I had to lay quite a few people off in 2002 when the company I co-founded in '95 was acquired (post IPO) by another company who then tanked. I was the only founder/exec who stuck with the acquirer and I got the dubious pleasure of laying off everyone in our office before I was myself laid off by the roving HR manager.
One thing that I'm slightly proud of is that when I had to lay people off at least I did it myself to their face - quite a few thanked me for the time they'd had and some even wished it had turned out better for me - which was rather humbling.
Working in a satellite office for a large company. Whenever anyone from HR was in the office we always knew someone was being laid off.
What was more fun, starting around 11am one day, all managers in the office (about 6 of them) disappeared. Around 2pm none of them returned and were not responding to calls/txt/email. One of them ended up breaking the silence and told someone the office was closing. Everyone left around 2:30pm that day, and when we showed up in the morning, we knew we would be laid off. It made the meeting a bit easier.
I don't think so. As I understand it, they wished things had worked out better for him because he was a founder/exec and a bunch of layoffs means it's already going down the drain.
What happened was that post acquisition there were 3 or so rounds of lay offs each removing about 50% of staff until there was maybe a dozen of us left from the original acquired team. In an attempt to save the team we pitched a new product, which actually had customer interest, to the CEO of the acquirer and he promised he would think about it and come back with an answer.
On the day when we got the call from the CEO to tell us whether our proposal was good or not rather than it being myself and our Director of Engineering on our side of the call we had all twelve in the room (although the guys on the other side of the call had no idea).
We were told it wasn't going to happen, so everyone knew at that point what was going to happen next. I seem to remember something like laying most of the remaining people off, going to see the HR manager - finding out that my severance package wasn't going to be what I thought it was and I could take a cheque there and then or fight it in court.
By that point I was so tired of the whole thing I took the cheque without a fight and moved on....
[NB I was involved in actually doing a substantial portion of the lay offs in each phase - after a while people really did not want to have 1 on 1 meetings with me].
This kind of behavior (promoted by HR/Legal) needs to stop. Period.
It is not about firing people by conference, phone or whatever. It is about the thanklessness and the attitude that sucks. Does it really hurt to genuinely feel and say "sorry we cannot keep you any longer. Hope you understand". No one is going to sit and whine about being laid-off but the manner of layoffs (in america at least) is getting shameful, appalling and disgusting.
However, not shocking at all. Companies have too become risk/lawsuit averse when it comes to firing/lay-offs that they all have scripted things to say because they don't want to risk a potential lawsuit. My friend was laid-off by my ex-boss (I referred him and left). I know that my ex-boss was a really nice guy who would at least apologize. During the lay-off, all my friend got was "Your position has been eliminated. Please do not use any company device and leave immediately. We will ship your stuff to you". He was even told not to talk to any co-worker while leaving. Poor guy was so heartbroken that he could not even say bye to people he worked with. You know what he was not sad about ? Finding another job.
May be I am overreacting but this is when Capitalism starts to bite. I am all in for profits, competitions, fierce business but if I ever have to layoff someone specially for no fault of theirs, you bet I will say sorry in person.It may not mean much but it is called "being human".
Its not Capitalism, its Lawyerism. The sad fact that you can get sued for being something other than a robot is horrible. The HR / Lawyer part of our economy is one heck of an anchor compared to the legitimate wrongful termination and employment discrimination.
What's crazy is that the US is an "at will" employment law. Which means you can get fired (or quit) for any trivial reason at all what so ever (the meaning of 'at will'). The only people with legal recourse are protected classes (ie, minorities). But it would be both improbable and abusive if mass-lafoffs were only legal fodder in this context. Who the heck else is suing and for what? Or is it just the threat of lawsuits (bad pr) and no-fee lawyers (1/3 ransom) that facilitates this as some sort of "greenmail"? What an odd system!
The crazy part is that it's virtually impossible to successfully sue for wrongful termination, but companies still go to extreme lengths to cover their asses.
I can see going to heavy lengths at certain company sizes, like Wal-Mart. A flaw in your HR policy at that scale can escalate to a class action or large case that district attorneys lust after. Wal-Mart, for instance, has paid out hundreds of millions in legal suits stemming from HR practices in the last decade alone.
You can get fired for any reason except a blacklist of reasons that are illegal to get fired for. That means in order to fire someone, a lawyer will tell you that you need to be able to explain why the reason isn't in the blacklist.
I think you're really underestimating the stupid shit companies say and do when dealing with employees, and its the potential for stupid shit that drives the excess of caution. Say an HR drone lays off a woman with kids (or a pregnant lady), and says "sorry! Well at least you'll get to spend a little more time with little Jimmy!" Or, take many blue collar jobs. If you lay off a black or Hispanic employee, there is a very good chance he or she has experienced racism at work. Factories are not exactly politically correct places, after all. In my opinion, a lawsuit in response to something like this is not frivolous litigation. Some of those people really do have legitimate claims, and you can't tell a priori who they are.
I don't think I am underestimating the stupidity of companies, because the threat of lawsuit and the industry (HR, training) around it is a huge influence. It overrides any and all other concerns when doing any HR activity especially those with high stress such as firing.
> Say an HR drone lays off a woman with kids (or a pregnant lady), and says "sorry! Well at least you'll get to spend a little more time with little Jimmy!"
I would say that was a stupid comment, but not worth the millions it will cost the company in litigation. If the firing reason was not pregnancy / kids then it is still legitimate.
The very real problems that are encountered at the workplace are shadowed by the unreal "problems". I do not like giving up our humanity to follow a damage control doctrine that causes more damage.
""sorry! Well at least you'll get to spend a little more time with little Jimmy!""
I don't know if anyone is really that stupid especially someone who is in charge of firing. That is like rubbing salt in your wounds. A better way would be "Sorry you have to go through this but we have no choice because <fill with HR/Legal script>". May be I am rating those firing-in-charge people way too high intellectually. But I find this argument that "companies are too stupid hence they would rather not say anything human" seems far fetched. I am probably too naive though.
Companies have become risk/lawsuit averse when it comes to firing/lay-offs that they all have scripted things to say because they don't want to risk a potential lawsuit.
Absolutely. Every time I've had to let someone go, the first person I call is my HR person. They walk me through the dos and don'ts which always include, "Don't say this and don't say that otherwise they could use that either in a wrongful termination lawsuit or in filing for workman's comp."
I had a recruiter send me an email exactly 5 months ago today claiming "I've placed ten folks with AOL in the past year, and Patch is the most profitable and exciting division especially for the engineers."
First time I've ever had to respond to a recruiter to tell them they were full of shit.
Never EVER trust a recruiter. Years ago I got an email from a recruiter about a job after I submitted my resume. The position was a Novell admin. On my resume, there was NOTHING about Novell.
I was approached by a recruiter with the same line for Patch about 6-8 months ago. Listening to this conference call, I am so glad that I did not take it seriously.
Wow. That was incredible. The monotonous way in which the message was delivered, the complete lack of emotion and empathy, is appalling. Notice she did not apologize nor express any condolences beyond declaring the new unemployed state of those people to be "unfortunate." Without knowing much about the situation (I only listened to the recording), and leaving myself wide open to be corrected by someone with more insight into the background, I believe the word cowardice would be a pretty good description of what's going on here.
I agree, and if I were the one losing my job I'd prefer to hear the cold hard facts rather than artificial consolations from someone I've likely never met before.
The fact that those cold hard facts were disseminated via conference call, however, is not something that I find professional unless we are talking about the layoff of remote workers etc. - and even then I'd prefer a personal phone call.
After "you have no job," all they want to hear is dates, severance, and benefits. Anything else is just wasting everyone's time, because they are in their own heads and not listening.
This. What else was to be said? Really, what else could you say? "I'm sorry" Are you though? "You are a really talented worker" like that matters?
The relationship is a business one. Don't get confused. You are gone. You care about when, your shit on their computers, and money. Why spend a week laying people off when you can do it in two minutes? I have faith in the new management yet.
Why do professional and being nice have to be mutually exclusive ? Why do we have to be "coldly professional" and not "morally/humanly professional" ? No one is complaining about layoffs here. What is being complained about is the way companies are treating their employees. I don't expect a handout or a hug and can find my own work if I get fired. But if you fire me the way these guys did, you will surely never be on my list of good people. May be that does not matter to some.
I find straight, clear professionalism to be "nice", especially when dealing with shitty situations. Usually they're made more shitty by people getting personally emotional over what are, frankly, simply business decisions. A lot of that can be avoided by sticking to the facts and the script, making the inevitable a lot simpler for everybody. It's a matter of showing them adult respect and giving it to them straight.
Still better than the time we were called into an all hands to find out our entire business unit had been sold, and the VP responsible for the sale joked in front of everybody "hey, I still have a job!"
I can relate to "coldly professional". Up front, succinct - all good. But I can also relate to people who might have spent 10 or more years in the company. Loyal, motivated, emotionally invested. I think they wouldn't actually mind a hug in the end.
I've often heard that apologies in various contexts can be used as evidence for litigation (eg, saying "oh sorry" after an auto accident) . Its a sad state of affairs, but people have to protect themselves from idiots and the courts they convince.
That said, I don't think there would be any issue with the woman in the recording saying something kind and generic, like "I feel for you, and I am sorry to have to do this."
Lawyers tell you not to apologize for fear of what else you might say while apologizing ("oh I'm so sorry, I was on my cell phone!"). It's not because courts or juries will interpret a mere "I'm sorry!" as an admission of guilt.
Citation would be needed since I've never seen court insist that the ability to feel sorry (or just saying it to placate others) means guilt for an accused act.
Edit: Wouldn't that be something though? It would enable someone to argue innocence due to lying wholesale to someone's face saying you were sorry.
Sure you'd have to admit to being a liar in court but whatever. After winning slam dunk since this venue is apparently void of evidence, say sorry to the court for the problems (leave the judge wondering) and call it a day.
There's evidence that power can change how the brain functions - tending to make those in power less able to experience things from the perspective of others. This guy is clearly another corporate sociopath
It seems that Abel was part of Patch and Tim Armstrong is CEO of AOL. This second call was from some time last year and not related to the OPs link other than it's the same set of companies, and another dubious action made on a conference call.
I don't think anyone is debating whether taking a photo during a serious meeting is a good idea
It's wrong to unnecessarily fire someone in front of their colleagues. It destroys morale and it's essentially a form of public humiliation. A better response would have been to ask to put the camera away and remind people it's a serious meeting.
In addition to the "firing people by conference call is a douche move", her voice is an excellent argument against hiring any non-Australian with the high rising terminal mode of speech.
As an aside, I once met this German guy who spoke English pretty well, but tended to raise the pitch of his voice throughout the phrase (I think he may have done this in German too, but it was a long time ago and I don't really recall). But I guess he didn't know English quite well enough to get his timing 100% right, and sometimes on long sentences, he'd start running out of high notes to hit, which was kind of funny. Nice guy though, and he'd smile through it.
I would say "American" (edit- instead of "non-Australian"). It's pretty common in other English dialects. There's a great series called "The Story of Film" which is narrated by an Irish guy who uses rising inflection on nearly every sentence. It's difficult for me to get used to but I wouldn't give anyone a hard time about it.
The irish and welsh accents have always been like that. The welsh accent in particular modulates in pitch strongly throughout sentences, going up at the end is just part of it.
There's a thing where it plunges right down in pitch and timbre at the end too, for a different kind of emphasis. I love welsh voices.
I just heard great nana Parry telling me off when I read that (Nana spoke Welsh and a few words of English). If she was alive now, she would be about 140. Thanks.
Reporters. Local. Might not be so easy for them to find jobs. But hopefully new media skills will help.
Anecdotally, I've found it's quite common with alot of European ESL speakers. I have worked with quite a few other people from varying countries, and it's somewhat common that they end many sentences sounding like a question.
Yeah, so, like, we're firing you? But you can check your email until 5:30? Today? And we'll let you use your computer until the end of this week? Starting today? Best of luck?
The best way to wipe it out would be to do parody YouTube. Keeps of famous/consequential speeches or events recast into HRT. And hypothetical situations like HRT from an oncologist proposing treatment options.
I personally find both vocal styles (along with very strong accents: http://paulgraham.com/accents.html) off-putting, but I don't really like the reasons why I do.
It's not only unaesthetic, but also ^makes it harder to distinguish when people are actually asking questions^.
For example, when someone says, "So, we're going there" with the high-rising terminal, uptalkers have polluted that resource which is spoken language to the point that it makes it harder to tell if the sentence was a question or an imperative.
I don't think it's that bad. It was formal and distant, but not insulting. It's more insulting when someone pretends they are sorry, but actually aren't. If she's not actually sorry, and there are perfectly valid reasons not to be, then it actually shows more spine to just say it like it is.
Actions speak louder than words, and we don't know what the "separation packages" are. They could actually be good, for all you know.
We don't have the context on what it was like working there. Some places/professions are more "mercenary" than others. In Silicon Valley people are used to "company culture" and "team building", but not all companies need that.
I didn't hear of Patch until today. This seems like a private call between employees and someone responsible for HR. Why is this news? Is Patch a big name?
In spite of the fact that some group of people lost their jobs, the audio track is kind of funny in the sense that this real HR department sounds like a parody of what tech people think of HR departments.
I don't know. I got laid off 18 months ago. HR did it to my face (bringing in a small group of people at a time). It sounded almost identical to this, tone and everything. More realistic than parody.
No matter what they say, you're still losing your job and it's going to sting. I think the message was pretty reasonable, it just sucks that they did it by phone.
Patch was, at one point, heralded as the future of local journalism. AOL's CEO was an early investor in Patch and (presumably) played a key role in AOL acquiring it. Then it all fell apart.
One company I worked for was acquired by a much larger tech company. We were already had about a 1000 employees. After the big announcement that we were being acquired, we all got an invite from the new company to meet the new executive team at their big corporate HQ.
Got bused over, we were all shepherded into a huge auditorium only to have the CEO of the larger company tell us we were all being let go and turn in our ID's to the security folks now standing at the exits.
It was the quietest bus ride I've ever been on during the return trip.
Most of Patch's employees are remote, since they are "hyperlocal" reporters in small towns around the country. I don't think an in-person lay-off was going to happen.
Honest question, why is a phone firing such an insult? I may need some sensitivity training, but putting myself in the shoes of the person being fired I think I'd probably prefer phone. Maybe someone can help me see the other point of view more clearly.
As smackfu says, it is not always possible to do a layoff or firing in person, especially in this case. I still think they should have been done in one-on-one phone calls at a minimum.
But people have a spectrum of reactions to being fired, and I think being able to address their immediate concerns one-on-one is important. They may have done it this way in the name of efficiency, but some times it is better to just take the hit and do things the old fashioned way. Nobody is happy about being laid off, but six months from now both employer and ex-employee will feel better about it than the impersonal conference call.
Sounds like something I'd expect to hear in Aperture Science (seconds before the floor gets flooded with neurotoxin), not in a company staffed by human beings. Poopoo well deserved, IMO.
It seems pretty harsh to do it this way, but from the sounds of things these were pretty sweeping layoffs ("hundreds" is what's being said). Doing it on a personal level probably wasn't even remotely viable, even just in terms of time.
If you have hundreds of employees who can find the time time to work for you day-in and day-out, every week, you can find the time to let them go in person.
I bet this woman was really upset that she had to layoff that many people at once (she probably lived in another state so she couldn't do it in person). I imagine that's the reason she said it like she was ripping off a bandaid.
This would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating. I tried to listen to it but I cringe too easily so I'm waiting for a transcript. Based on the first few sentences of the call, here's how I expect the rest of the speech to go:
"...you no longer have a role in the company. And by role I meant job. You no longer have a job. Unless you had another job, in which case you still have at least one. Point is, you're fired. From this company. It's Patch calling by the way."
"Hi Everyone, it's (HR person). Patch is being restructed, in conjunction with the creation of a joint structure with Hale Global. Hale Global has decided which Patch employees will receive an offer of employment to move forward in accordance with their vision for Patch, and which will not. Unfortunately, your role has been eliminated and you will no longer have a role at Patch, and today will be your last day of employment with the company."
The rest is just general termination junk like turning in laptops and turning off email.
$ say -v "Bad News" "Unfortunately your role has been eliminated and you will no longer have a role at patch. Today will be your last day of employment with the company"
Site that the CEO of AOL founded before joining AOL. Then bought once hired at AOL and poured millions into before being forced to cutback/sell to keep his AOL job.
Tim Armstrong is the current CEO of AOL and former senior Google Executive. He is reputed to have been the driving force behind the success of Google's Ad Words business.
He seemed to become less effective at Google as his responsibilities expanded and moved on to AOL.
Patch was his big play to make AOL relevant again and has proved to be a complete economic failure.
Highlights an unfortunate reality of the Silicon Valley that past success can sometimes just mean a longer rope to hang yourself with.
Hyperlocal news site. The idea is to have dedicated sites for small towns, usually with a single local employee writing all the articles. These towns are very underserved by other news sources, since traditional newspapers have cut staffs so much. Then when you have local traffic, you can sell ads to local businesses.
They shuttered a lot of the sites a few months ago.
"Patch reports on everything you need to know about your town, from local government to school news to what to do with your family this weekend.
And your local Patch makes it easy for you and your neighbors to connect and post your news and events too.
All of this, plus comprehensive listings of local restaurants and shops, home improvement services and businesses, events, and more – all in one place – in over 1,000 communities and counting."
But what else should we expect from the owners of a news portal that was, from the outset, itself nothing other than soulless and robotic, to its very core -- and whose passing almost no one is likely to mourn?
("No one", that is, except of course those who've recently found out they "no longer have a role with Patch", along with their unlucky dependents).
I stopped using the local Patch when they broke the commenting system. I don't know what broke, I just can't comment, and no one else does either. The comments were the best part.
A lot of the bad news out of Patch seems to have started around the same time.
I've never heard of Patch. It's unfortunate that I had to learn of them this way, because the premise seems useful. I don't think I would participate now based on these bad vibes.
For a small company, I wonder how much that would add to the wind-down costs. Fly everyone to Las Vegas for a company offsite/conference, announce the firing at the 10am meeting, give everyone $X00 in extra termination pay up front and tell them to hit the slots.
If you're already planning to spend $5-20k per employee for X weeks severance, an extra $1-2k per employee for the offsite firing might only increase your wind-down costs by 10%.
OUCH! That hurt me and I don't even work there. That was as cold as a block of ice, but I'm sure workers at Patch had to see this one coming after the last fiasco.
Patch was kinda rocking at first for me - especially when I was over in Broooklyn. It was showing up in my feeds or when i went searching for stories in some states.
Then AOL got them and suddenly I saw no posts from The Patch on my feeds - for like all of 2013.
I think I would be literally incapable of saying those words in that way under any circumstances. I know that everybody is different. Things like this just make me really, really curious what it would be like to be inside the mind of someone capable of speaking like this, seriously.
One thing that I'm slightly proud of is that when I had to lay people off at least I did it myself to their face - quite a few thanked me for the time they'd had and some even wished it had turned out better for me - which was rather humbling.