[grahamburger]

Ha, that's a good one. At a job 10 years ago or so I had a similar premonition of upcoming layoffs—lots of closed door meetings between the execs, travel and expansion plans getting cancelled, etc. One day my immediate boss, who I genuinely like, walked into my office, closed the door, and told me he was gonna have to lay me off in two weeks. He said if I would handle x,y,z tasks (a few days of work) I could just stop showing up until the layoff day and he'd make sure I got a good severance. Listen, I appreciated this! it still sucked, but he wasn't supposed to tell me at all.

Anyway, a few weeks after the axe dropped, I went to an industry conference (putting out the feelers for a new job, etc) and during the keynote he walked in. I waved, and he came and sat at the table with me. After the speech, we were chatting with the others around the table, and someone asked where I worked. I said something like "well, I'm between jobs. This guy just fired me <thumb jerk towards him>." They laughed, and he squirmed in his chair! But I didn't let him squirm too long, it really wasn't his fault.

[aftbit]

I wish this were more common. For some reason, employees are expected to give employers two weeks or more of notice when they quit, while employers are expected to terminate employees with 0 seconds of notice.

[rcxdude]

Well, when there are formal notice periods, you do generally get paid for the notice period, even if you're not working it.

[tombert]

I think there's a fear from the employers that the terminated employees will do something to fuck over the company because they're bitter, either by copying and distributing proprietary stuff, or even just posting a message shit-talking the leadership. Everyone knows that being fired or laid off sucks and passions can run high, so there is a perceived incentive that bitter employees will cause some damage.

I honestly don't think most people would do that, but I think there's a worry that "one bad actor is enough". Consequently, when I've been laid off in the past, usually my access to the computer (Slack, company email, and the computer itself) is cut off about a minute after I get the bad news.

That said, usually I get severance when I've been laid off, which is admittedly a small consolation, but a consolation all the same.

[tombert]

When I've been laid off, I generally don't hold any grudges at the business people. These things happen, and I know business decisions aren't always easy or going to make everyone happy.

That said, I already didn't like the CTO here, regardless of the layoffs. I kind of thought he was a blowhard who didn't really understand what he was talking about most of the time. I had no desire to be his friend.