Exactly what I was going to say.We need to have empathy every once in a while. 11K people being fired from Meta seems abstract but these are 11K families that have been at least temporarily disrupted.
I have been laid off, or close to being laid off in that I had to leave, something like 3 different positions since the start of the pandemic and unemployed for around 6 months (doing amazing now in a recent role but that is besides the point). Was borderline close to being forced to move back in with my parents. I never got a story written up for me about that. I feel sympathy for many of those folks, but why should this guy, or anyone else at META, get so much press for themselves? These things have happened quietly in the background all the time in the industry in the past and nobody bats an eye until now because "META." It is kind of annoying.
> Was borderline close to being forced to move back in with my parents. I never got a story written up for me about that.
Nobody was talking about your personal struggle so now nobody should be allowed to talk about anyone else's? I'll never understand that weird crab bucket mentality. You somehow manage to start from "These things have happened quietly in the background all the time in the industry" and instead of ending up at "I'm so glad people are talking about this more because I've been through it and it sucks and we should find some way to make these horrible things happen less often!" you instead opt for "Who cares about this issue! Things sucked for me once and nobody said anything about it so now it's annoying when the media calls attention to anyone else who is struggling!"
No, I am saying things have sucked for people for years when it comes to layoffs. Many have similar stories as the person who this was written about now. Why is it only getting attention now with people who managed to get hired at a FAANG?
> Why is it only getting attention now with people who managed to get hired at a FAANG?
It's a good thing when corporations who treat their employees like shit get called out for their behavior. It's bad that they haven't always been called out for it in the past, but that doesn't mean that no one should be doing it now.
I suppose we can ask ourselves why this case managed to get the media's attention...
I suspect that this story may have gotten more people's attention because facebook/meta is a big company with lots of brand recognition, facebook/meta has a ton of money and could easily afford to treat their employees better, and because they really screwed this guy over and his situation is a worse version of what a lot of people are going through after recent layoffs so perhaps business insider thought this story would resonate with a lot of workers.
Really no matter what the reason is for this story getting media attention it's a good thing that people are talking about it now! Hopefully sharing these stories and talking about these issues will bring attention to the problems outside of FAANG as well.
Because there is this "heroic tale-telling" where you had been so strong and good for chewing up how you were mistreated, and everybody should just do the same. "Fight to find a new job, you can do it, you are a warrior!"
I mean your comments talk about how "everyone has it, why is this particular story news". Which makes it sound like you don't get the point of this specific story existing (sorry for poor grammar/wording).
The line of thought I am at least trying to present here is that we should have been talking about stories like this and making them well known that have been happening throughout the industry well before hitting MANGA companies.
All good! I have been trying to better gather my thoughts on this in the face of... ongoing critique... so it is on me for not presenting it better in the first place. I blame it on being 5:30 AM in the morning here and not having had any coffee yet.
I,too, have been impacted by layoffs. I myself was at a "unicorn" startup in my country and couldn't continue there once the pandemic began. I didn't get a story about me personally either (that being said there was quite a lot of articles about the events that happened where I worked).
That being said, its a little different for this guy cause
a)
as the parent commenter mentioned, the guy uprooted his life and moved to a new country and laid off almost instantaneously.
b) I don't think he asked the press to write a story on him, he wrote a LinkedIn post
c) this isn't the Time magazine doing a puff piece for somebody, it's just some person from Business Insider who saw a viral post on LinkedIn and wrote a story about it.
I think you answered it yourself, right? MAANG are the poster children of Big-Tech and that invites clicks and views. That being said, if people are more aware of such things, there is a chance we can ask for better conditions in the future.
I suspect some of the criticism you are getting in these comments is due to comments of yours that seem to point to the villain in this case as The Media for not, I guess, reporting all misguided layoffs.
Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps the solution to these heartless layoffs is to put a spotlight on each and every one of them in order to shame and embarrass the executives at all companies.
But I suspect many people see instead deflection — you are absolving Meta's management because The Media dropped the ball a long time ago.
I mean your feelings and experience and valid but following the same logic, no one should complain about anything because there's always someone who has been the through the same hell if not worse. If they could get some resolution, good for them, for the rest of us, oh well life is unfair.
(This is coming from a woman who grew up in a Muslim country and sees women around her complain about video game representation lol)
I'd say it's good we have so much press for this case, maybe he got attention you had not but in my opinion it's good for community if cases like this get highlighted, even if it's not my case...
What about the case that happened so many times to contractors and employees like him in the past that didn't get coverage at lesser known companies? Why are so many people pretending to care now?
How am I "defending megacorps" right now? I am literally knocking them down because people are worshiping them and focusing only on the people affected by them instead of writing about this type of practice that has happened literally everywhere at this point. What you wrote is straight up double speak nonsense.
No, because it has happened to others at companies in the past all the time to people have been complaining for years. By your logic we should only care about practices good or bad that happen at META companies, and the rest fall by the wayside. It's ridiculous that this story makes HN front page, yet the woman who recently won a lawsuit for $366 million due to racial discrimination at FedEx doesn't because "not META."
