The Great Remorse

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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/03/youtube-contractors-strike-return-office-google
YouTube contractors to strike over forced return to office
Cognizant says that the workers' contracts have always stated that the jobs were in-office jobs and that it communicated to workers since Dec. 2021 that it would provide 90 days notice when employees were expected back in the office.

  • "Cognizant respects the right of our associates to disagree with our policies, and to protest them lawfully," the company said in a statement to Axios. "However, it is disappointing that some of our associates have chosen to strike over a return to office policy that has been communicated to them repeatedly since December 2021."
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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
https://www.geekwire.com/2023/googl...ng-relationship-between-tech-and-communities/
Google’s exit from big Seattle-area project shows fleeting relationship between tech and communities
Finance and insurance companies replaced tech firms last year for the highest share of top U.S. office leases, CBRE reported this week.

Total vacancy in the Seattle area reached 16.7% in the fourth quarter of last year, the highest level in more than a decade for the global tech hub, according to a new report from JLL.

The vacancy rate on the Eastside — home to Bellevue, Kirkland, and Redmond, where Microsoft is headquartered — was 10.8% in the fourth quarter, up from 7.4% in the same period three years ago, according to CBRE.

It’s a rapid shift for a tech industry that occupied 20% of U.S. office-leasing activity in 2020. And Google’s decision to back out of Lee Johnson deal demonstrates that those shifts have repercussions beyond the tech sector itself.
 
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Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-big-tech-companies-laying-off-spoiled-workers-perks-2023-2

Tech companies spoiled workers for decades. Now layoffs are bringing them down to Earth.
That's like saying, car buyers spoiled dealerships through the pandemic and now car prices are coming down to earth.
a more accurate headline would have been, Tech companies were offering perks in lieu of higher salaries to lure and retain employees because it is much easier to take away perks in down times instead of cutting salaries. Salary cuts without cutting job responsibilities is illegal in some states. Funny how capitalism and supply & demand concepts are viewed as "spoiling" when a negotiation is viewed by an outside observer instead of someone involved in the negotiation.
 

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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
That's like saying, car buyers spoiled dealerships through the pandemic and now car prices are coming down to earth.
a more accurate headline would have been, Tech companies were offering perks in lieu of higher salaries to lure and retain employees because it is much easier to take away perks in down times instead of cutting salaries. Salary cuts without cutting job responsibilities is illegal in some states. Funny how capitalism and supply & demand concepts are viewed as "spoiling" when a negotiation is viewed by an outside observer instead of someone involved in the negotiation.
The usual biased points from you as expected, just like a broken clock. The spoiled part is them acting entitled to perks when the screw turns.
 

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
The usual biased points from you as expected, just like a broken clock. The spoiled part is them acting entitled to perks when the screw turns.
Oh, spoiled? Biased? Maybe it's just human nature. No matter how poor or rich, well treated or poorly treated, hungry or satiated, people (and many animals) become irritable, sad, angry, stressed (insert a negative emotion here), when a new reality is worse than the reality someone grew accustom to. If you feel better calling it spoiled, then go ahead. You may as well call people in hell spoiled when they react negatively when their daily cup is ice water is taken off the menu. What? You say it's not the same? Where is the threshold? Usually, the threshold is your personal experience - because you (or anyone else using flinging the word "spoiled" would not act spoiled, right?).
Go ahead and fling words, like spoiled and biased. It must make you feel better or you wouldn't do it.
 

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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/22/goo...es-to-share-desks-amid-office-downsizing.html
Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing
“Most Googlers will now share a desk with one other Googler,” the internal document stated, noting they expect employees to come in on alternate days so they’re not at the same desk on the same day. “Through the matching process, they will agree on a basic desk setup and establish norms with their desk partner and teams to ensure a positive experience in the new shared environment.”

The FAQ says employees may come in on other days, but if they’re in on an unassigned day, they will use “overflow drop-in space.”
 

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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-meta-staff-do-fake-work-says-vc-keith-rabois-2023-3

Speaking remotely from Miami at an event hosted by banking firm Evercore, Rabois said that major tech firms were responsible for over-hiring and that the sector's current mass shedding of jobs to rein in costs was overdue.

"All these people were extraneous, this has been true for a long time, the vanity metric of hiring employees was this false god in some ways," he said.
...
Google, he continued, had intentionally over-hired engineers and tech talent to stop them from moving to other companies, a strategy he described as "pretty coherent." But, he added, that meant engineers had been happy to "be entitled, sit at their desks, and do nothing
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-meta-staff-do-fake-work-says-vc-keith-rabois-2023-3

Speaking remotely from Miami at an event hosted by banking firm Evercore, Rabois said that major tech firms were responsible for over-hiring and that the sector's current mass shedding of jobs to rein in costs was overdue.

"All these people were extraneous, this has been true for a long time, the vanity metric of hiring employees was this false god in some ways," he said.
...
Google, he continued, had intentionally over-hired engineers and tech talent to stop them from moving to other companies, a strategy he described as "pretty coherent." But, he added, that meant engineers had been happy to "be entitled, sit at their desks, and do nothing
An engineer that enjoys sitting at a desk doing nothing is an oxymoron... people like that definitely got the wrong calling
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
You're living in the past.

Too many kids have gotten participation trophies for sitting at their desks doing nothing. Many now expect a reward for breathing successfully.
While, in principle, I agree with you that a lot of kids in the latest generations turned out to be a bunch of whining snowflakes, I think that what will happen is that those kids are going to be forced to take a quick and painful crash course on the acceptance of reality if they want to avoid starvation... a sad and depressing adulthood awaits them.

Remember all that "protect and nurture their self-esteem" crap?, well this is the result. Nowadays taking care of one's "mental health" is the newest excuse for avoidance of accountability ... each generation has been inventing its own linguistic fad to advance its narcissistic and self-entitled tendencies ... and the media in general loves to jump on the wagon and exploit the newest trend until it runs dry. And then they move on and find another one.
 

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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-layoffs-thousands-job-cuts-zuckerberg-parental-leave-2023-3
Meta's latest round of layoffs could hit as soon as this week, as the company tries to finalize headcount before Zuckerberg goes on parental leave: Bloomberg
In February, Zuckerberg also declared that 2023 will be a "Year of Efficiency" for the company, and signaled during an earnings call that Meta wasn't done with axing staff.

"We closed last year with some difficult layoffs and when we did this, I said clearly that this was the beginning of our focus on efficiency and not the end," Zuckerberg said during the call with investors, Insider's Grace Kay reported.
 

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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/10/sil...omers-scramble-to-meet-payroll-pay-bills.html

Companies scramble to meet payroll, pay bills after SVB's swift failure
In its mid-quarter update, which began the downward spiral on Wednesday, SVB said it was selling securities at a loss and raising capital because startup clients were continuing to burn cash at a rapid clip despite the ongoing slump in fundraising. That meant SVB was struggling to maintain the necessary level of deposits.

Rather than sticking with SVB, startups saw the news as troublesome and decided to rush for the exits, a swarm that gained strength as VCs instructed portfolio companies to get their money out. Williams said SVB's risk profile was always a concern.
 

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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,081
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/yellen-says-no-federal-bailout-131152188.html
Yellen says no federal bailout for Silicon Valley Bank
Silicon Valley Bank is the nation’s 16th-largest bank. It was the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history after the collapse of Washington Mutual in 2008. The bank served mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies, including some of the industry’s best-known brands.

Silicon Valley Bank began its slid into insolvency when its customers, largely technology companies that needed cash as they struggled to get financing, began withdrawing their deposits. The bank had to sell bonds at a loss to cover the withdrawals, leading to the largest failure of a U.S. financial institution since the height of the financial crisis.
 
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