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0 pointszer00eyz2y ago0 comments

Thats the point.

Who survives in a down turn?

It's not the folks who are "pragmatic" its not the folks who give up...

You work with two people, Bob who punches the clock and Bill who puts in the time to get the extra work done. You move on to a new job and your boss says "we need someone new on your team, Bob and Bill are here".

You're not picking Bob, Bill gets your vote.

Dont be an asshlole be known as at the hard worker, be helpful (maybe have to do some extra work)... your going to get picked when people are looking. Your old boss is part of your network, and so are your peers (who might end up your boss)...

All those people who are survivors, who put in extra work, have strong networks who know that they are strong hires in a tight market.

0 comments

deathanatos2y ago

> You're not picking Bob, Bill gets your vote.

In the layoffs I've been through, it's just as often that it is Bob who gets the vote.

Not for any reason, it's just random. Bill rolled a 1 somewhere, in that layoff. Better luck next time … if there is a next time.

Nobody is picking. Nobody is choosing, or making rational decisions. Just one day, hey, this entire subtree of the org is just simply laid off — individual performance had nothing to do with it. Or other versions of this that are just equally as obviously random.

Yes, the survivors might have put in the extra work. But what the person above you is saying is that that wasn't why they survived.

samatman2y ago

It seems you missed a beat here.

The comment you're replying to isn't talking about the layoff round. It's talking about what happens next, when someone from the team gets hired elsewhere and the boss says "we need more people". Who gets brought in?

This is a very common scenario in our line of work.

deathanatos2y ago

Oh, a bit, the parent comment is a bit malformed at that point (why is the new boss talking about my old coworkers? how?), and yeah, I think your interpretation is probably correct.

… that's not really a situation that occurs, for one reason or another. Good people tend to be able to line up "next job" somewhat quickly and even if not, "my job" being a match isn't going to happen on a timescale after a layoff. I.e., we're laid off, time passes, I recover with a job, more time must pass before I'm going to be in the "we need more [good] people" and by that point there's basically no way they've not found work. Even then, getting a recruiting team to articulate a pitch in this industry is rending blood from a stone.

rawgabbit2y ago

Been there. Done that. Doing the work of five people because I was the survivor and the others got a severance package was no fun. I could only pull it off for six months before being burned out.

diob2y ago

That's uh, not survivorship bias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:...

"It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than just coincidence"

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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deathanatos2y ago

> You're not picking Bob, Bill gets your vote.

In the layoffs I've been through, it's just as often that it is Bob who gets the vote.

Not for any reason, it's just random. Bill rolled a 1 somewhere, in that layoff. Better luck next time … if there is a next time.

Yes, the survivors might have put in the extra work. But what the person above you is saying is that that wasn't why they survived.

samatman2y ago

It seems you missed a beat here.

This is a very common scenario in our line of work.

deathanatos2y ago

Oh, a bit, the parent comment is a bit malformed at that point (why is the new boss talking about my old coworkers? how?), and yeah, I think your interpretation is probably correct.

rawgabbit2y ago

Been there. Done that. Doing the work of five people because I was the survivor and the others got a severance package was no fun. I could only pull it off for six months before being burned out.

diob2y ago

That's uh, not survivorship bias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:...

"It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than just coincidence"

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse