<story><title>GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices</title><url>https://twitter.com/webology/status/1623722731819659269</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>laurels-marts</author><text>&amp;gt;Employees are often reluctant to leave jobs where they have a lot of personal relationships&lt;p&gt;That sounds like having a life. I guess the alternative is to isolate yourself to a point where you don&amp;#x27;t have any personal relationships. No hard choices then.</text></item><item><author>simplicio</author><text>Maybe, but that works both ways.  Employees are often reluctant to leave jobs where they have a lot of personal relationships, or if getting a new job would entail moving to a new city&amp;#x2F;state&amp;#x2F;country, even if jumping ship would entail a sizable payraise or other improvement in working conditions.&lt;p&gt;In an industry where remote work is the norm and changing jobs doesn&amp;#x27;t even require changing offices, people are much less likely to give up some pay to stay where they are.</text></item><item><author>JasserInicide</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll contend that while I&amp;#x27;ve been fully taken advantage of remote work (and probably want my next job to be remote too), I still fully believe it&amp;#x27;s a long term &amp;quot;leading lambs to the slaughter&amp;quot; type of plan. Companies save big on remote in so many ways. No more offices. No more weekly happy hours (just do a company retreat every 6 months). They can now depress salaries even further because they have a wider pool from which to choose. Don&amp;#x27;t need to bother with those pesky things called relationships because your boss from 500 miles away can lay off your ass without breaking a sweat.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s short term benefits for all, but ultimately the workers &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; lose out.</text></item><item><author>geuis</author><text>Look, you can&amp;#x27;t have it both ways. People on HN are always talking badly about companies that don&amp;#x27;t allow work from home, or require at least a couple days in the office. Then a company says it&amp;#x27;s going entirely remote (not including the layoff context) and people shit on that.&lt;p&gt;Which is it?&lt;p&gt;As for the layoffs, I don&amp;#x27;t have anything to add to that. There a Microsoft decision.</text></item><item><author>rossdavidh</author><text>Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs.  Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90&amp;#x27;s, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such.  With no offices, it&amp;#x27;s a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face.&lt;p&gt;Five years from now, I think we will not see &amp;quot;remote only&amp;quot; for a large company and think &amp;quot;ooh, they value their employees I guess&amp;quot;, but rather, &amp;quot;uh oh, they like to think of their employees as being like virtual servers, easy to spin up and easy to shut down the moment you don&amp;#x27;t need to pay for that capacity&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xkcd-sucks</author><text>idk I religiously firewall my work and personal life but still feel a lot of &amp;quot;personal work employment inertia&amp;quot;:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    - I know that everyone doesn&amp;#x27;t suck to work with
    - I know who to ask for specific institutional knowledge, or to get something done through unofficial channels
    - I know who is more or less competent in specific domains
    - I know what kind of work people do and do not enjoy
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
etc. It&amp;#x27;s actually the main reason I haven&amp;#x27;t done the whole salary optimization by job hopping thing, well that and the effort of hyping myself up into extroverted self-pimp mode</text></comment>
<story><title>GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices</title><url>https://twitter.com/webology/status/1623722731819659269</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>laurels-marts</author><text>&amp;gt;Employees are often reluctant to leave jobs where they have a lot of personal relationships&lt;p&gt;That sounds like having a life. I guess the alternative is to isolate yourself to a point where you don&amp;#x27;t have any personal relationships. No hard choices then.</text></item><item><author>simplicio</author><text>Maybe, but that works both ways.  Employees are often reluctant to leave jobs where they have a lot of personal relationships, or if getting a new job would entail moving to a new city&amp;#x2F;state&amp;#x2F;country, even if jumping ship would entail a sizable payraise or other improvement in working conditions.&lt;p&gt;In an industry where remote work is the norm and changing jobs doesn&amp;#x27;t even require changing offices, people are much less likely to give up some pay to stay where they are.</text></item><item><author>JasserInicide</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll contend that while I&amp;#x27;ve been fully taken advantage of remote work (and probably want my next job to be remote too), I still fully believe it&amp;#x27;s a long term &amp;quot;leading lambs to the slaughter&amp;quot; type of plan. Companies save big on remote in so many ways. No more offices. No more weekly happy hours (just do a company retreat every 6 months). They can now depress salaries even further because they have a wider pool from which to choose. Don&amp;#x27;t need to bother with those pesky things called relationships because your boss from 500 miles away can lay off your ass without breaking a sweat.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s short term benefits for all, but ultimately the workers &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; lose out.</text></item><item><author>geuis</author><text>Look, you can&amp;#x27;t have it both ways. People on HN are always talking badly about companies that don&amp;#x27;t allow work from home, or require at least a couple days in the office. Then a company says it&amp;#x27;s going entirely remote (not including the layoff context) and people shit on that.&lt;p&gt;Which is it?&lt;p&gt;As for the layoffs, I don&amp;#x27;t have anything to add to that. There a Microsoft decision.</text></item><item><author>rossdavidh</author><text>Closing all offices, I have to say, makes it way easier to do more layoffs.  Having been through layoffs in semiconductor manufacturing in the 90&amp;#x27;s, when you had to, you know, get the people from work and take them to a place and all that, it involved paying a lot of money for extra security and such.  With no offices, it&amp;#x27;s a lot easier, and you never have to meet the person face to face.&lt;p&gt;Five years from now, I think we will not see &amp;quot;remote only&amp;quot; for a large company and think &amp;quot;ooh, they value their employees I guess&amp;quot;, but rather, &amp;quot;uh oh, they like to think of their employees as being like virtual servers, easy to spin up and easy to shut down the moment you don&amp;#x27;t need to pay for that capacity&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>matwood</author><text>&amp;gt; you don&amp;#x27;t have any personal relationships.&lt;p&gt;You mean work relationships?&lt;p&gt;I have relationships outside work. Though, I&amp;#x27;m fully remote and also have work relationships.</text></comment>