[rotten]

Having been through well over 30 layoffs in my career, both as someone being retained and as someone being cut, I can say that they almost always start with a senior manager who doesn't usually give speeches, giving a speech to the team about how things are going really well despite rumors to the contrary. (Even if no one had heard any rumors.) Once you get one of these speeches, just start shopping your resume immediately - layoffs are coming within days or weeks.

[Angostura]

Microsoft used to have a standard Powerpoint template called 'Conveying bad information. It was always a hoot when the the CEO cracked open that open.

[WrtCdEvrydy]

I would have used it for good news sometimes just to throw people off.

[BurningFrog]

I think this is an earlier tell:

If you keep hearing concrete news about how great things are going, things are likely fine.

If you hear no news for a while, that is Bad News!

[TallGuyShort]

Depends on the company culture. If they previously prided themselves on transparency and had a regular cadence of information (e.g. all-hands meetings), you keep getting the news regardless but it starts being, "this thing that looks bad was in the news, but ACKTUALLY this is exactly what we wanted to happen."

To quote Denzel Washington's character in Inside Man:

"I've got him right where I want him"

"Where's that?"

"Behind me with my pants around my ankles."

[WrtCdEvrydy]

We used to get bad news at Blackberry before the news but they never did stock updates....

[aliceryhl]

That's quite a lot of layoffs. What industry is that?

[asdfman123]

The oil industry is certainly like that.

[unfunco]

Are there many roughnecks on Hacker News?

[asdfman123]

It's one of the largest industries in the world. They have offices, and use software too!

[swiley]

IMO there are some really interesting CSB investigations into oil refinery/industrial accidents caused by bad software design (overwhelming operators with alarms is a big one.) Lots of people on here could gain by watching them. I used to put them on to fall asleep at night.

[asdfman123]

Oil is so much bigger than just refineries and oil wells. There's the upstream industry, the downstream industry, services and exploration, research, financial sectors, etc. etc. etc. There's a whole fleet of office workers to support them, and a lot of data to manage.

[ThePadawan]

If we're thinking of the same YouTube channel, there are some excellent lessons to take away from those disaster investigations.

Now whenever I hear phrases like "we have to use the manual override most of the time" or "this alarm goes off all the time, it doesn't mean anything is broken", I am happy that the worst I can do is break a deployment, not explode an entire block.

[nogabebop23]

Field workers do have an office and run software, it's just that it's a little box on the edge of the rig!

[close04]

I used to have an office job in the oil industry but the company I worked for had quite the opposite attitude. Due to a strong union there was a department where "restructured" people, to the tune of ~900 at some point - went on to do absolutely jack schitt until a project or activity needed resources. In which case you'd first have to go fish in that pond and if you simply couldn't find the correct skill set then you'd look for resources outside of the company. Some people stayed there for years until retirement.

On the field work side there were a couple of rounds of layoffs as automation started to kick in. Most in the field were contractors so their employer moved them around companies as needed. But for one person to see 30 rounds of layoffs I'd say it's still quite a bit of bad luck.

[SuoDuanDao]

You might be surprised. Lots of people worked manual labour at some point.

But having been a roughneck after high school, no one higher than the rig manager would hold a speech in that industry. He'd get a call as we were finishing the hole and convey the news when everyone came in for lunch.

[phaemon]

Possibly not directly, but two of my best friends were roughnecks, and then Deck Foreman. Unfortunately, one of them died just a few months back (not covid). Going to miss him down the pub.

[jordache]

maybe some in corporate roles.

[nogabebop23]

atlantic fisherman? Seasonal work is not technically a lay-off but for almost all purposes feels/acts like a predictable one.

[ashtonkem]

The terror of layoffs isn’t just in losing your job; it’s in the unpredictability of it. If you know you’re going to be unemployed in 3 months, you can prepare. Suddenly finding yourself unemployed right now is a different beast altogether.

[Loughla]

A local manufacturer (employee number of around 2500) have two different types of layoffs.

The first is seasonal. Every fall, due to the nature of the products they make, everyone but cleaning and maintenance staff are laid off for 2 months. Everyone knows it's coming, everyone prepares for it.

The second is the unpredictable one. They all, even maintenance and janitorial, got laid off in stages starting about two weeks ago. No one was ready for that. No one was prepared. It's a much different beast and has a MUCH larger impact on the surrounding community.

[maps7]

You could write an interesting, short book on those 30 layoffs!

[asdfman123]

Oof, did you write this comment for me specifically?