So it continues.

  • When we spoke to Mencini earlier this evening about the Google hardware layoffs, she did not mention the other layoffs — but did write that “a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better” and that “some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.”

    I’m getting really tired of corpo doublespeak. No Google shill, I don’t believe you are becoming more efficient, or right sizing, or whatever euphemism you think will soothe me over. You’re fucking firing people. Call it for what it is.

    • You’re fucking firing people.

      While I agree with the use of positive phrasing having the ability to go over the top, I think that this goes too far the other way. “Firing” normally refers to a termination where the driving factor is that the individual employee was at fault. “Layoffs” normally refer to where that’s not the case, that the driving factor is a change in the business enviornment.

      If someone always shows up for work an hour late, they might be fired for that. If a company shuts down a division that’s been losing money, that’s laying the employees off.

      It’s unlikely that a thousand people all did something wrong simultaneously.