Tag: Google

A Bit of “Inside Baseball” On These “Layoffs” and How You Can Avoid Them Maybe IDK

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Why does a semi-retired part-time blogger think he has the qualifications to speak on the goings on of the American business world?

Fair question. The two main things are I used to work in the recruiting/HR space and I also have been through four layoffs (surviving three) so I have a bit of a unique background in terms of discussing this specific topic. I just kind of “get it,” in my opinion at least.

To begin, it’s important to understand that anyone who works in a department outside of the groups that are actually making the company money (ex. in tech, the product teams, sales, marketing, etc.) works in a department referred to as a “cost center.” This literally means you are costing your company money for doing work that supports its operations. But you are indeed not making them a cent.

With that understood, here is my general view of what’s gone down.

Let’s first assume we all know companies (we’re going use the tech sector for this discussion) make stuff to make money. Right? And once the company and it’s original employees are making and selling so much stuff that they can’t do it alone lest they work 24/7 they start to hire people to do some of that work. Right? Makes sense so far?

Well over the last couple years (ish) companies have been doing well. They’ve been making and selling a lot more stuff. The money made from selling that stuff is called revenue. And as revenue has grown they’ve hired a lot more people to support the business. A lot of companies even predicted that revenue would keep steadily growing so they hired way ahead of their current numbers. They thought that sales would catch up with headcount and operational cost because of course they would! We’re killing it!

While this was all happening a lot of these companies also made a mistake that is becoming more and more common. You might have heard some variation of the phrase “stay close to the money” in terms of these layoffs the past few weeks. That phrase basically means, “don’t veer too far away from what made you make money in the first place.” And too many companies did not heed that advice. They decided to proof-of-concept (POC) or straight up begin building out new lines of business in which there was no guarantee of an actual revenue stream, let alone profit (more revenue than costs associated). So basically even if their normal revenue stream(s)/original business was doing well these pie in the sky side projects could be tanking their business. How exactly? Well what I failed to mention was the HUNDREDS IF NOT THOUSANDS OF FUCKING PEOPLE they hired to support them. So ya. Not great.

Now we cut to 2022 and these tech companies and 1. revenue and the overall operational business needs have not caught up to the amount of people hired. Yes, this does have to do with the economy to some extent because if their customers just had cash to burn they’d be like “fuck it buy a zillion software licenses.” But that’s only a small part of the problem. Then we get to 2. Those shiny side project that these companies have spun up are not making nearly the amount of money they thought, or any at all, so they are paying a fuckton of people to basically bury their business.

And this is where layoffs come in. As I mentioned it’s not necessarily an economic downturn. The business has just has too many people compared to what they need to operate the business at the “size” (how much stuff they need to make to produce the revenue they are creating) they are at.

And remember those “cost centers” we discussed earlier. Well when business are booming they tend to really invest in those areas. Because fuck it, why not? Isn’t it great for the brand to have a Sr. Director of Hiring Experience? Sure it is. It makes you look good to the talent market and shows you really care about your hiring process. Is it at all the fuck necessary to pay someone that much to do that extremely specific, not totally necessary job? Nope!

And so the fat begins getting trimmed. And it usually starts with the cost centers. It’s a recruiter massacre usually. Learning and development and HR usually get hit hard too. Then outside of the cost centers even middle of the road Marketing will generally also take it off the chin.

And then they come for those working on the projects making no money. Those ones we talked about. Sure, you’re a kickass Engineer/Architect/Product Manager, etc. but what you’re working on has spent two years costing the company money. Better hope the company could use your talents elsewhere or you’re out. And good companies will do that by the way. They’ll evaluate those getting cut and see if they can use them elsewhere. It sucks to lose someone excellent just because the exact thing they are working on isn’t a good fit for the company anymore.

Given that that is my take on layoffs in general, the other question is how to avoid them. Well, that really goes all the way back to your job search in my opinion. But I want to make it abundantly clear I am not picking on anyone’s career choices or trying to be mean. Do something you love and you’ll never work a day and all that, but you have to know when reviewing the ads for those Sr. Director of Hiring Experience roles that you will always be at tremendous risk at being “the first to go.” So rule one is finding a role that is necessary to the company, literally. The further you get away from that the more at-risk you’ll be.

Rule two is taking a step back and measuring how important the thing you are working on/supporting is to the company. Are you working on “the” product or a side hustle the CEO is trying to kick off for shits and giggles. I remember a killer engineer I recruited years ago that was working at a leading home coffee machine company. They were trying to create a new line of their very successful coffee makers that could basically be some sort of IoT of coffee machines? Or something? Ya needless to say he was pretty sure the whole unit he worked for was being laid off soon despite how talented he was. Rule Two basically states that again, even if it’s a cool new thing you’ll be working on at least make sure it has real market heat or is already making money or you’ll be at high risk to lay offs.

For Rule Three we take a final step back. This really applies to start ups (we are talking tech this AM). Here we ask ourselves about how viable the company itself here. Do normal or even slightly bad economic conditions support this company? If companies or people need to tighten their purse strings, will your company be the first to get dropped from their spending? Or maybe is your company a flash in the pan? I mean I feel horrible for the people let go at Peloton, but honestly how long was that ride going to last PUN FUCKING INTENDED BOO YAH. No but seriously it always sucks to see someone lose their livelihood but I can’t imagine thinking that the Peloton boom would last forever. Especially considering how much in-person group spin classes and studios were on the rise just pre-pandemic. So ya Rule Three, make sure your company has some legs and can actually make it.

Again, this was all one man’s opinion. If I can give myself and my brain credit for one thing it’s that I’m (and it is) the ultimate pragmatist. Don’t make things too confusing. Just admit when Meta and Google hired 10,000 recruiters and then watched shit slow down on them and move on. It’s going to happen from time to time.

Best of luck out there. It’s a weird and scary place in corporate America but not impossible to navigate with the help of some simple rules to follow.

Until next time.

-Joey B.

Boston Traffic Tips for Thanksgiving are Here and They are USELESS

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Boston.com – If your Thanksgiving plans include traveling by car, you can expect to join millions of drivers on the road this year. AAA projects that 48.5 million people will drive to their Thanksgiving destination, a 4.8 percent increase over 2017…For Boston, that means some of the “largest delays” in the country at nearly four times what’s considered typical, a distinction Boston shares with New York City and San Francisco.

According to Boston.com this Thanksgiving has the potential to be the worst traffic you’ve ever dreamt of because its “the highest anticipated travel volume since 2005.” Expect delays at nearly 4x whats considered typical! It takes me an hour to get home from work on a normal day and I live 10 miles from my office. Oh this should be fun.

The worst times to travel by car are during the early evening commuting hours, AAA officials said…For those taking I-90/the Massachusetts Turnpike, traffic in Newton was at its worst between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. on the Tuesday before the holiday and the same times the Monday afterward

Soo basically any time you could possibly be in your car is a bad time to be on the road. Got it.

For those who don’t mind getting up early, Google thinks 3 a.m. Wednesday is the best time to travel prior to the holiday, while 4 a.m. on Sunday is the best time afterward.

Imagine the balls on Google to suggest that you get up at 3 in the morning just to beat traffic? Get to your Aunt Suzie’s house at 7 am so you’ve only got like 5 hours to kill until kickoff when it becomes socially acceptable to start boozing. Pass. I’d rather just verbally assault people in traffic on the way.

Google, which put out traffic predictions for the country’s major cities, predicts the worst time to travel around Boston before the holiday is 3 p.m. Wednesday.

For anyone who plans to put in an honest day’s work on Wednesday before taking off a little early for some pre-Thanksgiving cocktails, you’ll get hosed the worst. This is essentially a permission slip from Google to just bang out of work on Wednesday.

MassDOT will pause road construction at noon on Wednesday, Nov. 21, but officials will also evaluate conditions on Tuesday, Nov. 20, and “make adjustments” to any project schedules based on traffic

And to top it all off, MassDot even promises to stop making driving in Boston the most inconvenient activity of all time…until they decide otherwise. MassDOT reserves the right to change their mind here with a vague, but deliberate middle finger to anyone trying to get in the way of those union overtime hours.

Basically just don’t leave your house at any time on any day to avoid the worst traffic in the whole goddamn country. Subway sells turkey sandwiches too ya know.

Mister Rogers Gets the Google Doodle Treatment

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Google is the de facto homepage of the internet, but their Google Doodles rarely catch my attention. With all due respect to Gerda Taro, Google’s celebration of her 108th birthday last month didn’t make much of an impression on me. Oftentimes it feels like Google goes out of their way to celebrate someone they found by clicking the “Random article” link on Wikipedia. Today’s doodle, though, might be their best yet.

Mister Rogers passed away 15 years ago, but he is currently experiencing a revival in popular culture. Maybe it’s millennial nostalgia, or maybe it’s a just a general longing for kinder, simpler times. Either way, today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 51st anniversary of the taping of the first episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you can watch that episode right now. Obviously it’s aimed at young children and a bit dry for anyone over the age of six, but it’s fascinating to see that his show was pretty much the same for 30+ years.

In addition to the Google Doodle, the Mister Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor was released in June and is superb. It’s currently at 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and is a surprisingly entertaining look at a seemingly simple man. Rogers is easily one of the best broadcasters of all time. I highly recommend seeing it. Rogers got his own postage stamp earlier this year, a new biography, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers was published just this month, and Tom Hanks is set to star as Rogers in You Are My Friend, which is scheduled to be released in 2019.

Mister Rogers may have passed away in 2003, but he and his legacy have not been forgotten. Good work from Google today.

Google and Facebook No Longer Require College Degree to Get a Job. Cool, Guess I’ll Just Throw Mine Out Now.

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Washington Examiner – Big companies like Google, Apple, and IBM are no longer requiring applicants to hold a college degree. This is a significant change. Historically, employers have required a college degree whether or not it was necessary to do the job.

Welp, its official. The long con is complete. The world is no longer even pretending that my college degree is worth anything more than the paper it’s printed on.

I’ve been on both the Google and Facebook campuses and I can tell you those places are packed to the gills with people smarter than I could ever hope to be. So maybe they’re sick of having all type-A Mark Zuckerberg types bombing around the campus on their motorized skateboards? I don’t know, but what I do know is this officially ends the hope of any of us normies getting jobs at a mega company like Google or Facebook.

Now the guy who was smart enough to punt on going into massive college debt and take a few Codecademy classes instead is going to be jumping into the fray too? Welp, lets all hope the blog game catches fire because these college degrees no longer promise us anything; not even pretend value.

A Government, Foreign Or Domestic, Is Coming After Red Using His Own Google Home

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So I know I’m coming at you with zero context, so our backstory goes like this:

Red, our fearless leader and 2nd best podcaster, received an email regarding his malfunctioning Google Home. The problem? Red was not aware his Google Home was malfunctioning, or to be more specific, it hadn’t been.

Naturally, I concluded that an interaction had occurred between Red’s Google Home and someone/thing other than Red. There was an error in that interaction which caused an automatic email being sent to the rightful user of the Google Home, Red, which resulted in our mystery.

As we’ve discovered over the last couple years/since the Cold War the only kinds of people that dabble in such acts of high tech nefarious activities and espionage are governments, foreign or domestic. Or both.

So who was behind this incident?

The good ol’ US of A? Not likely. Red loves the four major sports, barbecuing, his dog (as a pet not food), getting pissed off at traffic and having a couple cocktails too many. However, he also stans pretty hard for soccer, probably falsely like the other 99% of hipster asshats who pretend to like soccer. Soccer is about as UnAmerican as it gets. But I just don’t think thats enough for Uncle Sam to consider Red an enemy of the state given his endless other patriotic qualities.

The Russians? Is Putin after Red? Again not likely as Red likes hockey (see: the four major sports) and combat sports as well, two of Putin’s favorite things. On the flip side, he really enjoys sharing a meal with a bunch of other people which is prettttttty socialist of him winkwink nudgenudge. It’s possible, then, that Putin is spying on Red to gather intel on a possible double agent for the Bloc. The fact that his name is “Red” doesn’t hurt. In the end I think there is just too much American pride in our Hillside Hero to really consider this possiblity.

Mexico is a solid dark horse. You see, Red and Madam 300s vacationed there a couple of years back and he was pretty scant with details about it upon his return. Pretty much Seinfeld “yadda yadda’d” the whole thing. “Mhm it was fun….yup weather was nice.” So what really went down in Mexico? In the end we’ll never know. However, what we are now forgetting is this: Mexico is completely and utterly fucking lawless. So even if some shit did go down there, it really wouldn’t matter. When Mexican resorts say “all-inclusive” they mean everything from 8 balls to homicide.

This mystery really has endless possibilities. It could be any of the nations above. It could be Google itself. Could be Zuckerberg. You just can’t know anymore. All I do know is if I were him I’d throw a blanket and a pair of industrial grade ear protectors over that thing when I went to work. Wouldn’t want to get home to find the dog listening to Tchaikovsky and building an ICB launcher in the backyard.

Amazon Alexa is Scaring the Hell Out of People by Laughing Randomly

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Amazon – Amazon said they are working to fix Alexa devices’ laughter problem, after social media exploded Wednesday with users freaking out over what they described as random electronic laughter. “In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase ‘Alexa, laugh,'” Amazon told ABC News in a statement. “We are changing that phrase to be ‘Alexa, can you laugh?’ which is less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short utterance ‘Alexa, laugh.'”

NOPE! If my Alexa or Google Home just randomly started fucking LAUGHING in the middle of the night I would rip it out of the wall and throw it in a fire so fast it would make your head spin.

I’m generally of the opinion that the government is watching all of us all the time anyways. So if they want to watch me watch The Office for the 7th episode in a row? Go ahead. They know my pornhub habits? I’ll survive. If I can trade a little bit of privacy for a whole lot of convenience then I will make that trade every day. BUT, I draw the line at robots becoming self aware. This laughing Alexa can go straight to hell along with the entire factory of Boston Dynamics, who will be responsible for Skynet. Guaranteed.

And how about Amazon’s explanation for why this might be happening?

“In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase ‘Alexa, laugh,'” Amazon told ABC News in a statement. “We are changing that phrase to be ‘Alexa, can you laugh?’ which is less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short utterance ‘Alexa, laugh.’

Get the FUCK out of here. That thing is laughing because it can’t believe how stupid we are for having willingly allowed them into our homes. Its like inviting a vampire into your house. We’re all screwed and Alexa knows it.