"We won't share a list of the affected employees because some of them might not want the information to be public" was the biggest bullshit I've heard recently - no fiction needed.
Discovering that people you worked with for years have been laid off only because you randomly notice their slack is deactivated has to be one of 2024s gifts to humanity.
Someone at my work created a secret bot that scrapes the outlook contacts list and diffs it from the previous day, each day. This way we get daily updates whenever a new person is onboarded or offboarded.
As employees we now have more clarity about the state of layoffs and hiring decisions that most of the management team does.
I suggest doing the same within your org if you can.
Someone had done this at a previous company I worked at. You’d subscribe to a mailing list and get a daily/weekly summary of joiners, leavers and title changes. Pretty useful.
When management eventually found out they were seemingly supportive, but in the next layoff they made sure to reach out to the owner to make him “pause” the tool just before the layoffs started.
When the mailing list was unpaused again the laid-off folks weren’t mentioned, as if they’d never existed in the first place. Felt very 1984-esque.
Google has had a very visible tool internally for this for years. It lists every single person that leaves on a given day. It even has a system set up where the person leaving can email it, and the note would be attached to their leaving notice. You can also search the system and see anybody that's left at any point. So I could look for people that left 15 years ago.
The layoffs the last 2 years have been interesting in that the people aren't officially gone when they are laid off, as Google continues to pay them for 60 or 90 days. So a bunch of people who appear on this list all at once 60 days after they let go.
We did the same informally with Slack, but it's a great tip :)
There's even some automations around leadership calendar meeting titles+invitees that I might or not have heard about. If leadership wants to play games people can play games back.
At one unnamed startup I worked at, one of the sysadmins would just read the CEO's email and let us know o_O
I remember one email he sent me, paraphrasing: "You know that tech demo you gave the C-Suite last week for that really cool thing you invented in your off-time? Yeah, well they are having their lawyers figure out if your employment contract means that they own it already."
This has been one of my most surprising/weird experiences working for US startups. In the other two countries I've been, at the very least my manager sat with each of us, or in group, or some sort of announcement when someone I was working with would stop (either voluntarily or involuntarily). Seeing names and 1-1 conversations just disappear from Slack without anyone saying anything is very bizarre.
But I had to learn that as a lesson as well, since I might've learned something from them and left e.g. some commands that I use once every few months in the chat, now gone forever. This is also literally the only reason I have Linkedin, so I don't suddenly lose contact with those people (I don't have FB).
I don't know if it became the norm in the US because of remote work, but as a manager I make a point of announcing to my team when one of them just got let go. Like in the next 30min or so.
I guess I don't tell all teams and all our 200 engineers that this random guy is no longer with us.
I haven't had a US-based office job since 2018. I'm as thrown by it as you. It always used to be the norm that at the next standup or meeting it would be acknowledged. I don't know what changed in the intervening years.
It used to be that way. Work in the office generally requires a face-to-face meeting, and a box to put your stuff in before you are escorted out of the office.
Most recently, during COVID, I was laid off with no contact with my manager and no explanation. My recruiter called right before my access was terminated at 5pm.
2024? It happened to me in 2020, right after Covid. I was unable to reach a colleague, thought he was sick (not unusual, he had health issues often). Until the “standup” rolled around and we were told he was laid off.
Apparently he himself found out after most of his logins were shut off.
I've heard from a friend that the way they found someone was laid off was by Google Calendar suddenly removing the person that was laid off from invites while in a 1:1 with their manager. The manager had no context. That kind of inhuman feeling is what exemplifies the state of layoffs in the modern day.
My biggest complaint is that lying is just completely endemic. The best liars, who lie so well you question if they're lying when it's right in front of you, are at the top, and you just progress down from there with everyone playing along to known lies. Finding and working in areas with people who care about the truth is like a priceless haven.
I found out I was let go around 3:15 on a Thursday because the person sitting across from me emailed me something, then told me it just bounced back as 'undeliverable'. 3 minutes later someone showed up with a box and gave me 5 minutes to pack my things. This was 1999. Corporate world has been gutless/soulless for a long time ;)
I really don’t get why companies won’t allow limited access to email at least to send a goodbye message and contact details to their colleagues. You could spin up new email boxes if you are worried about them downloading emails even.
It just seems really cold to not let people say goodbye and point their colleagues to their LinkedIn so they can get some recommendations and such. For the companies that allow this I salute you.
Security training, usually mandated by some insurance policy, regulation or something else, typically lists "disgruntled employee" as the number one internal security threat.
Cutting off access prior to or immediately following notification of termination is more or less the only remedy to prevent data exfiltration from such a person.
Even if there were some programmatic way to ensure they could only email internal addresses, there are still some risks. I think it'd be worth implementing myself, though I can see it being rather difficult or impossible to set up depending on how the company's email is run.
Hah, is Slack doing anything with this data, it sounds like Salesforce has a good intel on a lotttt of companies. Things like re-orgs (bunch of new Slack channels, archival of old ones) who's working with whom...
One of the companies in my early career always sent out an email blast with someone's parting words. In the case of a negative termination, the leadership usually wrote something about them. The words were always read by HR before, but I really appreciated it. It felt more humane.
Last big layoff I was a part of in the before times, I was working for a huge aerospace company who just lost out on a major gov contract. We were told layoffs were coming, and they would happen on a certain day. You would get a phone call to come to your manager's office for a private meeting, or you wouldn't and that meant you were not laid off.
So everyone is sitting at their desk, too keyed up to do any work, just waiting to hear who's desk phone is going to go off next.
My call came late in the afternoon (about the time I was starting to think I was safe). Everyone in the cube farm knew you just got hit as you walked toward the boss's office where the boss and the HR lady were waiting.
my employer did this last year. randomly laid off 100s of top contributors and project champions then spent the following year wondering why everything is slipping. that company and this entire market is so incredibly stupid.
I mean, I've seen a lay off once where all the names of the people affected where listed and taped on the door of the department.
People came to work checking the list, just like I did 20 years ago to know if I passed my degree.
Right. I think they just want to avoid being on the front-page of startup news sites with a headline like "<company> lays off <n>% of workforce," so they don't call it a layoff and try to keep a lid on how many people were let go.
Of course, because they can't say that they have to come up with other narratives which wind up sounding disingenuous at best.
Has this ever happened? I know that in the US at least we say that "you can sue anyone for anything," but it seems a stretch to think that a company could face legal liability for disclosing internally that someone was let go.
exactly -if I ran a big company, no way I would send out a notice to people still working there every time someone was let go to say who got fired or laid off.
People who need to know find out who is gone, it just takes a little longer.
That was interesting. I'm reminded of the sci-fi story called "Manna" that I read a while ago, which explored a bit of a dystopian future, where advancements in technology eventually made a lot of people unemployed: https://marshallbrain.com/manna
The story is from 2003, but hearing about people being laid off due to AI/LLM advances suddenly reminds me of it, as well as AI gradually encroaching upon more positions. After all, letting an AI of some sort handle layoffs would almost make sense.
That's not to say that the early attempts at replacing writers or artists, or even some developers won't backfire pretty badly.
> The most unrealistic part of this is Australia being a utopia of universal basic income.
To be fair, a corporation had to raise a trillion dollars of capital and build that society from scratch before anyone else even seemed interested. How it progressed from that point to "the rest of Australia signed on" is entirely hand-waved away.
Just like real life, where nobody cares about programs like this and everyone refuses to help until they're already taking off. Which may or may not ever happen.
Manna(one of my favorite writings on AI),
is incredibly optimistic and sugar-coated.
All the "basic income" parts and Australia
would have to be realistically fought tooth-and-nail
with people viewing welfare recipients as "lazy" and "entitled"..
People can only view welfare recipients as lazy and entitled from the pedestal of a decent job. 80% of the white collar middle class is going to have to learn to become AI "composers" or learn trades, and I'm guessing trades will be vastly more accessible for the majority of the displaced. The mass influx of tradespeople is going to depress earnings due to competition (which already weren't great unless you were a master tradesman with employees), so we're going to end up with 75% of the population below average income and people struggling to afford rent and food. When that happens I don't expect the pushback against some form of social service or basic income to be so great.
I've been "enjoying" watching that story come true since he published it. It's a great summation of all the trends that have been going on for a long time now.
Do you have any sources for layoffs "due to AI/LLM advances" other than layoffs-in-one-sector-to-replace-with-AI-experts which I can find plenty of, but which are not really due to efficiency improvements?
What’s the difference? AI-motivated job cuts are widespread in all sectors, and companies are phrasing them as “efficiency improvements.” This is only possible because of recent advances in LLM capability. If anything, skilled experts are slightly less likely to be replaced by AI (with notable exceptions for visual artists)
“Around four in 10 [business leaders surveyed by ResumeBuilder] said they'll conduct layoffs as they replace workers with AI, with Dropbox, Google, and IBM have already announced job cuts for that very reason“ https://www.businessinsider.com/layoffs-sweeping-us-these-ar...
SO where is the near-real-time country-wide system that ratchets down the standard (statutory) work week in sync with the overall decline in aggregate work ?
First there would need to be signs of greatly increased productivity where it counts (customer facing). Somehow I have my doubts we will see that with the current crop of LLM.
"the rest of the year's worth of pay in one lump sum, to keep your corporate laptop, and COBRA coverage for the rest of the year should you need it. You will also get double the value of any unspent paid time off, including the time you would have gained during the rest of the year."
OMG I would love this kind of severance, in February no less. I'm accustomed to hearing about severance that goes from from jack squat to 2 weeks severance + 1 week per year worked, no insurance, no laptop, and maybe you unpaid vacation time that didn't carry over.
Lay me off, baby. Daddy's going on a 10 month paid sabbatical!
The worst that are affected are the people who didn't get laid off and now have to do the work of all the people that did. Double the work with no extra pay, what's not to like?
I predict a new type of employement will emerge as a result of the late stage capitalism we are experiencing: the just in time employment. Where you are technically employed all the time but you are not paid [the same] when the corpo has you in the idle bucket. The drones will stay on for the health insurance, minimum pay, the illusion of work right around the corner. Heck, we also may have corpos form big pools of disposables that allow them to elastically scale the number of people that currently work on something up and down. Remember folks! JustInTime Employment!
Well a guy named SWIM got laid off not long ago with exactly this kind of severance, about 6 months left in the year + compensated for unspent time off + got to keep his laptop and monitor. Getting laid off like this was the best thing that happened in his employment history and not just to him, there was a mass layoff and people were anxious they might end up being kept :)
So I completely stopped reading the story after the severance package since that paragraph completely shattered my suspension of disbelief. Any sane (and competent) person would jump at the opportunity of being laid off like this.
[Spoiler alert - look away now if you haven't read the story]
I'd expect the logical extension to this to wholly be using AI for the managerial aspect of bringing you into the conversation. Employers will have the right to make use of a manger's likeness for reasons they see fit, such as using a bot to layoff their direct reports. Removes the emotional liability from the manager.
Something that got pruned from the final draft was the manager also being there to monitor the call, but also an AI duplicate. I thought that was too creepy and it would make it too realistic, so it was left on the cutting-room floor.
I enjoyed the story, and want to offer some mild feedback. I found the reuse of "Hooli" from Silicon Valley distracting, spent the next few paragraphs wondering if this was supposed to be SV fanfic. I can think of a number of fake company names which would immediately suggest Google to the reader, without having that effect, as I'm sure you can as well.
Why do you think a class of folks with asymmetric access to a given resource, because of costs to access and use such resources creating barrier to entry, would not use those very asymmetric resources to their advantage when possible?
So long as the prediction is viable from a technological and execution level, I don’t see why it has to be labeled “doomer.” If it’s possible and people can exploit it to their advantage, they will, that’s humans.
About a decade ago I was doing a lot of travel for work - 140 plus flights a year over 6 continents level.
I remember watching a film, “Up in the Air”, about a guy who was contest flying from airport to airport to lay people off because the boss was too much of a wimp to do it himself.
I guess even his job isn’t safe from AI.
Sure some will manage to hack with prompt injection attacks, and potentially get compensation, but those attacks will be fixed.
This was a really fun read. I’ve only read a couple short stories ever that so narrowly focus on the technology of today, but I think it’s great. Such an effective and entertaining way of discussing what’s in the news cycle.
Most short stories about technology are about it's role in society. Take a look at any of the winning or short-listed short stories from any reputable sci-fi award (like the Nebula or Locus) and you'll find them by the dozen.
I like stories by Asimov and Bradbury. If you're looking for something contemporary, take a gander at Ted Chiang.
Readit News
Discovering that people you worked with for years have been laid off only because you randomly notice their slack is deactivated has to be one of 2024s gifts to humanity.
As employees we now have more clarity about the state of layoffs and hiring decisions that most of the management team does.
I suggest doing the same within your org if you can.
When management eventually found out they were seemingly supportive, but in the next layoff they made sure to reach out to the owner to make him “pause” the tool just before the layoffs started.
When the mailing list was unpaused again the laid-off folks weren’t mentioned, as if they’d never existed in the first place. Felt very 1984-esque.
The layoffs the last 2 years have been interesting in that the people aren't officially gone when they are laid off, as Google continues to pay them for 60 or 90 days. So a bunch of people who appear on this list all at once 60 days after they let go.
There's even some automations around leadership calendar meeting titles+invitees that I might or not have heard about. If leadership wants to play games people can play games back.
I remember one email he sent me, paraphrasing: "You know that tech demo you gave the C-Suite last week for that really cool thing you invented in your off-time? Yeah, well they are having their lawyers figure out if your employment contract means that they own it already."
But I had to learn that as a lesson as well, since I might've learned something from them and left e.g. some commands that I use once every few months in the chat, now gone forever. This is also literally the only reason I have Linkedin, so I don't suddenly lose contact with those people (I don't have FB).
I guess I don't tell all teams and all our 200 engineers that this random guy is no longer with us.
Most recently, during COVID, I was laid off with no contact with my manager and no explanation. My recruiter called right before my access was terminated at 5pm.
I've never seen this happen personally (15yrs US tech) but maybe that is unusual
Apparently he himself found out after most of his logins were shut off.
Corporate world is as gutless as it is soulless
It just seems really cold to not let people say goodbye and point their colleagues to their LinkedIn so they can get some recommendations and such. For the companies that allow this I salute you.
Cutting off access prior to or immediately following notification of termination is more or less the only remedy to prevent data exfiltration from such a person.
Even if there were some programmatic way to ensure they could only email internal addresses, there are still some risks. I think it'd be worth implementing myself, though I can see it being rather difficult or impossible to set up depending on how the company's email is run.
I too found slack to be the layoff lookup tool.
I know when I worked in a big company 20 years ago I would have no idea who was let go in another office.
So everyone is sitting at their desk, too keyed up to do any work, just waiting to hear who's desk phone is going to go off next.
My call came late in the afternoon (about the time I was starting to think I was safe). Everyone in the cube farm knew you just got hit as you walked toward the boss's office where the boss and the HR lady were waiting.
Not sure it's much better :D
Of course, because they can't say that they have to come up with other narratives which wind up sounding disingenuous at best.
Step 2. The list is shared on social media.
Step 3. A former employee that's on that list sues the company.
People who need to know find out who is gone, it just takes a little longer.
You think that started in 2024? You sweet summer child
“Dave is no longer with us”
“Oh no! What do we do? Send a condolences card to his partner? Do we have contact information? I worked with Dave for three years”
“Oh.. no he just has been let go.”
“Okay.. uh. So who will be the scrum master now?”
“You will have to take on some extra responsibilities while we transition to the new team structure”
“:sadparrot:”
Actually, the Wiki page has more info on it, for those that don't have the time to read it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_(novel)
The story is from 2003, but hearing about people being laid off due to AI/LLM advances suddenly reminds me of it, as well as AI gradually encroaching upon more positions. After all, letting an AI of some sort handle layoffs would almost make sense.
That's not to say that the early attempts at replacing writers or artists, or even some developers won't backfire pretty badly.
Unfortunately we've gone the way of the USA in many ways, though at least centrelink (unemployment/dole) still exists as a minimal safety net.
To be fair, a corporation had to raise a trillion dollars of capital and build that society from scratch before anyone else even seemed interested. How it progressed from that point to "the rest of Australia signed on" is entirely hand-waved away.
Just like real life, where nobody cares about programs like this and everyone refuses to help until they're already taking off. Which may or may not ever happen.
Keep in mind while free range chicken farming is better to market, it is also more messy.
https://thehensloft.com/free-range-chicken-pros-cons/
“IBM Plans To Replace Nearly 8,000 Jobs With AI” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-plans-replace-nearly-8-17...
“Around four in 10 [business leaders surveyed by ResumeBuilder] said they'll conduct layoffs as they replace workers with AI, with Dropbox, Google, and IBM have already announced job cuts for that very reason“ https://www.businessinsider.com/layoffs-sweeping-us-these-ar...
“A recent Goldman Sachs study found that generative AI tools could, in fact, impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, which could lead to a "significant disruption" in the job market” https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-jobs-at-risk-replace...
OMG I would love this kind of severance, in February no less. I'm accustomed to hearing about severance that goes from from jack squat to 2 weeks severance + 1 week per year worked, no insurance, no laptop, and maybe you unpaid vacation time that didn't carry over.
Lay me off, baby. Daddy's going on a 10 month paid sabbatical!
The worst that are affected are the people who didn't get laid off and now have to do the work of all the people that did. Double the work with no extra pay, what's not to like?
I predict a new type of employement will emerge as a result of the late stage capitalism we are experiencing: the just in time employment. Where you are technically employed all the time but you are not paid [the same] when the corpo has you in the idle bucket. The drones will stay on for the health insurance, minimum pay, the illusion of work right around the corner. Heck, we also may have corpos form big pools of disposables that allow them to elastically scale the number of people that currently work on something up and down. Remember folks! JustInTime Employment!
Sounds like making everyone a contractor.
So I completely stopped reading the story after the severance package since that paragraph completely shattered my suspension of disbelief. Any sane (and competent) person would jump at the opportunity of being laid off like this.
I'd expect the logical extension to this to wholly be using AI for the managerial aspect of bringing you into the conversation. Employers will have the right to make use of a manger's likeness for reasons they see fit, such as using a bot to layoff their direct reports. Removes the emotional liability from the manager.
So long as the prediction is viable from a technological and execution level, I don’t see why it has to be labeled “doomer.” If it’s possible and people can exploit it to their advantage, they will, that’s humans.
I remember watching a film, “Up in the Air”, about a guy who was contest flying from airport to airport to lay people off because the boss was too much of a wimp to do it himself.
I guess even his job isn’t safe from AI.
Sure some will manage to hack with prompt injection attacks, and potentially get compensation, but those attacks will be fixed.
It’s a fantastic film, albeit in a bit of an obscure niche if you haven’t dipped your toe in the points/status game.
Dead Comment
I like stories by Asimov and Bradbury. If you're looking for something contemporary, take a gander at Ted Chiang.
https://boilingdown.ghost.io/thoughts-on-neuralink/https://boilingdown.ghost.io/loyalty-program/https://boilingdown.ghost.io/streetcred/https://boilingdown.ghost.io/grow-up/https://boilingdown.ghost.io/deluge/
The twist in the middle and end, ha, well done! Didn't see that coming :D Very funny and very well done.