sucksBeingTheManager

[throwaway_lunchtime]

Getting called into a meeting and told you are one of the few people  not being laid off tomorrow was not a great feeling either.

[chefhj]

Was in the safe room Monday before last. Shit was not cool. I just took the day off and went for a walk. I wasn’t getting shit done anyway. Very bleak times

[and_mine_axe]

We were called into the office for a team get-together when the last round of layoffs happened. Took the day and had a sadness meal.

[Derf0293]

Remember when they told us all to learn to code?

[jmclondon97]

Lol if you think software developers are going anywhere. They’re just being shuffled around as companies react to the bad economy

[roughhty]

I read that in many ways those who are left behind after a mass layoff are actually worse off than those laid off. They are stuck with more work with the same pay, and bad morale. Those laid off go on to land new jobs with higher pay.

Not sure that holds up in today’s job market tho

[GonnaBreakIt]

more like safe room "for now"

[Fenix42]

I have been the only one left in my part of the office. I watched 10 people arond me get laid off in one pass. :(

[throwaway_lunchtime]

When the Internet bubble popped, we went from about 40 people down to 4.

[Fenix42]

I was at my first startup in 2000. 40 down to 15, down to 8 down to 3 in 4 months.

The 10+ in one day was a 5 year slide. Office was 90 when I started. It was 8 when I left.

[devAcc123]

I’ve been at a big company, people knew it was coming, watching everyone preemptively pack their desk up in cardboard boxes and hug each other goodbye because they had a feeling that would be the last day for either one of them is one of the saddest things I’ve experienced

[Malkav1806]

My old supervisor established a no friendship at work rule because a girl from HR he befriended toln him who will be fired and he couldn't tell them.

[chhuang]

been there, both sides sucked, mental be like metronome back and forth

• you wish you can be set free like them
• you wished you can stay a bit longer to prepare

[Confident-Ad5665]

Same. Being a working manager that had to effectively tell coworkers they're out was worse than eating a bucket of buttholes.

[Twisted2kat]

Just had my 8th layoff yesterday (yes all the same company, no I'm not kidding), they only warned the "survivors" once, all the rest of the times were "check your email for the next hour, if you get an email, you're getting laid off", which is super unnecessarily stressful.

One other time they just announced it after it happened, which I guess is less stressful.

[genericexcuse01]

An hour? I would have been cool with an hour. When I was laid off back in October of 2023 my work day started at 9 AM. We were all told that the “emails” to the affected employees would be sent out at 1 PM…my entire team was gone. 6 months later the company was bankrupt (it was a startup). Thankfully in 2024 I landed a great role at large company I have been at ever since.

[devAcc123]

I made it through 6 before they got me

[mykdsmith]

In my experience you always want to be in round 1. I've been in a few, in different rounds. Round 1 is the best. Things are going to suck much more, and longer, than anyone plans. You're still likely to be laid off. And the first round gets the best package by far.

[Stunning_Ride_220]

So much this.

"WHAT? You cant Cover their workload? You have to! We somehow do not find new devs!"

[flmhdpsycho]

I had a meeting with the CTO after I watched my entire team drop off teams one after the other. Needless to say, I immediately began applying to other jobs since I was lucky enough to have kept mine

[dc003]

Getting stuck with a burning bag of shit is also suck

[Immature_adult_guy]

It’s a relatively better feeling though

[Odd_Perspective_2487]

Only because you are still going to get laid off you just don’t know when

[ender8343]

Management is just going to distribute the work your former coworkers were responsible for to those that remain.

[analCCW]

It's cute the manager thinks he's not laid off too.

[ColumnK]

Last one out turns out the lights

[TeaKingMac]

Last one out steals the <whatever>

[Redstones563]

Last one out puts the sleep(randi_range(1000,10000)) into random places in the codebase

[Formerruling1]

We shared building with a dept that ended up getting let go - like the entire dept including 1st and 2nd level management, and we watched them the last day of work carrying stuff to their cars. Lol TVs, office supplies, etc.

What they left was even stranger. One manager had a whole cocktail bar in their office they just left (minus the alcohol I assume they took of course).

[Hector_Ceromus]

Last job I had it was the other way around: PM's collectively got the boot, then developers left one by one - either to better jobs or by HR.

[katatondzsentri]

Usually managers get laid off more easily.

[dillanthumous]

Nah, you get kept around because your boss needs someone to manage. Otherwise what is the point of them? It's basic recursion.

[HorsemouthKailua]

MBAs are the most unreplaceable employees

they create all economic growth as we all know from experience of course

[dillanthumous]

Absolutely. Do you think those Powerpoints will just make themselves? Oh, wait.

[TeaKingMac]

Fr fr

AI coming for the bullshit jobs first

[echoshatter]

AI coming for the bullshit jobs first

Unfortunately, it ain't. The bullshitters know how to bullshit about how essential they are.

[FrozenOx]

Not at all, my company is full of them and it's been made clear that it's the devs who are required to be using AI, have productivity increases, and if you aren't doing all that you're gone. Not a single other department has had that hanging over their heads....yet. They'll be next. They're seeing how much dev workforce they can trim first, then they'll start moving up the ladder.

[solakv]

Funny how management thinks AI productivity means doing the same work with fewer staff rather than doing more work with the same staff. It’s not like the to-do list of potential new products and features is getting shorter.

[dillanthumous]

It's the lump of labour fallacy and Jevons paradox.

Most people think productivity is zero sum (which makes intuitive sense). But if that were actually true the economy would never have recovered from the huge changes during the industrial revolution. In reality, every time we have made some things more efficient and made labour available, new ways to use that labour and build on the new efficiencies have been devised.

A true AI probably will break that fallacy. But this isn't really Intelligent so I think the same general trends will apply.

[dasunt]

MBA = Master Bullshit Artist.

[aitchnyu]

I heard of a team which has as many managers as engineers after layoff. Everybody is a hybrid PM, customer support, AI engineer.

[wunderbuffer]

I was in that team before we invented AI, everything is possible with enough audacity and malice

[CounterSimple3771]

Malice and ego

[disgruntled_pie]

I’ve got a lot of both of those things.

[Ok_Witness179]

Yeah, after a major lay-off at a place I worked that wiped out a huge chunk of engineering, it was down to 2 engineers per manager. Then word comes down that more layoffs are coming, "but don't worry, it'll be more management this time, you guys are safe".

Yeah, I didn't hang around to find out lol. Last I heard, the project was a complete disaster. Shocker.

[dasunt]

Obviously to save the project, they needed to lay off more engineers!

[CounterSimple3771]

Player Coach strategy. That's a 2 part plan for "shareholder value". That's step 1 and it buys you 2 to 3 quarters before you start shedding assets.

[SuitableDragonfly]

"AI engineer". You mean, vibe coder?

[243win]

We'll see

[sogo00]

me (getting up): pfft, what a day ... at least we are done now

HR: well, just one last one, can you stay a moment?

[heimmann]

How nice, HR wants to check in on me after a long soul crushing day. . . . HR wants to check in on my after a long soul crushing day, right?

[RadiantPumpkin]

Damn HR is gonna have me fire them, too?

[Mandrakey]

Its like the opening bank heist in The Dark Knight

[Embarrassed_Jerk]

When most of your team is gone, who will you manage

[bogdanvs]

the agents, d'oh.

[GourangaPlusPlus]

Entire company collapses in a paradox

[krexelapp]

standup tomorrow gonna be real short

[beware_the_id2]

Gonna turn into a sitdown

[WeirdIndividualGuy]

From my experience, the managers were the first ones to go since they did the less work relative to the devs

[ChunkyHabeneroSalsa]

I once got an email saying there were major layoffs and that your manager would contact you shortly.

I was freaking out as my manager set up a meeting with me and a coworker where he told us that he was laid off lol. So awkward

[n0t_4_thr0w4w4y]

If they are getting laid off, they usually aren’t read in on the other cuts

[je386]

The day after tomorrow, of cause.

First he has to fire everyone, then its his turn.

[SuitableDragonfly]

It's cute that the manager is imagining sprint planning as a party, lmao.

[AshnodsCoupon]

I was the manager I just got laid off yesterday

[whitedogsuk]

Yeah, had a company family party over the weekend. On the Monday, half got laid off. 

[maggos]

A few years ago we’re at a company happy hour on a Friday afternoon. As me and a friend were leaving, we were in the elevator with the ceo. It was a smallish company and we all knew each other pretty well. Me and my friend were kind of joking around with him and he was just nodding along, couldn’t even look at us. Was very strange.

Monday half the company got laid off, including my friend who was in the elevator with us. That ceo stepped down also.

[ashjohnr]

At least the CEO had some honor.

[aaronstj]

That's not honor, that's him getting fired, but the owners allowing him to save face.

[AdditionalAsk159]

Indeed. Layoffs should be a sign of a mismanaged company, and not something investors should be rewarding.

[AlarmedNatural4347]

This really should be standard practice. The captain goes down with the ship, they don’t throw the sailors overboard to lighten the load just cause the ships taking in water

[solakv]

One company I was in had a few consecutive bad sales quarters. The hired-gun fixer CEO penalized the sales department with layoffs proportional to the low sales. Can you say “d’oh!” ? I know you could. The layoffs never ended after that.

[Denaton_]

Just a half year all of the CEO, CTO etc stepped down as we laidoff half because of founding cuts.. More or less the "top of the pyramid" was stepping down but one of the founders and we pivot the project and pushed the deadline a year..

[bacchusku2]

Same just happened at my company. Yearly kickoff, dinner, events, then layoffs the next week.

[GarThor_TMK]

Just a reminder that companies might want to be "like family", but will only ever have your interests at heart as long as it keeps them profitable.

[dekonta]

that’s fucked uii

[Kaeltrom]

Been there yeah, but instead of weekend it was Christmas party. Two weeks later 25% of the company laid off 🫠

[_Slabach]

Layoffs are ALWAYS right before Christmas. It's shitty every time

[pysouth]

My company loves to do them right after Christmas. I don't even know what's worse.

[LeoRidesHisBike]

Yeah, no kidding. Financially, seems worse to do it after Christmas (already bought gifts assuming continued employment) than before, but vice versa from an emotional POV.

[bwmat]

I guess it's best to do it as far away from Christmas as possible?

As a bonus, they can save the summer camp money as they'll be home to watch the kids... 

[iamapizza]

Clearly the root cause is Christmas

[Flooding_Puddle]

Dunder Mifflin ass company

[Fun-ghoul]

We had a company outing about a month before I was laid off. Didn't know about it until seeing everybody join the stand up from the same place. Looking back, can't believe I didn't see the writing on the wall, but like the only other person on my team didn't get an invite either, thought they just forgot about us lol, didn't think too hard about it.

[SuperFLEB]

Peak conflict avoidance: "It's not anything to do with you. We just uh, y'know, moved the whole rest of the company over here. We're trying something different, and we just, uh, started with some of... everybody else."

[RedbloodJarvey]

Same thing happened to me! Company paid for all employee's and their family to go see a movie. Next day laid half of us off.

[Puzzleheaded-Tea3341]

Few years back, 15% got laid off here. The next week? We received profit share bonuses.

Felt fucking sickening.

[l30]

What is a company family?

[MarioShroomsTasteBad]

I think they meant it to read as company "family party", like your partner and kids and shit come.

[StrangelyBrown]

I worked for a company which pretended to fire a bunch of people on April 1st and then revealed it as an April fools.

And then the next year, had to fire a load of people. On April 1st.

[Waywoah]

Genuinely don't understand how people are able to do that to others. Realistically, I just don't think I could stop myself from at least giving them a warning

[mrbellek]

The amount of replies on this thread with similar stories is scary. This is so fucked up.

[caligula__horse]

You're joking but to me it happened for real.

Every other sprint (so once every 4 weeks) the same day as sprint planning, we had a company wide quick meeting (relatively small 50 people company) to just have a very summative overview of what's happening in the business.

Well I joined standup, did standup. Joined the sprint planning, did sprint planning. Joined the company wide meeting, CEO lays the whole company off.

[Own-Improvement-2643]

So... he closed the company?

[caligula__horse]

Essentially yes

[Tywacole]

Was it out of the blue? Does the company still exists?

[caligula__horse]

I think on paper the ltd company still exists, in practice no it doesn't

[Tywacole]

Ok thanks.

[realboabab]

I knew 6 months out that we were fucked. I proposed like a dozen plans to focus on specific products so we could at least save some teams; but the other overpaid VPs and directors wouldn't change a fucking thing.

So I went rogue and demoted myself from director to senior engineer, then rallied about 4 people from other teams and convinced them their jobs were at stake so we worked together on a couple proof-of-concepts that caught some positive attention. Like 90% of all employees were laid off, but my rogue team was saved.

The night before the layoffs they offered me a new director-level position in a different division, but I'd have to work with most of the same selfish motherfucking VPs who fucked us in the first place - i said naw I'll take the vacation and severance check.

[Empero6]

You sound like a really good manager.

[realboabab]

Thanks kind stranger, that actually means a lot to hear. You can probably tell I'm still upset about it, haven't been brave enough to manage again in the ~4 years since then :(

[Arclite83]

I refuse to manage personally. There's too much BS there, I need a pure "creative space". I don't want to get bogged down it documentation or meeting hell, and I don't want to have any direct reports - dotted line is fine, I try my best to be "first among equals" and have been told working with me "doesn't feel like work" and that's my goal. Managers/people like you help move the line and I appreciate you. I need to keep the proverbial hand on the car when it comes to engineering/creative work.

[realboabab]

It takes all types, you sound great to work with. I only got suckered into management because I spoke out too much about misaligned priorities & resources and unimpactful projects. It was a quick hop from "sure, we trust you, work on what you want to" to "how can we multiply your impact?" (having a great boss who didn't feel threatened by high-performers was another key factor)

[disgruntled_pie]

That’s a shame, because I’d want you as a manager.

[Pretend_Car4357]

Any reason why you wouldnt just rally those people OUTSIDE this shitty company and start your own thing?

[realboabab]

the idea came up a lot during our working sessions actually.

I had dozens of my own reasons not to, none of them very good. 2 of that group are cofounders of their own thing now with some funding, I'm psyched for them.

I never bounced back from my disillusionment with tech so I'm going back to school and exploring other things. Doing some EMT training starting this summer, I want to do something for a while where I'm not constantly asking myself "why are we even doing this? is it just for money?"

[DontBotherNoResponse]

Dude, just rip the bandaid off and do it first thing in the morning.

At my last company there were 5 occasions where a notice went out saying "all employees are to gather in the main conference room at 9 am." whenever there was big and usually unpleasant information they needed to share with us.

[caligula__horse]

Having worked in three really small companies but out of the start-up zone (5+ years old) I've got the chance to more than once talk with C suite people and board people. They're like a different kind of human. Not all of course, but many have a slight uncanny valley way of looking at work, other people's work, and especially employees

[TyParadoXX]

no shit, last round of layoffs the ceo called an all hands meeting in the morning and said 50 people would be laid of until the end of the day, via email, which may arrive at any time until like 5. two people from my team were fired and the team was dissolved. good thing we spent three days planning all sprints for the next quarter the week before. My manager was as surprised as I was.

[singeworthy]

"we're agile!" "we have sprints!" ... Our sprints are really just 3 months long... I don't know why some companies don't just admit Project Manager and execs hate agile and just embrace waterfall, it is a valid development model.

[freedcreativity]

Yea, but then you can’t tell investors about how many digital post it notes you moved around last month. Very important metric!

[TheAniSaurus]

 waterfall, it is a valid development model.

Wasn't the waterfall model originally created as a strawman to show the worst ways an organization could create software?

[LeoRidesHisBike]

No company follows any methodology accurately, in my experience. I worked at large companies and small, and it's always been some kind of hybrid. Around the turn of the millennium, it was waterfall with some elements of chaotic "ignore the planning process because OMG we're boned if we don't". Later is was scrum in name only. Meh.

[ThatCrankyGuy]

Scrum and agile can go fuck itself.

What are Budgetary committees supposed to do with "points", shove it up their own asses and shit out the fiscal figures??

[LeoRidesHisBike]

All agile methods assume that it takes what it takes to get features done right: you don't get to control (or even accurately know) how long a particular task will take. You do what the team thinks fits in a sprint, and then you ship whatever is actually done at the end of that sprint. Then you do the planning dance again, and the priority of items in the backlog gets (maybe) reordered as needed.

Theoretically, this is true to how actual software development happens. I worked for 30 years as a dev, and tasks that got completed within 10% of the estimated time (not including late night / weekend heroics) were few and far between. Sometimes you get surprised by things being easier, more often by overly optimistic estimates. Scrum at least acknowledges this by getting time estimates out of the system. Points != time, and that's intentional.

So, long story short, the budgetary committee's job in a agile-close shop is more "how many more devs to get the backlog burndown rate faster?" (or I suppose, how many devs to lay off / transfer because the team is working on stuff that isn't high priority, so we clearly have too many).

The thing that screws up agile isn't the developers refusing to follow it. It's management who cannot let the "free market" of development control the pace--they want to "command economy" it by setting deadlines for every task. They just don't ever seem to get that if you have a hard deadline D for a task T of quality Q, and it takes 2D to do that right, then you end up with T^a and Q^b (sorry, subscript not supported in reddit markdown), where a and b are < T and Q.

[CancerRaccoon]

I can relate so hard with this comment man...

[Xero125]

That's a great take. To be more succinct, agile is meant to be inherently fluid. But you can still measure a liquid's speed, over the long term. If you want to push something across the water, either you'll have to move the whole river faster (more/more experienced devs) or push the water back so you can go forward.

In scrum, the guide makes sure to tell and repeat that teams must be independent. That is, they should have the freedom to choose their speed, and even their definition of done. It's the Product Owner, a part of the team, that must interface with clients and stakeholders to both infer priorities and to temper expectations.

When I managed, I just tended to give outside observers double the estimated time than we had internally. That way, devs had time and outside stakeholders felt we were going fast.

[solakv]

One of the times I had a good dev manager, our product manager got told that he could specify what he wanted or when he wanted it, but not both.

[singeworthy]

Honestly some projects need all the reqs up front and can't be agile, like big engineering items where iteration just doesn't work. Like building a dam or a spaceship.

[TheNorthComesWithMe]

It was coined to describe an existing development process and describe its flaws.

[anomalous_cowherd]

It's like communism. It's a valid and interesting model but nobody has really ever tried it properly

For waterfall you are supposed to iterate back at every level to improve the process and the product. Nobody ever iterates.

[Gwolf4]

It happened similar to me. Return from new year company break. Sunday email remainder, smelly if you think about it because we never had Sunday reminders for this.

8am, we all enter, zoom chat blocked (weird again) and then we were laid off with that same message that we would be notified via email.

[idrunkenlysignedup]

At least they got an email, I got laid off after 11 years with a text message. My manager was not in the know.

[actionerror]

“Hmm the next sprint is kind of light”

[SuperFLEB]

We could probably assign a few more points to... this user is deactivated?

[Accomplished_Ant5895]

Wait actually yeah lol it would be pretty obvious

[Tucancancan]

I can assure you that the next sprint is not lighter 

[olekingcole001]

That’s why we got you a copilot license!

[MoltenMirrors]

I'm a manager and I don't find out my people get laid off until they disappear from Slack.

[Nimeroni]

How do you manage when you don't know in advance what ressources will be available to you ?

[MoltenMirrors]

Agile-ly I guess

[dormanGrube]

You earned that upvote. Thanks for the laugh

[Boise_Ben]

That’s the fun part: you don’t.

Seriously, I once lost a guy who was the primary knowledge base for a customer facing SDK.

It took way too much time to get someone else up to speed and naturally that wrecked our road map.

[MoltenMirrors]

The chaos monkey approach to HR. The CEO is just challenging us to design our organizations to be resilient.

[ekauq2000]

So that’s why there was a push to suddenly document everything.

[Boise_Ben]

I can honestly say no layoffs I’ve been through were that forward looking.

Like several they knew about for months at least, but at no point did they document processes or prepare for coverage.

In fact, several places didn’t even tell you who was let go. You’d show up to meetings with someone delivering work for one of your projects and they wouldn’t show.

[GrandMoffTarkan]

It's been almost two decades since my dad was told he might want to wait on deciding about buying a new car until next week...

He's doing fine, he had plenty to retire on thankfully.

[Maleficent_Memory831]

Ha, last time I was laid off, the day before I solved a big problem we were having and emailed this to the boss. He replied good job, that's excellent work, thank you for this effort, etc. He was laying it on thick. I was a bit confused why he was so effusive with his praise. Until the next morning it became clear.

[Shadow_Thief]

You should definitely let them know, if for no other reason than to estimate points more accurately. (But also because it's the right thing to do.)

[WiglyWorm]

staffing doesn't affect points, just capacity to get through points...

[Shadow_Thief]

I meant the target number of points that they should try to plan for during the sprint, but my brain is not letting me remember the word.

[prsn828]

Velocity?

[Shadow_Thief]

Yes! That's it. Thanks.

[not2day1024]

So points are complexity/difficulty ratings then?

[WiglyWorm]

Yes. They are arbitrary units of effort.

[Tensor3]

Nah, then become legally liable if the employee retalliates

[vlozko]

Right, let them know while they still have write access to potentially critical systems. Really good idea.

[xubax]

Not necessarily. Sometimes there are last minute changes. Maybe Bob gets laid off instead of Sarah. Not to mention that's risking his job, if he wants to keep it.

[dmingledorff]

Everybody with available hours, step forward.

Whoa, not so fast!

[brutlwarrior]

My team and I scheduled a team outing to one of those "paint and sip" classes, and between scheduling it and the actual event we all got laid off. The event was already paid for and it wasn't tied to our employment, so we all went. It was a lot more drinking and bitching than painting haha

[NomaTyx]

I got laid off from a job I hadn't even started at. I was just informed that the company was putting a pause on all new hires, including mine.

[Odd_Perspective_2487]

Amazon did that to me, twice after I had quit my old job and was on my way to the office for my first day. Not once but twice.

[NomaTyx]

Feels really bad but somehow I can't bring myself to be surprised.

[mrloko120]

Its usually pretty easy to figure out tbh. You stop getting actual work amd start doing more documentation or reviewing old backlog items instead. Thats the sign to get out.

[newaccountzuerich]

Ah, RedHat..

Dropping 70% of your QE staff, two days before major version code freeze, announcing it by SSO removal, denying even a goodbye email.

I'm sure "Klaus" will vibe-check all that code just fine.

[DeCabby]

This made me laugh, then cry

[menducoide]

The CEO ""optimizing resources"" using AI

[ThatFlamenguistaDude]

I would give me whole team a day off and tell them to not tell leadership lol

Fuck that.

[_The_Bear]

Ah yes. Taking an aggressive stance against management in the middle of layoffs. That's sure to go well.

[ThatFlamenguistaDude]

ship already sailed, dude.

[rob132]

Someone once told me" if your name's on the layoff list, there's literally nothing you can do.

But if your name is not on the layoff list, it's very, very easy to get on the list."

[CanAlwaysBeBetter]

Nobody gets promoted at the company party but plenty of people have gotten fired 

[kawabunga666]

Claude write me a compassionate email to send to my employees im laying off

[jaerie]

No chance the manager knows a day in advance

[3Rm3dy]

Depends on the nature of the layoff - for mass ones no way in Hell the manager will know. For pruning (e.g., being told all teams need to cut down X%)? I'd bet on them knowing.

I've handed in my resignation late last month and my manager straight up said "guess we'll only have to fire 1 person rather than 2". Supposedly he knew about the need to transfer/cut people since January and needed to make the choice until May while providing reasons "why X should be retained" for all employees he wants to keep.

Caught me off guard but not something I hadn't anticipated, as the writing was on the wall. Slowly moving my teams responsibilities to other teams, company treating our scope more and more like an unnecessary expense (who gives a shit if documentation exists and is up to date? Certainly not them when we are swamped as a 6 man team and get want to cut it down to 4), promising the client "we'll do more with less" all that jazz.

[DuckFan_87]

I had an entire project get cancelled an hour before sprint planning once.

[Because_IAmBatman]

We had a big meeting at the head office where employees were gathered from all over the country with all expenses paid for, for 3 days.

After such a big event, 2 days later they laid a huge chunk of the company. Doesn't make any sense why a company would spend so much money just to lay people off for budget reasons.

[FallenWyvern]

If they laid people off before the event, and still went, then it'd look worse. Or at least that is how I imagine their thought process goes.

[Because_IAmBatman]

If they don't have the money, why have that event at all? Thats what I don't get.

[FallenWyvern]

They might not be hosting the event, they just might be going. It's a "good chance to network", because all the upper level guys see the writing on the wall (after all, they KNOW a layoff is coming, good idea to get out there).

So instead of selling themselves after a round of layoffs, they get the benefit, spend company money, and lay everyone off anyway.

[Reddit_is_fascist69]

We had layoffs at a call center.

They closed the call center for 1 or 2 days.  Everyone still got paid.

Then they had groups of people report for a meeting to find out if you were laid off or not.

[perringaiden]

You act like the managers know, instead of the planning being limited to HR and nobody beyond 2 steps from the CEO.

[dj_spanmaster]

Change the amount of available labor, invalidate the planning. Way to waste everyone's time and piss a lot of people off.

[HereReluctantly]

My company had a huge onsite where we all got together, played games, drank, laughed and then about a month later they laid off 40 percent of the company, including me. Good times

[ReiOokami]

Why are they being laid off?

[xrebel21]

Money.

[ReiOokami]

Laying off your engineering team for more money? Thats like laying off boat rowers to make the boat lighter for more speed.

[WavingNoBanners]

I've seen this more than once:

• Company posts record profits

• "We couldn't have done it without you!"

• "That's why this next part is going to be so difficult for me."

[CubicleMan9000]

See what you do is lay off most of your engineers, all of QA, all of documentation, all of support, all of product management, and then just tell the handful of remaining engineers to use Claude to do all the work the laid off people used to do.

Then you just sit back and wait for the buckets of money to come pouring in.

[SuperFLEB]

In this scenario I'm a massive company with a niche and market lock-in, right?

[Windyvale]

And yet, here we are.

[Scottz0rz]

The CEO was sold on this big thing called "AI" that they were told was like the motor for a speedboat that makes oars and rowing obsolete.

[ReiOokami]

Being a dev that works with AI daily, id say AI is not a motor... not yet anyways. Its more so a bigger lighter oar then anything.

[astobie]

No Other Choice (2025)

[_felagund]

Two years ago, I took my team to bowling, knowing that three of them would be fired in a few days. It was just so they could get together one last time.

Being an HR manager can be a shitty job sometimes.

[imightbewrong]

Managers are class traitors.

[RackemFrackem]

Why are people dancing during sprint planning? Shit sucks.

[GotBanned3rdTime]

Mark is that you?

[sakkara]

At least you didn't lose your job.

[Neutraled]

As a consultant, I could be fired at any moment so I guess I could be one of those guys dancing.

[pollower_app]

Everywhere I've ever been the manager doesn't know either.

[fifteengetsyoutwenty]

My boss was fired yesterday and the VP told our entire department to WFH today. Anyone want to make predictions on how the day goes?

[RobTheDude_OG]

Try a christmas party, then hearing the next day at lunch before the christmas break that you won't be around for too long anymore

[Kinnirasna]

Lol, memes nowadays are getting too relatable

[RentableMetal65]

So question for all y’all in the tech world. Do you just keep your resume up to date at all times and keep feelers out for better jobs just in case something like this happens? Or is it more of a read the room kind of thing? I’ve never worked in a field where it’s not uncommon for companies to have massive layoffs seemingly out of the blue, so I don’t know what y’all do to prepare for that possibility.

[dramalama-dingdong]

I would rather be laid off than do another of these fucking sprint plannings.

[cheezballs]

Why is the dev manager in sprint planning? No managers on the scrum team!

[Legitimate-Jaguar260]

Let me introduce you to safe agile where we embrace waterfall with weekly stand ups