The ones who got paid most, probably. I.E. their best workers. I’ve seen it before. That’s what they typically do when they want to cut costs and make the balance sheet look really good.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, try to see it from upper management’s point of view. They don’t see products, or customer attitudes, or people. None of that is legible to them. They can’t measure that stuff. What they can measure, is numbers. Numbers in, numbers out. Making the numbers-in bigger takes time. Making the numbers-out smaller is much quicker. Just let go a bunch of the biggest numbers on your outgoing money sheet. Presto!
There are various reasons someone can be chosen to be laid off and salary can be a factor. But it's silly to deny that performance isn't an extremely common factor. Even if you don't intrinsically take pride in your performance, it's still strategically valuable over the long run to perform well. Some layoffs will hit you no matter what, and other times you'll control your destiny.
If you need to have income, face the reality that you're hurting yourself by not taking the endeavor seriously.
It's profoundly misguided and corrosive to go through life pretending you have no agency just because it seems like it doesn't always pay off in the short term.
I do my job very well, mostly because there is satisfaction in doing something competently. I don’t imagine that corporate wouldn’t fire me if it made them 50 cents though.
That's a ridiculous thing to say. They'll either let you go or give you a raise and promotion to retain you according to whichever serves their interests at a given time. It cost them time and money to hire you so it's not efficient for them to let you go casually. Layoffs happen in bulk because the steady state tendency is to keep people around longer than needed, until the company reaches a certain threshold of oversized relative to need or viability.
It's just business on both sides. You'd also leave if it served your interests. Nor were they your family, committing to keep you forever. There's no reason to frame the relationship as adversarial or inherently toxic, even if it is impersonal and transactional. A transaction can benefit both parties.
There's no reason to frame the relationship as adversarial
It is, by definition, adversarial because their interests and mine are in direct conflict - I want the largest salary I can get; they want to pay me the lowest salary they can. There are more ways that their interests and my interests are in conflict - this is just the most obvious.
That said, just because something is adversarial that doesn't mean it needs to be acrimonious.
Comments
The ones who got paid most, probably. I.E. their best workers. I’ve seen it before. That’s what they typically do when they want to cut costs and make the balance sheet look really good.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, try to see it from upper management’s point of view. They don’t see products, or customer attitudes, or people. None of that is legible to them. They can’t measure that stuff. What they can measure, is numbers. Numbers in, numbers out. Making the numbers-in bigger takes time. Making the numbers-out smaller is much quicker. Just let go a bunch of the biggest numbers on your outgoing money sheet. Presto!
There are various reasons someone can be chosen to be laid off and salary can be a factor. But it's silly to deny that performance isn't an extremely common factor. Even if you don't intrinsically take pride in your performance, it's still strategically valuable over the long run to perform well. Some layoffs will hit you no matter what, and other times you'll control your destiny.
If you need to have income, face the reality that you're hurting yourself by not taking the endeavor seriously.
It's profoundly misguided and corrosive to go through life pretending you have no agency just because it seems like it doesn't always pay off in the short term.
I do my job very well, mostly because there is satisfaction in doing something competently. I don’t imagine that corporate wouldn’t fire me if it made them 50 cents though.
That's a ridiculous thing to say. They'll either let you go or give you a raise and promotion to retain you according to whichever serves their interests at a given time. It cost them time and money to hire you so it's not efficient for them to let you go casually. Layoffs happen in bulk because the steady state tendency is to keep people around longer than needed, until the company reaches a certain threshold of oversized relative to need or viability.
It's just business on both sides. You'd also leave if it served your interests. Nor were they your family, committing to keep you forever. There's no reason to frame the relationship as adversarial or inherently toxic, even if it is impersonal and transactional. A transaction can benefit both parties.
It is, by definition, adversarial because their interests and mine are in direct conflict - I want the largest salary I can get; they want to pay me the lowest salary they can. There are more ways that their interests and my interests are in conflict - this is just the most obvious.
That said, just because something is adversarial that doesn't mean it needs to be acrimonious.