I know the feeling. A few months ago I randomly got a video call from my boss. Both he and the owner of the company were in the line. They let me know that they unfortunately had to let go of almost everyone on the dev team. Some funding had fell through (gotta love startups). Fortunately, I got to keep my job that day, but I can’t shake the feeling that another layoff is right around the corner.
My company has a 6 month probation period. It also has a 6 month password expiry. Because of all the SSO nonsense, it’s quite possible for it to lapse without warning.
It’s now a running joke that get locked out on the last day of probation, and you’re expecting a call from HR any minute.
You might want to let your IT department that 6 months is a really long time
Current IT best practice is that passwords should never expire on a set schedule, but they should expire if there is evidence they’ve been breached.
Same
Don’t wait for a layoff, start organizing a union for that juicy ‘represented’ employment status (as opposed to at-will). Unions can’t stop layoffs, but they can minimize the impact, negotiate a higher severance, and provide advanced notice. I highly recommend the good folks at CODE-CWA, they specialize in organizing tech workers
Upside: not fired.
Downside: have to do work.
Upside: make money
Downside: not enough money
The frogurt is also cursed
At my last job, time they added or removed someone’s key card access, the system would reboot and everyone would be locked out for like two minutes.
We also had two floors that were connected by a fire stairwell, so you needed a card to re-enter the next floor.
At least twice my card stopped working in the middle of the word day while I was standing in the stairwell and I assumed that they just fired me and assumed I’d see my own way out.
Survived three layoffs at that company.
Way too stressful. I worked at a company that was bought by a hedge fund and they were always downsizing, even if it was key employees. It made me under perform and caused insomnia that I never quite got over and it was 11 years ago.
I live in a constant state of fear and misery
Do ya miss me anymore?
Glad someone noticed
My dad has been a server engineer for a single company for my entire life and he lived like this up until quite recently. His fear oscillates in magnitude with the success of the industry the company is a part of course so it isn’t always severe but I remember every few years as a kid I’d hear him and my mother murmering about lay offs. These days he just jokes about it being an early retirement
I got canned from my last job and thr way I found out was my work Gmail was locked out, fuckin class acts them.
Getting fired from my current gig would be a relief tbh.
Im at a perfect equilibrium of indifference for being laid off. Some jobs suck.
same here
You just captured the daily life of a UK academic after the catastrophically low recruitment numbers this year.
I do this exact same expression when I’m forced to gain knowledge of something potentially personally catastrophic…
Perhaps the head of the corporation that abuses you should be the one that lives in fear.
Me, turning on my PC every day after my main PC was bricked while rebooting for a Win10 update…
I don’t even notice when it hurts anymore.
Anymore.
Anymore.
Anymore.
ey b0ss
I haven’t been laid off since April. I haven’t had a job since then though, so that’s not exactly ideal.
I got my best IT Job off of Craigs list so don’t count out that option.
