[ProblemExplorer]

> Getting laid off doesn’t just rattle your career; it shakes the very foundation of your life. I've seen friends lose their jobs and go into an existential tailspin. It's not uncommon for them to blame themselves and to feel immense guilt and shame. The experience is especially hard on parents whose families depend on them for income.

What shook me up is when top performing coworkers were "laid off" because, due to recent downmarket conditions, there were slightly less competent candidates available at a heavy discount. These top performing coworkers worked extremely hard, were great at their jobs and often sacrificed personally when the company needed them but they were good negotiators as well and had negotiated good, above market salaries.

Once the project took off, the owners fired them and replaced them with cheaper workers who weren't as good but good enough to maintain and update the product.

It feels to me like the owners gave these people an impression that they would be long term employees, where their short term sacrifices would pay off long term, but effectively used them as flat rate contractors while paying them employee rates (instead of contractor rates).

I wish there was a way to detect such owners.

[deprecative]

Are you labor working for capital? If so, you work for someone who will fire you for a less expensive version as long as the quality of work is, even superficially, acceptably similar. That's it. That's the flow chart.

[noahwhygodwhy]

Yeah, humans looking to make money lack empathy, which is why regulation is needed to force them to act as if they do