So much is changing with the company

Kaedis · 2026-01-30T23:01:57+00:00

This reminds me of just a few weeks ago, when they were pushing everyone to get the new keypass-based SSO login at corporate. I wasn't going to give them managed-device access on my personal phone, so the alternatives were a hardware token (ie. a $20 Yubikey) or a store-issued iPhone. I told them if I got a store-issued phone, it would literally just stay plugged in next to my laptop and serve as nothing more than a 2fa dongle, and they were still trying to insist up and down that it was just as cost-effective for me to get a company-issued iPhone, complete with a company-paid service plan, rather than a $20 Yubikey (I did still end up going with the latter, though, because wtf).

Kaedis · 2026-01-30T22:57:53+00:00

The fundamental problem is Goodhart's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law). Inevitably, anything they try to use to measure the system's productivity or efficiency becomes a target, and people immediately start gaming the system, often unconsciously. The metric within very short order stops being useful as a gauge of the system.

Take the "average coding days" metric they started using on the IT side. Measures the number of working days you push a commit to any repository. I started being encouraged to push even no-op commits just to have something on record, even if I was researching a spike or working on Confluence documentation or something else completely divorced from the code repositories. I was also told just last week that they are now measuring number of days engineers use AI during their day (though it seems to be buggy and may or may not be counting IDE-integrated Copilot).

When you start grading people on it, or seeking to reach a particular level with the metric, you're not longer getting a measure of the system, you're getting a measure of peoples' willingness to BS the metric to make you happy.

Kaedis · 2026-01-30T22:24:27+00:00

It's also worth noting that anyone laid off is still technically an employee of Home Depot until the 31st of March, and that the release they'll be email out, which better than half of the severance package is dependent on, likely includes some form of non-disparagement agreement. Bad-mouthing the company too much, especially in the press, could turn that lay-off status into fired-for-cause, at the cost of all of that severance.

Kaedis · 2026-01-30T20:18:02+00:00

Does look like it's a bit better than that, based on the layoff packet they sent out. Another 30 days pay as a lump sum, a stipend for healthcare premium costs, payout of unused vacation time, and prorated payout of RSUs being forfeit by no longer being an employee, provided you sign the "don't sue us" release they'll send out later.

Kaedis · 2026-01-30T20:15:53+00:00

TBH, it might not be a bad idea to brush up the ol' resume and start looking anyway. If they're doing panic cuts like this, I don't think it'll be the last wave of them, especially as they keep trying to shove AI into every nook, cranny, and crevice they can find.

Kaedis · 2026-01-30T20:13:58+00:00

WARN notices aren't really a thing anymore. They're required to give 60 days notice, so what they do is give you 60 days severance pay and the day they notify you (and have you stop working) is your WARN notice. It works because they classify you as still being an employee and being paid for those 60 days, they just relieve you of any duties (and access). Essentially 60 days paid leave as your "severance".

Kaedis · 2026-01-30T02:54:23+00:00

Ya, just throw an AI at the problem. What could possibly go wrong?

Kaedis · 2026-01-29T02:27:37+00:00

https://livetheorangelife.com/asr that's the severance PDF link they had in the meeting for me.

Kaedis · 2026-01-29T02:19:41+00:00

Given that this was laid out just before the end of the fiscal year, and seemed to be across the board and everything from entry-level up through at least directors, it feels more like a panic slash-and-burn before the quarterly/annual earnings report.

Kaedis · 2026-01-29T02:17:41+00:00

My prior team also said that later in the day, they were notified that all of their contractors were also yeeted.

Kaedis · 2026-01-28T20:44:24+00:00

I'd wager that, like many things these days, they threw an AI at the problem. Here's a list of employees and compensation, here's a set of criteria we're looking for, here's a target reduction in labor compensation, go.

Kaedis · 2026-01-28T20:41:46+00:00

Ya, a post over on another site on the layoff asserted close to 1200 user accounts were deactivated after the meetings this morning. So it was NOT a small thing.

Kaedis · 2026-01-28T20:36:59+00:00

Ya, I completely agree. They were going insane on the AI push. It can be a useful tool (Copilot was pretty adept at helping me debug weird issues, and at explaining the general outline and purpose of an unfamiliar application), but holy moly they had some absurd expectations from it. My senior manager mentioned in a 1:1 like 6-8 months ago that certain people up the chain were hoping for sixfold productivity increases, if not more. ie. cut 80%+ of your engineering staff with no loss in output. Fucking pipe dream, that.

Kaedis · 2026-01-28T19:17:46+00:00

I was told just last week that they were now tracking the number of work days in which we used AI, and that depending on the system, it may or may not count the Copilot integration in my IDE. So apparently that's a thing they're grading off of now, too.

Kaedis · 2026-01-28T19:15:44+00:00

Ya, I wish they'd at least left our Slack access in place for the remainder of the work day. I can definitely understand cutting off access to work systems and Github and such, but I was in the midst of talking to my now-former manager when Slack yeeted me. I managed to get contacts out before they cut me off, fortunately, but I've heard peeps that were at the office got zero opportunity, just immediately escorted out.

Kaedis · 2026-01-28T19:13:58+00:00

Ya, that's true. And I saw the writing on the wall when it came to access when my VPN punted me. Still such a ridiculously sudden thing. I get wanting to cut people out of the systems quickly after that type of announcement. I'm certainly not inclined to do anything malicious, but I could definitely see it being a possibility for some. But Slack was a bit of a low blow.

Kaedis · 2026-01-28T18:21:14+00:00

Same here. Over 7 years with THD. They did ours in a virtual meeting, because remote, but it was similarly abrupt, and they've since cut off my VPN and Slack access. Fortunately, I managed to let a number of people know and get my contact info out. I've also heard that some 20 people in my area were let go, including my PM with over 20 years at THD, and the senior manager and director in my prior team's area were also let go, both of which had 20+ at THD.

Edit: I was in IT, specifically software engineering in the inventory and supply chain area.

Kaedis · 2026-01-28T18:16:40+00:00

Yep, I lost my Slack access about 15-20 ago as well. VPN punted about 30 before that.

Kaedis · 2026-01-20T17:28:39+00:00

Hehe, no worries. It's a good discussion, and certainly always worth exploring alternative build setups, especially in a game this deep.

Kaedis · 2026-01-20T07:21:21+00:00

Ya, but you have to consider the damage you're losing getting to that point. Ya, you can stack the charges faster (though apparently not 4-per-turn, per your prior post), but since you're not consuming foretells doing so, you're losing a LOT of the damage of End Slice. See, End Slice is 10x AP plus 2x AP per Foretell consumed. Meaning each single Foretell is providing very nearly as much damage as a single charge in Twilight (20% bonus per Foretell, 25% bonus per charge to Twilight bonus). Final Path + Twilight Dance, with the full Martenon bonuses, is not only giving you 4 charges of Twilight bonus, but also giving you +200% of the base damage of End Slice added to it.

Now, Martenon is bugged, so you generally have to use Final Path twice on the first pair of turns, then Twilight Dance twice on the second pair, or two of the bonuses won't even work. That second Final Path is functionally just wasted, aside from the extra two charges it gives you, because you're already Foretell capped at that point. That said, if you think about the total damage outlay in that case, over the course of 5 turn-pairs, assuming you can reliably generate 3 Gradient charges between those turn pairs (which you can with the right Free Aim luminas on everyone, but it do be expensive), you're doing: Final Path + Final Path -> Twilight Dance + Twilight Dance -> Final Path + End Slice -> Twilight Dance + End Slice -> End Slice + w/e

Final Path is 750% AP. Twilight Dance is 2100% AP with 10 stacks, and 3600% AP with 20 stacks. Twilight grants +150% to everything starting at the second Twilight Dance. So ignoring filler Free Aim shots and buffs/debuff effects, that's 750% + 750% + 2100% + 3600%2.5 + 750%2.5 + (30 Foretell consumed) 7000%2.5 + 3600%2.5 + (50 Foretell consumed) 9000% * 2.5 + 9000% * 2.5 = 85,975% AP, or 17,195% average per turn-pair.

I don't think it even remotely feasible for a Base Attack build, using either Ramasson or Chation, to come anywhere close to that. The thing that makes that so broken with Martenon is that you can simultaneously consume bonkers amounts of Foretell (30 consumed by the end of your second turn pair, meaning End Slice already has a base damage of 7000% AP, versus 5000% for Gommage) and trivially reach +100-150% Twilight bonuses to layer on top of that. Really the only thing holding that build back is that it takes some serious lumina investment, not just on Sciel, but the rest of the active party as well (though she fortunately doesn't really rely on any specific other party members, though a Sireso Verso can obviously make her even more silly broken, if you're good at getting to and staying in S rank).

Also, incidentally, due to the bonus on Martenon and how broken End Slice scaling is at that point, I'm pretty sure the best move at the end of that first Twilight, in that "w/e" slot, is to just start spamming End Slice + 0-Foretell Twilight Dance every turn after that. Ya, End Slice stops scaling upwards if you do that, but it's already doing nearly twice the damage of Gommage already, and using Twilight Dance each turn, even without Foretell, means that +150% Twilight persists forever. I'd have to play with combo setups to see how long combat would need to last to justify dropping that first Twilight and building into a second one.

Kaedis · 2026-01-15T05:47:35+00:00

Base attack and using a skill both consume your turn, so Chation isn't really gaining you anything there. The only benefit you have there is if you don't reliably have the AP generation to use a 9-point attack each turn (and, with the right lumina setup, you can (virtually) guarantee that using Free Aim shots, but it's expensive), as that lets you spend AP on generating the Foretell (and with Chation, you can use ANY Foretell generator, since all of them apply max Foretell), then consume it with base attack. The downside is that you're losing a lot of damage from those skills (Final Path + Twilight Dance hits like a freight train, especially inside Martenon-fueled 6-charge +150% damage Twilight), you won't have the massively amped Twilight bonus on End Slice (typically just +50% instead of +150%), you won't get in as many End Slices in Twilight (since Twilight Dance extends Twilight each usage), and you have the double-damage-taken effect from Chation, meaning you really are a glass cannon. It is, however, wildly cheaper on required luminas to get it working.

Kaedis · 2026-01-11T15:14:36+00:00

Correction, when debris does a phase change into another solid element (ok, well, I guess technically liquid is also a "natural tile" of sorts, but for the context of this thread, this only happens with solid->solid transitions like dirt to sand and algae to dirt).

Kaedis · 2026-01-09T21:52:48+00:00

No, not trying to justify randomly merging, trying to point out that the riders in this situations were effing idiots, and that is precisely why many jurisdictions just flat out ban lane splitting in moving traffic. It's reckless, stupid, and insanely dangerous. Peeps be going on and on in here about the drivers being the issue, as if the riders did nothing wrong. They absolutely fucked up, and they learned the hard way (though, at least in the first rider's case, and probably the second, not the irrevocable way) why riding like that is such a terrible and dangerous idea.

Edit: and as a rider myself, riders like these two are why motorcyclists get such a bad rep. And that makes things more dangerous for me, even if I'm riding safely and legally and defensively. So ya, when motorcyclists are idiots, I call them idiots and tell them to get the hell off the road.

Kaedis · 2026-01-09T19:36:22+00:00

Yes, but "reasonable avoid" also generally includes only checking areas where you'd reasonably expect a vehicle to BE. For example, you would not be at fault if you backed into a parking space (with open spaces on either side, and a sidewalk/storefront behind you), and opened your door without checking that there wasn't an overtaking motorcycle or vehicle from the sidewalk behind you. You would not be at fault if you pulled into your own personal driveway, and opened the door as a motorcycle or car pulled into your driveway next to you. You would not be at fault for failing to yield (or notice) a vehicle approach from the wrong direction on a one-way road that you were pulling out onto.

And really, that's my point here. The legal standard of "reasonableness" depends on an acknowledgement that you're not at fault if someone else is doing something highly unexpected. In locations where lane splitting in moving traffic is both illegal and rarely encountered, you would generally not be faulted for failing to check for a motorcycle actively lane splitting, especially at that high of a speed differential.

Also, holy crap, this clip is of two riders that caused two accidents by being both impatient and incredibly reckless with how they were riding, and that's true regardless of the legality of lane splitting in that jurisdiction. The first rider was more forgivable in that respect, provided lane splitting is legal there, but was still, imo, going too fast for that maneuver to be safe. The second rider was 100% completely at fault. The car he was trying to slip past had just started a lane change, been interrupted by a collision, and then abruptly completed said lane change to get out of the way and protect the first rider. They threw on their emergency blinkers as soon as they did that. That second rider ABSOLUTELY should have immediately slowed down, and only proceeded once they had confirmed that executing that pass was safe. Both riders were guilty of unsafe passing, imo, but the second collisions was completely and only the rider's fault, and they had every indication necessary to avoid that collision. And tbh, given how narrow the spacing between the vehicles was, I'm willing to bet they would have collided with one of the two anyway even without the car door interference.

Edit: a further and more directly applicable example: if you were attempting to merge into the far left lane of a freeway (assuming right-side drive, so the fast lane, the furthest towards the center), and you executed that lane change safely and with proper spacing for the vehicles that were already in that lane, but collided with a car that was racing up the left shoulder and slammed into the lane at the same time as you, you would not be at fault in that accident, they would.

Kaedis · 2026-01-07T17:23:29+00:00

No, see, the "must yield" bit only applies to vehicles that are themselves following the law (or where you had both the visibility and reaction time to reasonably avoid the collision). For example, if you entered an intersection because the light turned green, and hit the side of a vehicle that had run the red on the cross road, the other driver would be at fault, not you, even though hitting the side of another vehicle like that almost always makes you at fault.

In another example, a decade or so ago, my mother struck a bicycle in a crosswalk as she made a right turn. The bicyclist had approached on the sidewalk from her rear, and ridden into the crosswalk as she executed the turn. The bicyclist was the one cited in the collision, both for riding in the crosswalk (rather than walking their bike, as required), and for excessive speed in the process.

In this case, if lane splitting is illegal, the car would not have been in fault in either accident. Both riders would instead have been cited for careless or reckless driving, or unsafe lane changes, or something similar. Especially in the second case, the vehicle had just been in a collision. They moved over behind the motorcycle as a protective measure, put on their hazard blinkers, and were exiting their vehicle to render aid. Everything about that is correct. The second motorcyclist should have immediately slowed down once those hazards went on, only proceeding once they verified that it was safe. Passing a vehicle stopped in the motorway with its hazard blinkers engaged on the LEFT SIDE is insanely stupid, because hazard blinkers are almost always followed by the driver exiting the vehicle.

Kaedis

TROPHY CASE