Item — HN Reader

I think many people would disagree with this assessment. It's akin to saying that the only thing that matters in a job is "compensation", and everything else is useless. While some people hold this view, many others like to be treated nicely in other ways: good working facilities, nice colleagues, fun perks, etc.

Same thing about getting laid off: it's never nice to lose your job, but even if the severance is good it's not nice to have your employer suddenly behave like an asshole, and that they think that your work is so worthless that it isn't necessary for you to wrap anything up.

1 comments

It's not that the things you mentioned don't matter, it's that employee<>employer relationships are transactional. While I maintain a friendly relationship with all the people I work with, very few are actually friends. If they are, we'll still talk after the relationship with my employer ends.

Unless you have a contract with your employer around the severing of that relationship, neither parties are beholden to each other and any expectation of such behavior is ultimately unproductive and quite unhealthy (mostly for you, $bigTech doesn't care).

Not everyone sees work in that way. Human psychology is complex and often times it's difficult to reduce workplace relationships down to simple economic relationships. You might argue that people should view all work relationships as transactional, but I'm not ready to agree with that (I think it is better to see coworkers as complete human beings), and in any case that just isn't how many people think as a matter of fact.

The point is that if you view them as anything other than an economic relationship, you'll be emotionally spurned by layoffs like this article alludes to. Also, the economic relationship is between that of employee and employer, not as much about relationships between co-workers.

Yes it's true! People with non-economic viewpoints are vulnerable to being hurt or taken advantage of by management. It sucks.

You're not wrong. The economic perspective usually determines company actions more than anything in practice. $bigtech really doesn't care, and it probably is incapable of caring due to its economic and organizational structure and priorities. It's the most realistic and accurate model for work at $bigtech.

But layoffs can still feel like being cast out of your tribe. You lose the daily casual social interactions that humans tend to want and need, and maintaining actual friendships becomes much harder. Not to mention losing your livelihood, social status, and health insurance.

The way companies communicate to employees that they've been laid off (locked out of the building, passwords stop working, maybe an email if you're lucky, etc.) is explained well by economics and company priorities, but from the human perspective it does rub salt in the wound.

For hiring and retention purposes, companies will often claim that they treat employees well. The truth is you might be treated OK until the day you aren't, and layoff day is absolutely one of those days.

>Not to mention losing your livelihood, social status, and health insurance.

That last part is a uniquely American problem.