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A decline in morale after record profits? I think a pizza party is an order.
My firm threw a staff BBQ at one of the satellite sites yesterday. My director was texting me about going....45 mins away....for a hot dog.... standing in a field on a rainy day.....
Sorry boss, deadlines to meet gotta prioritize my work here.
Yet, there's managers who very likely pay attention to who shows up and who doesn't and judge their work based on it.
~~Do no evil.~~
Beatings will continue until morale improves.
Beatings will continue until the stock price improves.
Company-wide email: "We've had our best year EVER and it's all thanks to YOU!"
Me: "Great. Can I have a raise?"
Company: "Oh, we can't afford THAT."
"Due to current market conditions . . ." is the line my group has been given. There never seems to be market conditions where the workers get to win.
Market conditions for me but not for thee...
"here's a layoff"
Best we can do is a pizza party
Google is using artificial intelligence to summarize employee comments and questions for the forum.
Well, isn't that a good start?
Anyway, the TLDR "answer" from CFO Porat is "We were spending too much", while Pichai's answer is "We hired too much people". Way to dodge the question, assholes.
Alphabet’s full-time headcount climbed to over 190,000 at the end of 2022, up almost 22% from a year earlier and 40% higher than at the close of 2020.
So they had around 135k employees in 2020. Why the fuck did you overhire, then? Just to lay off and show off to investors as someone who increased profits in the most asinine way?
Pichai then joked that leadership should hold a “Finance 101” Ted Talk for employees.
Yeah, nevermind me, Sundar Pichai, earning way more money year after year while you're all begging for raises, it's just finances, you guys!
Yeah, the Finance 101 comment was a good indication he doesn't take the concerns seriously, it's such a flippant response.
I can't imagine why there's a morale problem.
“There wouldn’t be a morale problem if our employees weren’t so stupid”
Ah yes, employees are only mad because they don’t understand the finances. Like, no, we’re disgruntled by layoffs no matter what. Layoffs trade morale and productivity for cash
Yeah. Let's let him teach a Finance 101 class.
I'd be interested in the lessons a guy that approved a 40% headcount increase then did layoffs and said "I take full responsibility" can teach anyone.
How's the saying go? Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.. Go on professor. Schools us. The Investors are listening.
This is the same company that fired a bunch of people for opposing genocide, right? That didn't help morale? \s \s \s
Huh who would have seen that coming out of prioritising income over employees (and users)
Exactly, the CEO uses the word "expense" to refer to employees at least 4 times according to my count.
“The problem is a couple of years ago — two years ago, to be precise — we actually got that upside down and expenses started growing faster than revenues,” said Porat
They even joke that they need to give a Finance 101 Ted Talk, as if that will help. From their perspective, employees are not people. They're not even resources to be nurtured. They're expenses. And the company has a duty to keep expenses low.
What a tone-deaf response.
I feel like I've been having whiplash at work every other month. One month we'll get word of record profits or cheery news about how we're beating performance targets or whatever, but then the next month we'll hear about some new internal cost-cutting initiative that feels like we're having to tighten our belts with a hint of desperation to it. I never actually know how we're doing because it feels like I'm getting two conflicting impressions.
Profits are higher than ever, but line must go up so you're all fired.
This is the best year we've ever had, also there won't be any bonuses anymore.
Companies can seem very bipolar that way. Always yelling about how well they're doing, while also cutting costs to maximize investor confidence.
They’d sell your soul for a couple of bucks.
That's precisely what they do. But not only their souls but the souls of the employees just trying to provide for their families and live a normal and fulfilled life.
I wonder if the decline in morale correlates with the decline in morals.
Knowledge workers need to get out of this ego-driven complex that they don’t need unions. You’re working class and chattle, believing anything else is delusional and pathetic.
For real, we need unions. It's a slow boil now, knowledge workers are the next factory workers.
Soon to be displaced as corporations gobble up another chunk of worker wealth.