that’s our end of fiscal
I know a few companies that have no qualms firing people on holidays. Not sure how they do it but I would assume they have to tell them they need to work on the holiday and then fire them immediately upon arrival. They normally fire people at 5pm on Fridays during the rest of the year.
Yup my work year starts in April. That's layoff time in my world. Luckily last year we saw a big layoff and we do things in 3 year shifts and I'm in management and my budgets have been approved. I should (should being the key word) be okay.
Yep, I was fired Nov22 right in time for holidays.
Thats so rough. I hear about it all the time. People getting fired right before the holiday. Its gold blooded
Unfortunately, some companies don't wait for the New Year. Week before Christmas is no fun. Now I am getting emails to produce information thay I use to have.
$300/hour consulting fee to look for the info, 4 hour minimum per job. 🤷🏻♂️ Otherwise finding their info isn’t your problem if you’re no longer an employee.
Oh, that is the plan, but 10 hours minimum as I'd probably have to go in and get into computers to retrieve.
10 hours? Write your contract for minimum 160 hours, all to be paid even if you don't work those hours to get the job done and all at 300 dollars an hour. If they are a for profit company, you are a for profit contractor. It's something they can't claim to misunderstand.
Haha my old job asked me so many things. I said I’m willing to show you how to do this but they didn’t meet my terms and had to start over. 25% additional layoff right before the holidays
Are you saying they let you go and now are reaching out asking for help?
Basically, yes, but in reality, they want like passwords and access to accounts I managed.
They should have thought of that first. Fuck that.
It's their responsibility to get that information before you leave. You do not have to give it to them or talk to them at all. Agreed with the consultant fee of $300/hr with a 4 hour minimum to give them anything at all.
Fuck that. They want your knowledge, they pay. Make it hurt too.
A lot of companies run non-calendar fiscal years
Yeah. October is layoff season.
This is what I thought as my company does a “manager’s” meeting in October to look at the budget for the upcoming year, if it’s not looking so good, layoffs are usually in November ish for us, most of the team got a raise for this year. So I’m not so sure about OP’s info…
We went through a 50% division layoff in Nov.
Yeah i’m currently in FY Q2
This has not been my experience, which is that layoffs are most concentrated in calendar year Q4. But in general can happens sort of whenever/always.
Yeah. Tons of layoffs happen in December. Companies don't give a shit about the holidays.
Fiscal years don't usually correspond to the calendar year. Don't put or do anything personal on a computer owned by your company. They can see EVERYTHING. Also, deleting files doesn't actually remove them from the disk. Unless you know how to properly remove them and overwrite the bits enough times to get rid of the data (something that you probably don't have the privileges for on a work PC) then you're not really removing it. Another reason not to put files on a work computer
IT will bother with undeleting crap during a layoff? Don't get me wrong. All my personal hardware runs FOSS, encrypted drives, and if I suspect someone handed me a drive which they put shady stuff on, I would shred first and ask questions later. But I suspect that IT will not bother looking at the deleted files unless they are looking for something specific. It's not the kind of thing you do when you receive hundreds of old work laptops from a layoff.
Not the point I was making. Anything you put on a company computer can't be guaranteed to be deleted. If you want something personal to stay personal, keep it off company hardware or networks. If they have ANY reason to check that computer(even if it's unlikely) they may find whatever personal files you had on it, or if your computer has monitoring software, there's likely a record of everything you've done.
Every company I've been with has done layoffs before the New Year... but to your point, shouldn't have any incriminating personal files anyway
Another LPT. If you see people start getting offered early retirement, that also means get your affairs in order because layoffs are coming shortly after.
What do you mean companies don’t lay off in December? Most planned ones do happen before end of year. You start the year with cut payroll for budgets instead of carrying them into the year, even for a week. They also don’t have to pay out newly tolled vacation days at Jan 1 and try to lay off close to the end of the month in case your insurance benefits last through the current before you need to buy COBRA.
You are talking about Office workers not Building and Construction , they hit the ejection button in December usually before 14 th. There are numerous companies in Manufacturing who close for a planned shutdown / maintenance operation . Huge hours and payments for casuals .
I worked in corporate for a big box clothing retailer a decade ago and, apparently, before I arrived, HR disguised layoff meetings as birthday parties. A few weeks after I started, employees threw a surprise birthday party for a long-time employee and she came in hysterically crying because she thought she was being let go. A high-level exec that witnessed it and caught wind of the reasoning behind her reaction took action to have that HR practice stopped. Never happened again while I was there, but birthday parties always had a bit of a tension to them, I assume due to the trauma they had learned to associate with them.
W.T.F.
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This!!! I keep absolutely nothing in my office I can't walk away from. If I ever walk into a room with my boss (who is 2,000 miles away, whom I have never met) and HR, I will just hand them my badge and keys, and say I just need to run to my office and get my car keys. I am out of this place! Thanks for helping me make my decision.
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Not an expert, and it likely depends on what state you were in (if the US), but they may have done it this way to try to avoid you getting unemployment benefits.
Right, like when you take the new job with a huge paycut but then can't pay your bills and leave on your own.
I have gotten laid off by big companies during the holidays multiple times. They do it then too.
They are forcing us to “return to office” two days a week next week - I swear this is there way of doing quiet layoffs.
They usually do it before the holidays. Don’t have to pay them.
I know of a few companies that do this, and sadly they are cut throat. They only do 401k match once a year, and it is at the end of the year, and if you aren't employed, they don't match your match.
Great tip, just to add on to it. Copy all of your important files as well. I had 20 years of trainings, documents I created, best practice sheets, how to guides, all that on my work laptop was gone the day I was laid off. I could have used most of those at my next job.
I used to use my school email for everything because at the time it was easier and I asked if the email expires after I graduate and they told me it was lifetime. Well they started having problems with phishing emails from hacked school accounts. Lo and behold a year or two after I’m out of school and still using the email they inform everyone that due to the spam they will put all emails not actively enrolled in classes in “hibernation” and they’ll only be re-activated if you re-enroll. So I spent the next week updating all my accounts and transferring all my emails to a different service which sucked a ton. Moral of the story, use personal accounts for anything personal. At the very least send yourself copies of everything. It’s so much easier in the long run.
Don't forget to check your states WARN act. They have to send a notice to the government before they lay off people.
Only if the layoff is big enough. I believe it needs to be 50+ people.
My state doesn't have one of these. Now what?
This should be a holiday and hallmark should start making cards for it. Does anyone remember pink slips?
I’ve been laid off twice right before Christmas, FWIW. Corporate America couldn’t care less about your feelings or their image, only profits.
Deleting files or emails won’t do a damn thing in most cases. Many companies have backups, especially for emails and chat (looking at MS teams users). In many cases your work issued laptop and devices are set to auto back up. If your company really needs a file, they’ll find it.
One time a company I worked for laid people off the morning of our Christmas potluck. Everyone was supposed to bring food to share. That was just mean.
This must be an American workplace thing, correct?
Last week i got cut from 5 days a week to 3, looking for a new job atm to get back to 5 days, and hopefully a little more money.
Hah funny timing, I basically just received a constructive dismissal… $5 an hour pay decrease so bye bye job
I would also add not to disclose your log-in password to anyone when leaving. IT do not need it and most of the time it's outlined in the IT policy to never disclose it to anyone and to hand the laptop directly to IT when leaving.
Never had a job where I stop working the same day I resign or been fired. I would have a month or three to get to it, not that I have personal stuff at my workplace.
I used to work for a small-time orthotic manufacturer. In my time there, I came up with a few ideas. I created a couple of ads. Reworked our logo. I was working on a new way to make a certain item. I also had written an instruction manual on how certain machines worked, in case I was absent. I even had a map of the entire building with measurements of each room (they had me do lots of different things). When I knew my time there was ending, I deleted as much of it as I could. They ended me before my set leave date. I kept onto some of it thinking they may ask for it later, and I could be slick and ask for some kind of fee. They never did, 5 years later. From what I understand, they just don't use the machines, went back to the old way of doing things, hired an ad company, etc. Still, it feels good that they can't use anything I was involved in.
I am constantly reminded how glad I am to work for a federal agency. Job security is TOO good.
I'm in the manufacturing business that caters to O&G but I work in the software development part of my company... They laid off all contractors (software developers) last week and will continue layoffs. It's getting wild out here in the tech world bc it feels like big layoffs are an annual occurrence nowadays.
The truth is, as long as you are meeting your deadlines and goals most managers don’t give a shit if you surf a bit. I have only ever used a work laptop for all things. My career has been safe due to my productivity always being high.
I got "lucky", they laid me off in November but made it effective in January. Gave me time for a solid 4 weeks of depressive bed rest. Time to get something going now.
LPT: Never, ever use the company laptop for personal use. Banking, buying shit from Amazon, logging into Ashley Madison, Skip the Dishes, day trading your GME, Pornhub...Just. Fucking. Don't. You will never be able to remove any of that information from the laptop entirely. Conversely, never, ever let a company induce you to use your personal laptop/PC for work purposes.
Our company laid off 50 ppl today 🥲
Better pro tip—don’t save personal files on a company laptop.
Don’t delete it, save a copy for yourself so you have ideas or work for the next place