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[–] 148 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Sorry, too busy. Why can’t my manager fill you in on my current projects?

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  • [–] 99 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Haha I tried that one, because I was legitimately too swamped and management got very upset.

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  • [–] 111 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    In my previous company, at about 9PM, about half the company got an invite for a 9AM meeting, and the other half for a 10AM meeting, we saw all the name in our invite of course. Let's say the evening was hard, to guess which group was staying and which group was fired! I was in the "stay" group, this repeated every quarter and after 3 or 4 quarters it was my turn to be in the fire group, the next quarter they closed the company and fired the remaining employees.

    The HR lady was like the picture.

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    [–] 91 points 1 year ago

    Brb, backing up my script folder and deleting anything I haven't already shared with the team

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  • [–] 89 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Gather round and attend my layoff time tale of woe.

    I worked for this company for four years. They fell on hard times and, in place of layoffs, required employees to temporarily give up a portion of their salary on the condition it would be repaid within 2 years with interest, plus increased bonuses proportional with how much you sacrificed. I voluntarily gave up 20% as the company had never had a layoff in its history (no layoffs was part of their alleged culture) and all the old timers gushed about their massive bonuses after downturns like these.

    I was given my quarterly review in October and I get a perfect score. I work three weeks, then am badly hurt on the job. It requires fairly major surgery, so I'm out for almost two months.

    I literally limp back, probably a little too early. The first day is fine and I'm getting back up to speed. Boss shows appreciation to my dedication as I reasonably could have taken more time to recuperate. I tell her I need to discuss accommodations as I'm still healing. She agrees and sets an appointment for the next morning. Great job HamSandwich, everyone loves you.

    I arrive to the accommodation meeting to find the head of HR and my boss. I figure HR is there to help with accomodations. Nope, I'm being terminated. For performance. Huh. I ask about my stellar review. My boss tells me there were issues. I ask about the issues. She is unable to give me any examples. I ask how I was supposed to know I had performance issues when I had a perfect review three work weeks ago and no one can tell me what I've been doing wrong. HR boss bitch pipes in with "Ham, at your seniority level you should just know." Fuck you, boss bitch. Fuck you.

    As I'm packing up my things, I realize they cut me one day before my yearly stock shares were to be awarded. Security walks me out and tells me I'm one of many senior level employees being terminated. People are being fired for showing up five minutes late. Upper level admins are walking out in protest. It appears this was the strategy: bank on the company's good reputation to encourage increased voluntary salary cuts, then dump as many high earners as possible if still in a downturn. My boss is a spineless twerp and went along with it. She lies and tells the rest of the department I was terminated for sleeping on the job. Fuck you, boss. Fuck you.

    The company had its first round of layoffs a few months later. Those employees also lost the money they gave up. The company's reputation is irreparably harmed and I'm currently suing them for lost wages.

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  • [–] [S] 75 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    In outside sales so everyone is working remote. I get an email around 7PM that we are going to have a meeting tomorrow (on line of course) at 3PM. I had heard that a big layoff was coming. But why a call at 3PM instead of first thing in the morning if I was going to get laid off. Later that evening I get calls from friends about the 10AM meeting. I told them I never got a message about it, but I did about a 3PM meeting.

    What they did was all the people they were laying off were on the 10AM meeting. It was half the total sales force. at the 3PM meeting for the survivors, they explained to us what was going on.

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago

    This just happened a month or so ago at my place of employment... except there were no invites. No meetings. It went more like

    9am: Hey, where did my chat with so and so go? Friggin teams...

    11am: Now the other one is missing? Wtf?

    1pm: Outside TM: Hey... dumb question, but do you have as many people on your team as you did yesterday?

    Email Invite for 1:30PM has entered the chat

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  • [–] 63 points 1 year ago

    This sent a bad chill along my spine. PTSD.

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  • [–] 59 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    That smile. That damned smile.

    I think this is their mask.

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  • [–] [S] 37 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Do they get special training on how to lie with a straight face?

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  • [–] 39 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I know a couple hr people personally, and they speak in a kind of coded manner at work. Some of them will legitimately try to help you out, but of course the nature of their profession means they can never be a true ally. Not for long, anyway.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I've been friends with HR people at a number of jobs. They generally party hard. I've also always had the understanding that if they have to walk me we'd be professional about it. I've never been let go.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Yeah this matches my experience. HR person is always the one to have a bottle of whisky squirreled away for a good time.

    I've been let go twice. It's shitty, but I realise they have very little power in a situation like that.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    This is why I have so far refused to be a people manager. I'm not going to be able to emotionally handle laying someone off.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Same, I couldn't take it. It's hard to be in that position without feeling like a traitor.

    Actually both times I got laid off my managers took the day off to hide while HR did their wetwork, only reaching out later to gush about how bad they felt.

    Kind of cowardly tbh, but I get it—that's why we aren't managers.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    take the job and ignore how they tell you to act, when the company lets someone go you just walk up to them with a basket of goodies (paid for with the company card) and shake their hand and share some complaints about higher ups

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  • [–] 56 points 1 year ago (20 children)

    Where the fuck do y'all work that your HR "rep" looks like Anne Hathaway? Every company I worked for had a lady that looked like she retired after thirty years of proctoring detentions at a public highschool.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago

    I literally worked for a company where one of the two people in HR paid for her studies with modelling, the kind where you mostly keep your clothes on. Also I'm pretty sure my boss only hired her because he wanted to fuck her.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    Everyone in HR at my current company is hot. It almost seems like a prerequisite.

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  • [+] -1 points 1 year ago (12 children)
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (11 children)

    Christ... And people rail against claims that there's sexism in [any_industry]

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  • [+] 7 points 1 year ago (10 children)
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Overruled.
    Sexism isn't gender-restricted, reducing either gender to a sex object is sexist behavior.

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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

    Neat, you gonna address the faulty premise of your position or just keep transparently deflecting with... whatever this cringe is.

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    [–] 49 points 1 year ago* (7 children)

    I remember years and years ago when I still a regular employee I got into work one morning to find I no longer had access to any git repos. nothing. Well already knew the reason right then and there. I usually got in before everyone else so by the time people were coming into the office I was packing my stuff up to leave. People were all "where are you going?" I said "well I either got fired or laid off so I'm leaving, I'm not sitting through a bullshit meeting telling me why I was laid off"

    wiped the laptop, wiped my externals, walked out, went and sat in a coffee shop to revise my resume. I got a call like an hour later asking me where I was and why I didn't attend the meeting I was apparently schedule for. I replied with "you laid me off" few minutes later they email me back saying they'll just send my ROE and last paycheque in the mail and then proceeded to explain why I and a few other devs were laid off. I didn't bother reading the rest of it.

    Then I decided to become a freelancer and never looked back. best decision I made.

    What REALLY annoyed me about the whole thing was I thought I was good friends with the IT guy that set up access to everything, he was the one that revoked my access the night before and didn't tell me. I was literally having a beer with him that night and he never said a word. out of everything that hurt the most. never spoke to him again.

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  • [–] [S] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Great story on how you handled it. And totally agree with you on the IT guy. What a douche that he just couldn't give you a heads up.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    the insulting thing out of it is I paid for his beers! he KNEW I was getting laid off and didn't say "hey...maybe I should be paying for these" nope, gladly accepted my money. He tried to contact me after the fact and I just blocked him.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I was going to say that if the workplace is harsh and the IT guy would get fired for telling you, in his place I might not say anything and then immediately apologize. And apparently get blocked with no discussion.

    But damn, letting you pay?

    And it's kind of irrelevant because you acted as if you already knew anyway, lol.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    To give benefit of the doubt maybe IT guy was told HR already let you know? Still sucks overall good choice in freelancing.

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  • [–] 42 points 1 year ago

    I got an invite for a meeting the next morning. I was like "they wouldn't be that stupid, right?". Well, they were. I had time to prepare something funny but I was disarmed by their stupidity.

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  • [+] 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago*

    Man, I was on that manager side, having to lay people off because of some bad decisions from upper management.

    I usually do everything I can, like give them recommendations letters, try to get them as much money as possible that they're owed... Literally bend over backwards.

    Everyone takes that news differently. One guy cursed me out, kicked some shit and stormed out. And I just got up and cleaned it all up because brother, I get it.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    When I've had to let people go, I've always believed it important to do it personally. It's difficult, but it's part of the duty of a boss to face the person they're letting go.

    I've been accused of being cold when doing it, but that's because I don't feel like I have the right to show the emotional impact on me when it's someone else's life being wrecked.

    I've also violated company policy several times and given glowing reviews of former staff instead of simply confirming they worked at the company.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Interestingly for me, the bosses I got along with always got fired first. Both companies I got laid off from had several rounds of layoffs, and in both cases my boss was round 4, and I was round 5 several months later.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago

    I had a meeting with plenty of important people tagged in, yet somehow I didn't think much, if anything, of it. Like it's just a meeting. Which it was. A meeting to inform me I was to be let go of the company. The possibility of that only occurred to me, I think, when prompted to think about it, on another meeting I had right before that one. That's right, two meetings back to back. Yet I was clueless…

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Just deline the invite and you are safe ;)

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago

    Had a 3rd shift guy I was trying to fire get 3 extra shifts out of us by just not showing up to the meeting and not answering his phone. HR wouldn't let me just shut his account off until the 3rd one. That dude was a real POS for other reasons but I can't knock him for taking advantage of bureaucratic nonsense.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Ready to be laid off, i can feel it coming considering the economy feels like its on stilts and my company scrapping the bottom of the barrel for projects to work on.

    I don't own anything and don't have anybody.

    Prepared for my NEET life.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    I don't get it, why does she need these projects for?

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  • [–] 42 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    To onboard your replacement after you get fired at 4pm.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The two or three juniors they'll eventually have to hire to do the job

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Well at least its suspect enough to prepare :). I once came in at 9am and we had random people funneling everyone into a conference room with HR people to tell us our department would no longer be needed.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    This is why Europe is awesome, if they do that here they owe you like 3-6 months of salary.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Not just Europe, Aussie here. I got the ol' covid chuck and between lack of notice, untaken leave and long service leave (had been there over 8 years) it cost them $58,000

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    That's why I decline meetings without a proper agenda. No agenda = lack of preparation = waste of time = not a meeting.

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  • [–] 39 points 1 year ago* (15 children)

    Lmao in my case my computer just randomly restarted and asked for a security pin while I was busy working on something. I learned through our WhatsApp group that we got laid off lol.

    Call with HR was when I already knew and nothing like this, I tried to get them to let me keep my $7k MacBook, no chance, literally everything was non negotiable so the call was absolutely pointless.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    You should have kept the Mac, seriously. I often had no response trying to get laptops back from employees and was asking HR if we couldn't get a form for new hires to sign regarding company equipment returns. Can't remember the reasoning but HR told me the company is basically powerless to force the issue. In any case, the legal costs of suing you would quickly stack higher than $7K.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Can't they just file a police report suggesting you stole it? It's the government's job then and since the police barely have to investigate anything they are sure to actually do something. That's a quick way to get a search warrant filed.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    No, at least not in the US. It does not meet the legal definition of theft because (I believe) the property was initially acquired legally.

    Otherwise, the police would be doing repo for things like delinquent car loans, which is dystopian corporate hellscape stuff.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Really?

    Over here in Germany refusing to return items which someone contractually entrusted you is a misdemeanor. You would be treated like, say, a car repair shop who refuses to return your car you entrusted them to repair.

    This differs from not paying debt, in that case you are legally in possession (not ownership though!) of whatever indebted item so the only recourse is a civil lawsuit. Besides, repossession can only be done through a court-ordered official:

    Due to the state's monopoly on the use of force, foreclosure may only be carried out by state foreclosure bodies, such as bailiffs. With the exception of permitted self-help, unauthorized foreclosure by the creditor is prohibited and is generally unlawful as vigilante justice.

    This translation sucks btw, the term "foreclosure" is inaccurate because it refers to a court ordered official either seizing money/stocks/investments and/or physical valuables (valuables = items not required for a modest lifestyle such as jewelry, designer clothes, fancy non-IKEA furniture etc) or foreclosing your property. In case of specific debt like your car they would probably seize that instead unless you demonstrate you rely on it to get to work unless it could be substituted with a cheaper car which would then be provided in exchange.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Technically, yes criminal conversion is certainly a thing. If the laptop was expensive and you lived in a really low crime area where the cops were bored that might get pursued. My experience is that cops are practically more likely to say, absent a court order, to sue the person because it's he-said she-said. It's just too much effort for a potentially muddy situation.

    You'd be surprised how often things that are theft/technically theft are not actually pursued by police in the US. The property crime clearance rate (resulting in at least arrest) is <15%.

    Holding onto a rental car, on the other hand, is both expensive and cut-and-dried enough (contract states definitive end date ahead of time) to be a bad idea.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Never bought a Mac before, but what the hell are the specs in a $7k Macbook? I didn't think they went over $3k.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    I've never priced one that high, but I'd suspect 16" screen and multi-TB nvme are the main culprits.

    e: I was curious so I went and priced one. $7.3k for the 16" Pro with absolutely every bell and whistle. M4 Max 16/40 core, 128GB RAM, 8TB. It's a beast but holy shit that price tag…

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Probably equivalent to about a $2k PC.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    the laptop I'm working on right now cost me $1600 new in March and it is AWESOME. It replaced a Mac I bought in 2016 for $1800. My son uses PCs. He's bought 4 in the same time period for about $1000-1200 each. Tell me whose computers are most expensive.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    It has to be a Friday too.

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