[Jenk]

My entire team of software engineers are Ukranian, residing in Ukraine (I'm not in Ukraine, nor am I Ukrainian).

For the past few weeks our "water cooler talk" has been almost exclusively about the rising threat of invasion, if not directly about the ongoing conflict in the SE of Ukraine. A number of the team signed up for the volunteer defence force and have spent countless weekends training with the army.

The morning of the invasion I received early morning messages from a few of the members to the effect of "Russia has invaded. We are going to fight."

I have never sent such an emotional and heart felt "Good luck, stay safe" in what is such a vacuous and empty medium (i.e., a messenger client) before. I haven't been able to produce anything since the invasion began because I am constantly watching the news and various social media feeds for updates on the invasion, and it's really hard to pick up a full (now absent, mostly) team's efforts without metaphorically dropping bits all over the place.

My work, and that of my team, it just.. doesn't matter in comparison. My boss is asking for progress updates and I'm just responding "Nothing. The guys are focussing on staying safe, warm, and well stocked right now." (with a small side of incredulity.)

I've brought it up with leadership and they are going to parachute in some agencies from other places and I can't help but feel we are just abandoning my team members. The people I have, on average, spent 5x8hr days working with for the past few years. My comrades. My friends. Just so expendable in the eyes of my employer.

[PragmaticPulp]

> My boss is asking for progress updates and I'm just responding "Nothing. The guys are focussing on staying safe, warm, and well stocked right now." (with a small side of incredulity.)

Incredible. I know several managers with employees in Ukraine and their companies are all being very thoughtful about handling the situation.

When I hire remotely (including Ukraine, where we even had a remote office at one point) it wasn’t uncommon to discover entire teams of people being mistreated as remote employees of some clueless foreign company. It was so easy to hire away the entire team and so satisfying to just see them enjoy working for a company and managers who actually cared. This might be a signal for where to go with your career at a later date after the current events are behind us (hoping sooner rather than later)

[lijogdfljk]

What's expected though? Not that i'm defending mistreatment, but i work with a small team of all remote and we have a few Russian devs. If they go absent for a while due to all this issue, we're not going to fire them or be angry.. but we still need to try and keep the company afloat, no?

Like forget bottom lines and corporate greed for a second. My company is small and if we don't hit an upcoming deadline, we're laying off at least half of our staff. I'm in full support of affected people but i also have to do my best to make sure the people employed by this company have a job tomorrow. This post seems to make that sound.. cold, uncaring?

To be clear i don't own the company nor am that high up on the management chain. We're only ~50 people. But still, i think this way. If an employee goes through really difficult times, of which we've had many, we wish them well and continue to pay them as best we can for as long as we can, but the 49 other people still have families, need food on the table, etc. It's just as important to me that the 49 other people are happy and healthy as it is the 1 person is happy and healthy.

I'm a bit confused by the anti-corporate take sometimes. I think the human lives are all that matter, fuck corporate greed - but when everyone is months away from losing jobs due to runway-like funding models.. it seems unfair.

Am i off base? I imagine you're mostly thinking huge companies?

[rovr138]

What kind of company is it?

• A startup can crash

• A fee for service company focusing on dev will probably crash

• An established company where development is just done for internal things. Can they pause feature requests and focus on maintenance for a bit? I'm not saying it may not come to having to hire people and talks need to start, but did they even think about the devs? What have they been doing in regards to their devs? Any help?

IMO, it's just the way it's being handled. They have their people fighting for their lives. Here's what looks like a manager or lead not being able to work with all the stress around it. And all that upper management sees is, fill in the chair.

[lijogdfljk]

> What kind of company is it?

A contract company with customers. The company would likely "be fine", but 5 years ago it was ~6 people. We've pushed for some larger clients recently, which allows us to employ ~50 people. If rolling out to the larger clients fails, that income source dries up and we go back down to ~10 people or w/e. With a sizable failure on our track record, which will be a bit difficult too.

> IMO, it's just the way it's being handled. They have their people fighting for their lives. Here's what looks like a manager or lead not being able to work with all the stress around it. And all that upper management sees is, fill in the chair.

So in our case i imagine we'd attempt to fill in a chair. I'd advocate for it. But again, i want to keep the rest of the staff employed and fed, myself included. However i would _definitely not_ expect to see those employees let go. I'd raise hell and question my employment if they were treated that way. Just filled in while they're gone, hopefully still paying them as long as we can (which probably wouldn't exceed 6 months i'd guess).

Which is partly why these conversations can be difficult for me. My #1 concern is keeping everyone employed, including the people having a tough time. Which can often mean keeping my head focused on income.

As much as i love WorkReform and worker focused rights, i often feel these conversations are adversarial and don't seem to consider what will happen when the company goes under. But they're also framed against massive corps, like Starbucks or w/e, and the reality is much different for them than it is my company.

Talking about my company in the WorkReform context is really odd these days.

[rovr138]

Is there anything on the company benefits or laws regarding active military or reserve members?

Regardless, it might be good to bring it up if the company ever plans to contract people again from Ukraine. Looks like you've found great developers there now and in the past, so it would suck to get blacklisted by devs there due to something like this.

Maybe it's possible to keep them employed and just contract out a company for devs in the meantime? Just something that can be renewed as needed but that would also leave your devs with a place to come back to after.

Good luck with everything. Good luck to your friends and coworkers fighting for their homes and livelihood.

[samcoppervimes]

You shouldn't read your employer's actions as uncaring. Ultimately it depends on where they are getting their money from. If that dries up, then there is no team anyway.

I completely see your point, but I also see the difficulty your employer has. They can't just wait for the war to finish before getting their business going again.

[MathCodeLove]

I often wonder at the thought process of these people. Not attacking OP directly, but it seems incredibly self-centered and narrow-minded to think "Wow I cant believe this person didn't drop everything and completely abandon all responsibilities because of event X happening right now. They must be so selfish."

If anything, I would think its the opposite. Its a virtue and sign of strength and selflessness to be able to push past ones personal feelings and to continue to do what needs doing.

[risyachka]

The only thing that needs doing during war is be safe and support others.

Other jobs, especially like software dev, is literally pointless and not important like at all. One corp will close - another one will open and the world won't even notice it.

[MathCodeLove]

Except people not in the war still need to eat and survive. Maybe it wouldn't matter on a global scale if some small software firm somewhere goes out of business, but it sure as hell matters to the business owner and their family, and the employees and their families.

How do you think western governments can afford to send aid, if not through tax dollars collected via the production of their citizens? If everyone decided to drop what they were doing out of some grossly mislead compassion then the aid currently being sent to the Ukraine in the form of monetary support and supplies would become fiscally impossible due to the lack of national production.

The problem with this kind of anti-industrial sentiment is that on it's surface it may sound morally righteous and perfectly reasonable but as soon as you begin to devote even a moments worth of critical thinking to the ideas you're spouting it's easy to see how totally they break down.

The very people you condemn for selfishness or greed are the same people who keep the world economy functioning in a crisis like this. They're the same people who make it so that there is still some semblance of a normal world for the Ukrainian people to return to once this war has passed.

[risyachka]

It is temporary. And if small software firm goes out of business - employees and the owner can always find another job. On a grand scale of things it is no biggie. In the end everyone will have food on the table and shelter, and the economy will prosper either way.

[MathCodeLove]

It's not temporary if the sentiment expressed in your original comment is widely shared. Remember, you said:

> The only thing that needs doing during war is be safe and support others.

If a single firm goes out of business sure, no big deal on a grand scale. If ten thousand firms go out of business, then that is a big deal. The position you hold fundamentally contradicts itself. Either nothing else matters, and therefore the entire world should focus on nothing but the war - which would lead to global economic collapse. Or you're wrong and other things actually do matter, in which case businesses shouldn't drop everything and completely forego local production in order to attempt to support Ukraine or Ukrainians.

Ideally of course there'd be some middle ground in which a company would attempt to support its Ukrainian employees, but regardless the company still needs to function and profit if it wants to keep said Ukrainian employees employed. You can't achieve one without the other. You seem to desire both support from these organizations while simultaneously demanding they cease operating in any capacity which puts them in a position to provide support.

[Arisaka1]

I had a similar experience when I was interviewing for a company and got down with fever and intense coughing, with the HR guy saying "so you cannot attend the interview". Sure, lemme just drive by your company in a woozy state and answer every technical question while getting interrupted by a tingling sensation in my right lung that causes coughing every 10-15 seconds like a germ machine gun.

After explaining to them my situation (which was audibly bad even through phone) I asked them to postpone for next week. They hired someone else. Turns out there is such a thing as uncaring people who just see you as a cog that facilitates their money-printing company. It is what it is.

[ceras]

Just to play devil's advocate, the other candidate may have given the company a deadline, and so the company may have needed to pass on the other candidate in order to accommodate your timeline.

Not saying this is what happened here, but there are reasons why an outcome that appears cold can, upon digging, result from everyone ultimately acting in good faith.

[MathCodeLove]

Ah yes they should have put their plans on hold so they could interview someone they don't yet know or have any reason to trust.

After all, everyone know that these companies are in business for the convienence of their (potential) employees. Not to do anythig radical like, idk, be successful or make money.

[risyachka]

That's why is always amazes me when employees show loyalty to the company without understanding that company is just a business. And their loyalty is a one-way street.

[servercobra]

One of my friends was interviewing at a popular nonprofit. 6 interviews in and it was down to her and one other candidate. She asked to postpone her 7th (!!) interview a week because her grandmother died and she was flying home for the funeral. They hired the other candidate in the mean time. I told her it sounds like a place you wouldn't want to work anyway, but it still stings.

[golemotron]

This. It's amazing how much "people being uncaring" is just people who are trying to keep their families afloat too when you look closely.

[rovr138]

That also depends on what business it is.

If it's fee for service and focused on development, I can see the issue of course. However, now all companies are structured this way.

[bnt]

The day after the invasion, I was flabbergasted by how much people don’t give a sht. My Twitter feed was (and still is) people announcing their new ventures, doing their usual marketing, posting their vacay pics etc. Social media destroyed humanity. I deleted my Reddit after 14 years after I saw pics of burned bodies from Ukraine on a random SFW sub with folks making fun of people dying. Fuk this war and all who think it’s not their business.

[dragonwriter]

> The day after the invasion, I was flabbergasted by how much people don’t give a sht. My Twitter feed was (and still is) people announcing their new ventures, doing their usual marketing, posting their vacay pics etc.

Your Twitter feed reflects your active choices in who to follow and what to interact with. My Twitter feed has been largely dominated with the invasion since it occurred (though there are a couple other things that are also notable still).

[bnt]

Valid point, but the lack of empathy among the people I follow is concerning.

[ars]

Your feed reflects you. If you find it concerning, then you need to make a change in who you follow.

I've seen people complain about YouTube for example - they eventually realize that what YouTube recommends is what they watch. If they want better recommends, they need to watch different things.

[areeh]

I'm not sure how Twitter works, but for YouTube it's not like their recommendation system is a perfect user-friendly algorithm.

While it is your choice what to click, what you end up watching is a result of the interplay between you and what is recommended to you and if the recommendation system was different, both what you click and the resulting feed would be different as well

[ars]

Experimented with this on YouTube. My recommendations are exactly the things that I watched.

In fact I got kind of bored because I wanted something new and different, instead I just get more videos of exactly the same type.

If I stop watching a certain kind of video it eventually stops showing up on the recommendations.

[tim333]

>Social media destroyed humanity

It's also getting the word out really quickly. There's good and bad.

At least it's not getting covered up for years like the last major Russia on Ukraine atrocity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

[vmception]

Just because the spice must flow doesnt mean uncaring. Its an unrelated sentiment. Thats the corporation for you. Maybe take some mental health days.

[dionys]

I'm feeling the same. Two of my teammates are in Ukraine right now. Bosses are now talking about hiring new people to keep up with the workload. And this is the same meeting where my boss said we have a lot of work, but nothing critical. All the systems are running fine, no major bugs recently, the work is purely adding new features. And they're ready to replace them after ~4 days. It just makes me think we are all absolutely expandable. Hopefully no major crisis happens in my life, cos they'll drop me in a heartbeat :(

[zhte415]

Succession planning. Disaster recovery planning. We should have these.

Not having them can lead to hasty, unwise decisions. They should include prioritising tasks and cascades/durations of fall over.

There's not necessarily reason they mean dropping anyone either. Even if exclusively looking at a financial impact there are costs of switching, costs that might be low for a server needing restoring to high for acquiring knowledge specific to your field or product, or a whole lot in between, for example.

Just have a plan. If you don't, be aware of potential for flawed decisions made in haste.

[danpat]

My company is in a similar situation - have large teams in several eastern European cities (primarily Minsk), and a few long-term remote teammates in Ukraine. A couple have fled (from Kyiv) with children, others are worried about being conscripted. It makes me want to vomit just thinking about it. I'm amazed many of them are still on Slack and making PRs.

We're fortunate some of our leadership has quite close ties to the area, so our company's response so far has been extremely understanding.

[zuppy]

> “I'm amazed many of them are still on Slack and making PRs.”

I was talking with a friend yesterday about his teammates from Ukraine (we’re both outside Ukraine). They said that working is the only thing keeping them sane. This allows them to stop focusing every second at the war outside their homes.

[anelson]

I feel the same. What do you say in Slack to the guy who just told you he’s handed over his tasks to a colleague because he’s joining the territorial defenses and has to go and fight? “Good luck”? “Give ‘em hell”? “Слава Украины" is what I settled on but there’s just nothing you can say that conveys the weighty emotions of that kind of goodbye.

The very least that can be done is to not cut them loose because Russian bombardment has decreased productivity.

I’ve left behind a life and all of my possessions in Ukraine but more than that I feel like I’ve let them down since I’m living comfortably in Georgia while they suffer and could possibly die.

I’ll just do what I can to help keep the project going so we can keep supporting them. The cold reality is that a startup isn’t a charity so at some point some hard decisions need to be made, but that point isn’t five days into a war.

[Dma54rhs]

I know an Estonia company, remote Ukrainians of 4, all away now fighting for their country but they do their best to cover their workload and hope they can return soon.

Obviously still paying their wages as long as its possible, an economical hit for the startup but that's the best they can do to help them fight the occupants. Estonian team working more to make it up and the moral is high since their Ukrainians remind them how much worse it can get.

[sulam]

Sorry to hear that. We had an office in Belarus. When everything went down there in ‘20 we did everything we could to help them relocate and now they are mostly in Warsaw. This is obviously different in terms of the right thing to do, but you really wish people would do that right thing.

[crisdux]

This is horrifying to me but probably for a different reason. I'm tired of the general population being treated as pawns in this global game of empire. These people should not be risking their life. Our leaders screwed up and now citizens pay the price.

This war did not start 2 weeks ago. It is not the result of 1 man's actions. It's been going on for years but now it spilled into kinetic warfare. We are hardly any better than the kings and queens of yesterday, just look at all the actions being taken from western powers without any citizen input or democratic process.

Our opinions are being shaped on this conflict by our media, even on hacker news - people should be weary of all information they read on here regarding this conflict. People should try hard not to get swept up in tribal narratives and see the world for what it is.

In my opinion, the current system looks like its out of control and it's only going to lead to escalation. It almost certainly will lead to more nuclear proliferation. Confrontation with nuclear opponents need to be more cautious.

[agumonkey]

I have a mere feeling that ubiquitous internet is rendering some of the important factor of war mongering moot. There's less delay, no week long lag in which you can enrage and enroll young people to go die for some imaginary cause. And as spectators too, I see stuff that I could not see even in TV days.. invaded people talking with lost invaders. The failures. The moronic jokes of troops during idle time. The wait.. the absurd nothingness. It just feels like waste.. an absolute void.

There's still a fair amount of BS (both camps are painting their own view) but the feverish theatrics are somehow dying.

[tim333]

>tired of the general population being treated as pawns in this global game of empire

Well that's kind of what this conflict is about. Ukraine is anti the pawns and empire thing, Putin is for it.

Thankfully it's mostly dying out - I'm a Brit and we got rid of most of our empire around 1950. Putin's a bit behind the curve.

[meken]

> My friends. Just so expendable in the eyes of my employer.

This is a cold, hard reality.

Good to be aware of it, and work on accepting it, processing it, rather than avoid the truth.

We are expendable. Each and every one of us.

And that’s ok.

[jaynetics]

That is truly terrible. My immediate reaction was that you should quit right away. However, I also feel that it wouldn't help your friends if your bosses give up on the project or let the company fail. Maybe you can an ask for donations to the cause or other types of support such as a guarantee that your friends will be able to keep their jobs?

[throwaway4323r]

If this happens to me i know i am going to be very sad. But i fully expect this behaviour from any employer. Incidents like these is what makes me guilt free to ask for raise and quit every 3 years. I am in much better position financially.

[_nalply]

I understand. It's unfair and hard. Business.

I have been thinking about business being business for a long time. Let me tell you a vision of a better future. I am not explaining how to get there, just what is in this future.

Business will not have changed a lot. But people! People have a lot better means of living. Most needs are covered. This changes the power relationship between people and business. Business becomes sort of a game. You can lose but it's just a game.

The main rules of this game are:

    1. follow law and mores
    2. be bound by contracts to have earnings and spendings
    3. earnings ≥ spendings

If you violate these rules for too long a time and too heavily, your business will be booted. It's a harsh game.

This rule of business has been in force already thousands of years ago. Barter superfluous stone knives against food, for example.

And today this game can have inhuman consequences as we see here.

Parent's business is trying to work around that they suddenly a team dropped out. Software stopped being delivered. As a consequence they are afraid that earnings can't be realized.

In a strategic game it's clear that something needs to be done or they get booted.

And some people today fail to see this aspect. They complain that business is greedy and inhuman. They ask that companies should be "human".

But it's my conviction that business is a worthwile and important game benefitting the society. As long as business is bound to sensible law like forbidding hurting people (for example by overworking them or exposing them to unhealthy conditions), business should be free to do business.

Therefore we shouldn't change business a lot but give people better means and therefore more power and independence.

If a business fails it's just losing a game round. This can hurt but everybody should be able to get up again and have another chance.

It's just a vision of a better future.

[bigbillheck]

> The people I have, on average, spent 5x8hr days working with for the past few years. My comrades. My friends. Just so expendable in the eyes of my employer.

Makes you wonder how they'd treat you if you ended up in dire straits.