I don't understand the point of this comment. Are Google employees not workers as well? Do they not experience suffering or what exactly is the point you are trying to make here?
Your insensitive comment is probably showcasing the fallacy of relative privation, but these are real people you're talking about, some are on work visas or are from single income families. Their lives have changed in an instant and instead of empathizing, your reaction is a sarcastic 'those poor ex-Google employees'? Shame on you.
Losing an at-will employment position is suffering? It's unfortunate, maybe, even a little sad. But to say this is "suffering" borders on entitled lunacy. Especially considering ex-Google employees can land virtually any job with it on their resume.
The risks of working at-will are well known, and one would be well served to understand them to avoid disappointment. Actually, the shame is on them for failing to adequately prepare for an obvious inevitability, especially if others are depending on them for support.
> Losing an at-will employment position is suffering? It's unfortunate, maybe, even a little sad. But to say this is "suffering" borders on entitled lunacy.
How would you define "suffering?"
Merriam Webster includes "to endure death, pain, or distress" or "to sustain loss or damage" as part of the definition, which definitely seems to include getting laid off.
So suffering is a binary dichotomy? Or are there perhaps varying degrees of it?
If I stub my toe and claim I'm "suffering", any intelligent person would laugh at the proposition, because relative to a starving person, for example, it could not be considered a hardship or even mild distress.
I posit getting laid off from at-will employment at one of the most prestigious companies in the history of the world is not suffering, and characterizing it as such is tone-deaf and entitled.
I've seen ex-Google employees passed on the resume pile based on assumptions about what that experience means and what sort of salary they may demand. There are no guarantees in this job market.
Google employees are just like any other tech sector employee. They are neither "lucky" nor "unlucky". There's not much difference, even if they managed to land a job at Google. After Google, their struggles are similar to other tech sector employees. At this point, many of them are uncertain about the future. Layoffs are demoralizing regardless of where one works.
I said they're not suffering, in the true sense of the word.
I am beginning to suspect the coddled and entitled readers of this forum are quite ignorant of what it really means to suffer. A trip to India or any other third-world country would quickly change that attitude.
Unfortunately, there is no originality in your comment, here or elsewhere in this thread. Just sad and meaningless self-flagellation (now also with weird condescension) with no actual regard for what suffering means to billions of other people.
I sincerely hope you find the maturity required to expand your worldview outside of the sheltered, entitled microcosm it presently is.
> A trip to India or any other third-world country would quickly change that attitude.
I don't suggest telling someone who just lost their job that they should keep a stiff upper lip. I certainly don't suggest you tell them that they should spend some time in a "third-world country" because, well, for one thing, that's rather crass.
But, also, I don't think you quite understand what "third-world" means. It's not based on economic status. It's based on NATO / Warsaw Pact neutrality. Any use beyond that is pejorative at best. Perhaps you mean a "developing nation" or an "economically disadvantaged" nation. Even then, it's complicated.
I love that you manage to insult an entire country by implying that it's a shit hole nobody would want to live in then use it as an excuse to tell us we shouldn't demand better conditions from our employers because you personally think we're "coddled".
It's also not to only serve shareholders each quarter. It's none of those extremes: like everything in life, we must balance multiple stakeholders and responsibilities.
Which in turn, corporations including Google, lobby to make sure that taxes are as small as possible, and we aren't reasonably funding unemployment benefits. They haven't even kept up with inflation, let alone substitute a standard of living that's even approximately close to middle class. Unemployment is a hell hole of despair in the US. Its not some "blip" or something, like in other countries that have better safety nets, people lose their homes, get kicked out of their rentals and all other things. It can be really damaging for people, even FAANG engineers
Over half support higher taxes on corporations (particularly large ones)[0].
If the observational basis for this is simply that roughly half of the votes tallied in most elections are split between democrats and republicans, I posit to say that its a gross simplification of voters and their motivations.
In my study of US politics over the last 2 decades, a candidate that campaigns on higher taxes and lowering/simplifying barriers to receiving benefits will always lose to one that advertises benefits, but in reality it is debt underwritten by future federal taxpayers and/or they have numerous requirements to minimize the number of recipients.
As much as they might want to tax corporations, the voters (since they are older) don’t want their 401k/IRA/defined benefit pension plan balances to go down.
Another signal is there is never any mention of implementing a wealth tax (property tax). Politicians will keep knocking around increasing earned income taxes (which affects workers), but because the older people are the most important contingent of voters, touching property of wealthy people who do not need to earn income is off the table. In the most recent tax legislation, they even specifically left the 1031 real estate exchange intact, and got rid of other 1031 exchanges.
It should be very difficult to fire people, especially if you're making a massive profit. The idea that a company making that much money in pure profit needs to "trim the fat" is callous in the extreme, and probably deeply harmful to company morale. The employees of a company are absolutely entitled to a share of the profit they personally helped create.
> It should be very difficult to fire people, especially if you're making a massive profit.
What is the basis of this opinion, though? What gives you this entitlement that companies must employ people if they're well off (according to you)?
> The idea that a company making that much money in pure profit needs to "trim the fat" is callous in the extreme, and probably deeply harmful to company morale.
Who cares? You think business isn't callous or even cutthroat? You think businesses care about "morale" over the bottomline? You would be so wrong.
> The employees of a company are absolutely entitled to a share of the profit they personally helped create.
According to ... the petulant ranting of HN readers? Or do you have a more authoritative or objective reason to believe this?
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