Callous Dismissal · 3:29pm Jul 21st, 2023
A couple months ago, I got to meet my coworkers physically for the first time since the pandemic began, in part so we could all meet and greet the company's new CTO. In the news, airing on every TV in the tavern, a parking garage had collapsed in New York City.
In hindsight, that may have been an omen.
The absolute brain geniuses in charge have decided the entire development team is surplus to requirement. My boss has called this the death throes of the company, and he's probably right. Personally, I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. I had hoped that Twitter might provide a cautionary tale. Of course, it's entirely possible that the people making this decision make more money if the company does go under. (And it's a handmaiden of Big Pharma, so there's the moral question of whether it should exist in the first place...)
Financially, I'm still in a comfortable position. Between my savings and the severance package, I won't need to rush to find a new job. If nothing else, this gives me more time to polish my presentation for EFNW and other personal work.
Yeah, I speedran through the five stages of grief on this one. There's nothing I can do about it and it won't immediately ruin my life, so why fret?
Life goes on.
(Of course, I still felt upset enough to post this blog, but I never claimed complete enlightenment. 
)
Greeeeeaaaaaat...
Good on you for keeping a positive attitude, I guess, but that does suck on an immediate level and I hope everything turns out well for you soon.
I've been there, let's make time to talk at EFNW. How do you feel about ramen?
Presumably the thought process was "we've never done anything ever, so clearly nobody ever needs to do anything ever and thus the guys whose job is to do things are just dead weight".
Which means that they may have been Right For The Wrong Reasons.
I'm sure a new opportunity will find you soon.
Eesh, we certainly live in economically interesting times. There is at least a certain schadenfreude in watching so many big corpos’ boneheaded decisions catch up with them.
*hugs*
That sucks to hear. I'm in a very similar boat - I got laid off from my web development job at the start of this year and haven't been rushing to return to work - I'm still trying to figure out what direction I want to go or if I even want to return to development. (I probably will, just not web dev if I can avoid it). Take your time and see what's out there.
Sorry man.
"BIGGEST HUG"
If you ever need to repeat a stage and vent some more, feel free to PM me. Don't know if I'll have any useful advice to give, but I'm more than comfortable being a shoulder or ear.
Talking out loud helps and we offer better feedback than the wall.
Seconding Wanderer D's comment on this - let's do lunch and talk about things. If nothing else, this sort of thing all but demands catharsis, or at least a bit of reminiscing. An ear and a shoulder, y'know?
Positive attitude is critical. Your job just went from your job to finding your next job. That pattern of work, work, work needs to keep up (with occasional breaks) or you go into parking gear and it's very, very difficult to get going again.
Onward! Time to get an even better job.
Good luck in your future endeavors!
Oof. Sorry to hear your employer decided to lay off the firefighters before setting itself ablaze, and that you were included in that.
Glad to hear that you're not in an immediate financial pickle, and here's hoping your next job better appreciates you and your position. I've heard way too many stories of suits thinking they're so smart for "eliminating redundancy" only to watch the company crash down around their ears while they wear the expression of a surprised Pikachu...
Oof. Unfortunate, but glad to ken you've got savings and severance to tide you over. Fingers crossed for a new and better job, and for a thoroughly polished EFNW presentation.
Wish you the best of luck going forward. A good attitude is helpful, along with the fact you aren't in a difficult position financially because of it.
I'm really looking forward to the panel!
... if there's no development team, then how does the company design or improve their products? I mean, I'm not a manager or anything, but that seems like a pretty basic component of, you know, anything.
Aw. So sorry to hear that, buddy. Executive thinking that short-sighted is becoming more and more common these days, alas. By your mention of a severance package, should I take it you and the rest have already being let go? Or is this just forthcoming very, very shortly still?
Sunny outlook, and you've come across over the years as someone driven enough that I'd guess you won't have too much trouble finding another job. But my prayers for good luck remain with you regardless.
"It's almost as if you could make more money writing a play that bombs..."
Twitter cash-flow 2020:
What a fuckin' train wreck!
Looking for CEO
To help us win at Big Tech!
Where oh where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The one for you and me!
And now it's--
SPRINGTIME
FOR LIBTARDS
AND ELON MUSK...
Shards. Sorry to hear that, chief. Take some time, then hop back into the ratrace.
Dang, sorry about that. Hopefully you'll find another opportunity that'll be a little more sturdy.
Ah, yes, the Golden Ejector Seat.
Yeesh, the second friend lately who's suddenly lost his job for disingenuous reasons. I'm really happy to hear that doesn't put you in an emergency situation.
Sheesh, that really sucks. I'm glad you're not having to scramble to find something new straight away -- but it still sucks.
You know, it should say something when it's impossible to tell whether the executives are a) so stupid and despicable they'll accidentally destroy their own company, b) so greedy and despicable they'll deliberately destroy their own company for a quick buck, or c) Both, with the despicabilities stacking.
Still, happy to hear you're in a relatively good place considering that. Nevertheless:
i.pinimg.com/originals/cf/bb/d7/cfbbd7f9009a4ba88606a8c5ed5287f1.gif
guy already done calloused dis missile :O
darn fine grief speedrun
Sorry to hear that. Here's hoping you can find something better.
Well, shoot. Now I'm definitely glad I didn't spring for that pharma job too.
Enjoy hopefully temporary unemployment (or as I called it during the pandemic, "funemployment")!
That sucks to hear. It's good to hear you're not in any immediate financial problem, and I hope you find something better soon!
Sorry to hear that dude.
Let me know if you need any help on resume writing or job seeking. I've...gotten oddly good at it lately, due to freelancing and therefore going through the process a lot. (Which is something I never thought I would say, a few years ago).
Dang that sucks, this just happened to my friend at amazon as well. Best of luck!
That sucks to hear! :( I'm glad you won't be too adversely affected at least!
Well, that's unfortunate, but at least you have a healthy attitude toward the idiocy of upper management. There is to come the additional enjoyment of (speaking from experience) watching the company flounder and possibly fall.
It's a good thing for those higher-ups that those data bits never go bad and developed software is perfectly stable. /s
Sorry to hear dear FoME! My heart goes out to you as a fellow New Yorker at how dumb the businesses can be around here about financial trend chasing. But you are smart, and with a great attitude. I have no worry you'll land on your
feethooves. I do wish you well and hey, it's not being laid off, it's just a quasi-paid for vacation between (hopefully) a better job.Always look on the bright side of life, I suppose.
Welp.
Looking forward to seeing you at EFNW, so there's that bright point, at least.
Sucks, though.
5738790 5738802
I'm always up for a good bowl of noodles, and that place in the mall near the Hyatt Regency Bellevue was pretty darn good. I'll be happy to drown my sorrows in broth with you guys.
5738792
Stands to reason.
5738796
Watching a certain tax bracket discover, to their horror and disgust, that their actions have consequences does seem to be a theme this year. Here's hoping it continues.
5738798
Best of luck on your end once you decide. I do plan on enjoying the free time for a bit.
That being said...
5738803
Thanks for the advice. I am all too aware of the dread power of inertia. (See why it took the whole weekend to respond to these comments.) With any luck, the next one will be easier to crack with several more years of experience padding my resume.
5738808
As I noted with Frustration in Excelsis, we do appear to be in the "find out" phase for many people. This is certainly a case where misery loves company, especially in the form of rodents who are shocked in multiple senses of the word.
5738810 5738811
It should prove quite interesting, yes! This'll be my first solo "PowerPoiny and a dream" panel; hopefully it'll go well.
5738812
You'd think so! Upper management believes it can outsource all of that. I'm not sure what has convinced them. Barring further data, I'm going to blame a genie who will grant their wish in a horrifically ironic way that the less greedy could see coming a mile away.
5738814
My last day is August 3rd. My bosses were courteous enough to give me my own two weeks' notice. (This is sincere. I know full well they could've have sprung this on me the day I had to clean out my proverbial desk. Instead, the team's getting to use the company's own recruiters to polish our resumes and two weeks of not-quite-vacation.)
5738818
Winter
For dev teams
And
TwitterX!5739239 Umami noodles it is!
5738836
Don't you just loathe it?
5738864
Thanks, it's a new PB.
5738893
Thanks for the offer. I hope I won't have to take you up on it, and I mean that in the nicest, most optimistic way.
5738939
Pay no attention to the unresolved support tickets behind the curtain.
5739198
See you there, hopefully!
5738789 5738793 5738797 5738799 5738800 5738801 5738806 5738829 5738832 5738837 5738845 5738850 5738861 5738867 5738879 5738887 5738895 5738897 5738901 5738951 5738957
Thanks, all of you. I do intend to bounce back from this rather than splat.
5739245
I'm confident you will n_n
5739242
A misapprehension of how this works, I suppose? You can outsource development, but unless it's greenfield or a fully self-contained platform like ServiceNow, there's no way that external group will be able to turn in anything of the same quality for the same cost in the same amount of time as an internal team. You might be able to outsource module work and save some cash, but not core dev.
The only way this makes any sense is of they're planning to sunset the current product and replace it with something new, but you'd want to at least be beta testing the new one before you retire your dev team.
Or the plan is to streamline operations to rapidly raise valuation, charge full speed into an IPO, then cash out and vanish before anyone else figures out what's happening. Dot Com 3.0.