Twitter and Tech Layoffs

Join us this week as Alex and Pat talk about what's going on with Twitter, our thoughts on the Big Tech layoffs and how to standout if your company is laying off workers. 

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Transcript

Pat: 0:31

Hey everybody. Welcome back to this week's edition of Breaking Down the Bites. As usual, I'm your host, pat. You can find me on Twitter@layer8packet. That's the number eight. Kyle is off again this week. Some schedules have been rearranged and it's hard to get. Everybody in the room. But he is on Twitter@danath256. You can find the show on Twitter at@breakinbytespod. All of our social links are in the show notes. If you care to follow us on your platform of choice, we are pretty active on Twitter and LinkedIn. So come say hello if you would choose to. So Alex, you're back with me again. What's up man? How you doing?

Alex: 1:12

Well, getting ready to move. That's

Pat: 1:15

Always good

Alex: 1:15

in my life right now. So, out of an apartment into a house. And that actually is a good segue into talking about the subject today because. It's probably a terrible time to do this so yeah, so when you're considering a move to a house, you probably don't wanna talk about potential layoffs, tech layoffs, and all job security concerns, but that's the topic today, and that's what I'm ready to talk about.

Pat: 1:44

That is the topic for today. So we figured uh, we're gonna try to do this like once a month more of like a, in the news fresh and new kind of deal. See how this goes for us. Take a current topic and kind of break it down, dissect it, what I wanna call it. So this is our first crack at that. So we're gonna try and. Doing some justice as far as from a real world scenario, real time, in the news topics. So, the big one, obviously from the last couple of months I would probably say from the second half of the year on is tech layoffs. And there's a lot of them going on that, that, that is for sure. So we're gonna talk about that a little bit. We're gonna talk about the elephant in the room. Twitter obviously that's been hot and heavy in the press in the last couple of weeks. Depending on what side of the fence you sit on, you could be happy or sad about said news. So we're gonna talk about that. Try to play some devil's advocate with that and break that down and, kind of give it, to, give it a fresh pair of eyes and then follow it up with okay, your company is doing layoffs. If that is, if you find yourself in that situation, what can you do to. Kinda weather that storm or stick out or prove your value and, pick whatever, phrase you'd like to we're gonna try to talk about that and give you some pointers on how to how to do that and weather the storm. So, here we go. Layoffs we'll start there. The tech layoffs have kind of been, I don't wanna say, coming for a while. I think as fast as tech moves, there's always some sort of break that, that, they pull the emergency break and it comes to a screeching halt. Whether they've, whether they overhired in, a time of boom and now they just don't need all those people, whether. Those, the company has been bought out by a bigger company, right? So a couple years back, Instagram was bought out by Facebook, et cetera, et cetera. Use whatever example you want. So when a company's bought out, there's a lot of redundancy there. Or it could be just for, poor performance, right? The didn't hit their marks or things aren't going as well as. As they forecasted, planned, whatever, and they gotta cut cut some weight. So, there's a various reasons for layoffs, but I think in the tech sector, I I think a lot of over-hiring is probably a fair shake. Cuz when they're booming and they go off and they hire all these people. And then when stuff the minute some turbulence comes and they go, oh, we have all these, we have we have six people that do the same job, we gotta. Start cutting. Now, Alex, you're a little closer to the big tech sector than I am. I'm more in the financial sector where I'm at now, but you have any thoughts on that or am I way off or bring me back to reality? What's going on here?

Alex: 4:10

I think you hit the nail on the head. From what I've seen, it's just like anything that goes up has to come down. I guess that's the pessimistic way to look at it, but something that goes up so rapidly has to come back down. There has to be the amount of growth that some of these companies have had and big tech. I don't think people appreciate how much they've grown and how quickly I think this, that's part of it. We've had like an unheard, anyone who's in the stock market knows this too. We've had an unbelievable run. I mean, the past decade has been absolutely insane for the economy and recessions aren't new. But I think for a lot of people in the workforce today, I mean really anyone who's outta college to early thirties probably has only ever. A good economy. So I think this is something that's really taking people back. I mean, we have to really have to go back to what, 2008 and housing market crash. I mean, that's what we talk, that's 14 years ago. So you're talking about if you're not mid thirties, you probably didn't deal with this yet. So I don't think it's anything to be too concerned about. I think this is just something that everyone's gonna experience a few times in their life and. Yeah. Like you mentioned in the intro, Twitter is kind of all over the news right now, and I think that's getting a lot of the press, but Facebook got some press too, but it's really across the board. If you look at big tech, it's almost, you're almost in the minority if you didn't have some type of hiring freeze or just straight up layoffs. Anyone who remembers the first time that I came on the show, I talked about it cuz I had been laid off from PlayStation that they shut down my, the entire team. So it's something that I'm more than familiar with. And even a evolve ip left because of layoffs. I wasn't part of those layoffs, but I left because there had been two rounds of layoffs. So, you grow too fast and you gotta come back to reality, and that's what we're seeing.

Pat: 6:19

Yeah, I think there's been a major bubble in the last, like you said, 14 years and 2008 was the last one. That we've sort of had with recessions and housing market bubbles, and I, I was. I was at the local cable company being a, I was a tech support rep, so I was sort of shielded from a lot of that. I was, early twenties and, whatever. But my career didn't really start until after 2008 and sort of, it's been, it was recovered by that time when I started to really kind of, Make my, put my foot in the ground and start climbing the rungs of the ladder. But but yeah, now the economy has been good. You hear the term house of cards, you kind, it's built on a house of cards and, money's been cheap for how long, and people just, lend to lend. Spend, spend, Spend. And here we are. So, everything that's up has to come down at least a little bit, at least back down to earth. And I don't know where everyone else is, but the housing market here has been super booming the last couple of years. And they've started to come down, but it's not. Where it's advantageous to really like buy, you know what I mean? Like, like if you had a second house now you could sell and be okay, but if you're swapping houses right, going outta one and into another, it's still not quite the same, the time. So, I feel like that's a lot of places, you know now. So this all is very, cyclical and it's tied to, it's tied to the economy, it's tied to, things that go and things make things go and it's just it's a sign of the times. But yeah, I mean, just today outside the tech sector, right? Just today, Walmart, cnn. Our, became the latest to announce layoffs. I know CNN's had some top exec changes over the last couple of months and try not to get too into the political waters, but it does seem that politics drives a lot of everything these days and it's hard to stay out of. But there's been some regime change to CNN and they've just been shedding weight. And then, you have companies that have really downsized, right? Meta and or Facebook or. Twitter, we talked about Lyft, Stripe

Alex: 8:19

Coinbase, Netflix, Robinhood, I mean,

Pat: 8:23

Carvana, Roku. I mean, there's, you name it, they've basically been on a downturn and it's just, we're part of this big tech bubble. And that's just where, that's just the part of the storm we're in at the moment.

Alex: 8:34

Yeah, for sure. And I know it's a negative topic and for anyone who hasn't gone through it before, I know this could be kind of a scary time, but one thing that I think will make, feel, make people feel better if they're, in this state where, They're maybe even depressed. They're just so scared they can't think of anything else to put in perspective. And I'll just use Meta as an example, and I'm sure you can look at all these big tech companies and you can find similar things. Everyone is kind of focused on right now using Meta as an example. I think they laid off 15% and that's a big number to put that in perspective from 2015. To 2022. Just before the layoffs, they had increased their staff by 600%.

Pat: 9:24

Whew.

Alex: 9:25

So you're talking about in seven years you increased your staff by 600% and then you drop at 15%. I mean, that just shows you is like a,

Pat: 9:36

You're still ahead of the curve.

Alex: 9:37

So they started with 12,000 or so employees in 2015. Made it all the way up to 87,000. Now they're back down to 75. But I mean, if you still, if you look at it 20 years from now, you're still gonna see that it went up 60,000 plus people over the course of seven years. So even though it seems scary now, I'm hoping people realize that this is just something that happens. Because it's almost inevitable if you're gonna be in the field for 20 or 30 years. I think one of the things that we'll talk about, probably after we talk about Twitter, because that's just a hot topic and interested to hear your thoughts on it, is we'll talk about what you can do in order to kind of prepare for potentially a layoff. Maybe you've already heard that there's gonna be layoffs and you don't know what to do. I know that could be an unfortunate situ. So maybe we can talk about what we think the best tips are for that. I know I have a few,

Pat: 10:35

Yep.

Alex: 10:36

but as I said before we get to that, I guess we have to talk about Twitter.

Pat: 10:42

Yeah, and I'm interested to see, to hear your thoughts on it as well. I think Twitter has been good and bad. And for whatever your opinions on Eon Musk for me, he does more good than bad. But he's not

Alex: 10:55

right. This is when we lose the fans

Pat: 10:57

Yeah. Here we go.

Alex: 10:58

few. We'll

Pat: 10:58

yeah, who knows My boss loves him. By the way. My boss can't stop talking about Elon. He's the Neurolink and the Tesla and the space that he, you get him going. He won't stop shout out to him. But no. I don't know. Twitter was, let me put this way, it. When it first started back in, whenever it started, I dunno how the year on me, but when it was hot and new and fresh, like it was literally, A way to communicate with people in real time, so there was a lot of there was a lot of good there as far as, real time news and journalists on the ground covering whatever story and, or just anybody really, Hey, this is going on outside my window right now, or, whatever. And it was it was unprecedented to, to have real. Conversations or real time news, just, just hit your feed. And I originally started a Twitter account. It was, I just don't take myself too seriously. I really don't think people I'm not important enough to, people have, people care about what the hell, I think So, I, I had it for, it was more for me to follow people than for me to actually tweet and do whatever. So originally it started for me for a lot of my favorite, like sports teams, beat writers, that had the inside to, to the teams that I follow, things of that nature and some tech things like tech I used to follow, like Tech Crunch and some of the bigger The Verge, some of the bigger publications out there and

Alex: 12:20

At

Pat: 12:21

right. Adam Shater. That's

Alex: 12:22

You gotta find out who's been traded right at the trade

Pat: 12:25

right. And my fantasy football. Tips and whatnot from which I've, which the league that we're in Alex, I'm not doing. So I won this week against page, but I'm not doing so well overall, let's put it that way, So, but anyway, so like I was doing that, I was using Twitter for that. And then I kind of fell out of it for a while. I was just like, yeah. Now because of the show, I've been, I do all the social media, so I've been kind of back in the Twitter game for a year plus now since the show started. So I'm seeing a little bit, more of it and whatnot. And so I. It's good and bad. There's a lot of noise out there. So you try to filter a lot of the noise and, there was some talks about some bias that Twitter had built in and, this, that, and the next. And like I said, whatever your opinions on it, fine. But then Elon came and said, We're gonna we're gonna buy this. And I don't know. I think Elon has good intentions with it early on. I think he's kind of shooting from the hip as far as what he wants to do with Twitter. It feels a little loosey go, if you will. Like it. It feels like he's a one man tech support at this point. Like he's doing all kinds of poles and should we do this and should we do that, and blah, blah blah. And it's like, oh, okay.

Alex: 13:30

I do think that's interesting.

Pat: 13:32

But the other thing I will say is, I feel like and everybody made a big deal about, oh, he fired half the staff or whatever, the percentage of the staff he fired. He's like, oh my God, is Twitter gonna be here in the morning and blah, blah, blah. First of all, I'm like, listen, Twitter is great, but it's not a real place like You gotta like put it into perspective that Twitter is not a real place, first of all, and number two, it's proven. Twitter was still alive in the morning. It was running, and he did what he had to do, and he had the people that he had. So it's like, so you ask yourself, all right, were those people that were fir and I'm not taking their firing lightly. I think it's terrible to lose a job, but it's like, were they necessary in the first place? Were they dead weight because it can go on without them, whatever the number is that, it's. Can it go on without'em? Yes or no? If it's a yes, then they were dead weight. I don't You jump in there and

Alex: 14:27

Well, maybe their worth isn't known right away. I think that people that are keeping the lights on, it's a little more, it's simpler to quantify their worth versus someone who's making the platform better or but yeah, I think it all goes back to. is a business and I'm sure we don't have all the facts here and maybe we never will, but I mean, from everything I heard that they were just bleeding money so much and it just seems if you are losing, what, 4 million a day

Pat: 15:04

something like

Alex: 15:05

and you have 7,000 people on staff, Man, I don't wanna call'em redundant jobs, but if someone, if you have a team of software engineers and literally at a company like Twitter, do you have a thousand of them? I mean, I'm sure they do all kinds of different things, but

Pat: 15:24

Sure.

Alex: 15:25

you might have 50 people with a really similar skill and with, and a lot of. Random sets of 50 people with similar skill sets, if that makes sense. And it just seems, if you are, making a conscious effort to, Hey, we gotta slow down, we gotta be profitable, it just seems like it, it just makes sense and people are just up in arms. I mean, and it kind of surprised me. It's, we do live in America. You're not gonna be kicked out. With nothing. So I think what legally they gotta get, I think it's two months legally and people are given three months.

Pat: 16:07

Yeah.

Alex: 16:08

So, and if I have those numbers wrong, I'm sorry, but it's not, it's substantial. I mean, it's at least 60 days that they got, or it might be 90. But either way, even if it's 60 days, the idea that you got six, two months to find a new job, and I know that's you. Some people are gonna be, well, you're missing the point in two months. That's not enough time. But I still feel it happens. And I think we should be thankful that we, live in a place where at least that's what happens. I mean, when I left PlayStation, yeah, sure. I was bummed out that I was laid off. I mean, I moved across the country for PlayStation. I was given several months severance, similar to what people got at Twitter, and I kind of feel like if you can't get a job within a few months, maybe you really were dead weight. I mean, I found a job pretty quickly and.

Pat: 17:04

Especially out there where you're at in Silicon Valley. Like it seems to be like, again, and I know they're on the down trot and people are trying, are, companies are tightening their belts. But yeah, it three months to, let's just say three, three months to, to find something where you, well, like. People are in that culture every day. Like, you can't tell me people at Twitter that were laid off, don't know other people and high execs or, you know what I mean? Depending on your level at Twitter that you don't know other people in the same. Boat as you, or the same circles as you, and it's like, oh, yeah. Oh, because you and I both know Alex, it's all about networking in this industry, no pun intended, since we're network guys, but it's all about who you know and 80% of the people that have a job out there, it's because a friend recommended'em. Don't take that literally, but it's just a figure of speech. But you know, it, it's about who you know at this point, and especially in Silicon Valley that seems to be a very large, small community, if that makes sense.

Alex: 18:00

Yeah, that's something that I probably didn't think about too. It's just Twitter had a, certainly had a name around it, so they're gonna be better equipped for finding jobs than most people.

Pat: 18:10

Sure.

Alex: 18:11

And. I just think people are just, I don't want this to turn into overly political, but yeah, I think people just get overly sensitive and they just want things handed to them on a silver platter. And there was one thing that I saw in LinkedIn and it just, it blew my mind that this person posted it, but what blew my mind even more was how much support this person. In the comments section and man, am I just in the minority with how I'm thinking? But what this situation was, it was a laid off Twitter employee who was requesting help, from his network and finding a new position, which is fine, but he also was really pushing on how. Terrible. His situation was and really pushing on how unfair, I think you used the term unfair and ridiculous, lot of, synonyms to that effect. But this was this person's situation. Okay, this is the person that thinks they were mistreated. Okay? This was a it was either a junior, I don't know if he was a junior, but based on the number of years of experience he had, it was kind of like his first tech job or first big one. Anyway, so software engineer. So first off, the get go is, in all likelihood, you're not very unique. You don't have a very unique skill set. You have an in-demand skillset, an on unique one. So in all likelihood, people, there are gonna be people with your skill.

Pat: 19:49

Sure.

Alex: 19:51

He had been with the company seven months. All right, so there's one

Pat: 19:56

that long.

Alex: 19:57

okay. There's gonna be people there than five, six years, if they gotta lay somebody off, you don't have the seniority thing. And then the super kicker,

Pat: 20:07

I'm

Alex: 20:08

he was on parental leave

Pat: 20:11

Nice.

Alex: 20:12

for two months prior to the lay. So you're saying that you put five months in, two of which you've been on parental leave, paid parental leave, and now you're getting three months severance

Pat: 20:26

right.

Alex: 20:28

and you feel like you're the victim

Pat: 20:30

right? You've literally made it

Alex: 20:32

first job,

Pat: 20:33

right?

Alex: 20:35

So what more do you want?

Pat: 20:37

Right,

Alex: 20:38

And it's just, and like I said, I just couldn't believe this person was posting it and then just the flood of support, they get this like, I get it, you're on parental leave. But it's, it's great to be, and I don't blame him for taking the parental leave. If it was offered to me, I would, that's fine. But again, if there's layoff. I'm just assuming that I'm gonna be laid off at this point

Pat: 21:05

Sure.

Alex: 21:05

because

Pat: 21:06

to prepare for the worst.

Alex: 21:07

I mean, I'm the new guy. I don't have a very, I have a very replaceable skill set and I'm not even working to begin with

Pat: 21:18

Right, right. No, I'm with you. I'm with. Yeah, that seems a little odd. The other thing too, like you mentioned that, Twitter was bleeding x amount of money per day or whatever, and then he is like, all right, the paid lunches stop, Yesterday and people were like, oh my God, what am I gonna eat? I'm like, brown paper bag. Like the rest of the world does like, act like it's the end of the world. And maybe that's the custom out there that, us Pennsylvania boys just aren't used to. But man just seems to be like there's bigger problems and you have to pack in your own lunch. I mean, come on

Alex: 21:50

Yeah, and Twitter was one of the higher paying companies out there.

Pat: 21:53

Sure.

Alex: 21:54

go buy your own lunch

Pat: 21:55

Right. Right. That seems a little odd.

Alex: 22:00

And I know he comes off as being so blunt, but I think people forget that this working from home that is relatively new.

Pat: 22:10

No. Yeah.

Alex: 22:11

I think across the board, even though I don't think we're gonna go back to the office full time anytime soon I do feel like we're, we are seriously starting to shift to the point where people are pushing it more and more now. So when he came out and said you had to be in the office and if you can't be in the office, you need to come up with a reason. So, for anyone who was full-time remote and nowhere near an office, I could see why that would be tough. But again, I kind of saw. On LinkedIn where people were really complaining about coming into the office and the headquarters in San Francisco, and I could see that they live in San Francisco. So, I mean, you're close. I mean, is that really a deal breaker? And I understand but, and even if it came outta nowhere, right?

Pat: 22:58

right. You get used to something and then somebody tries to take it away and you know they're gonna be the villain.

Alex: 23:04

For sure.

Pat: 23:05

just is what it is.

Alex: 23:06

Now, if you're hired as a full-time remote employee and you work in out of Pennsylvania, okay, that's a little different. But if you're hired as an onsite employee, then because of C you. Slowly transitioned to a full-time employee and now you're given the ultimatum. Yeah that's a slap in the face. I get it. But it almost feels like, okay, they're worst things a guy can ask for these type of positions. So yeah, that's not something that really bothered me that much. I think I'm probably in the minority of people when I say that. I like working in the office. I do see the benefit of it. I don't think it's a means of babysitting people, which I is. Oftentimes, I think the argument people get is like, what? You don't trust me and do my work? And I think realistically people know. It's just, it's different. You can be an extrovert, a great communicator. It's just not the same. Talking to people face to face, being able to go out to lunch with people, it's just different. It really is, and I think that is something that's missing. I do think companies could benefit from it. So I can see where he is getting at. I think he's, he really takes it to an extreme, making it a mandate

Pat: 24:23

Sure.

Alex: 24:23

kind of just completely doing a 360 in one day's time. I think maybe baby steps would be a little bit better.

Pat: 24:30

Yeah, that's what I said earlier. I feel like he's, I dunno, he, I feel like he's got some good ideas. He talks about Twitter 2.0, and, all that jazz. But it just feels like at some decisions he's kind of shooting from the hip. That kind of thing. Or like over the suspended accounts that, Twitter has suspended over the last however many years, for some of the controversial figures. And like, he's like, he put out a poll the other day was like, should, should there be amnesty for suspended accounts? And it was like a Twitter poll. And I'm like, wait, you're gonna base your, you're gonna base your decision on a Twitter poll that seems a little shoot from the Hippish, but like, and then of course, Actually bought Twitter and now he's got his, his hands in it and he's got it on the reins, then the, then all the people come outta the woodwork of how he's this and how he's that. And he is terrible and he is a slave driver and he is gonna make people work 80 hours a week and all this other, and I'm thinking to myself full, he's already running two other companies. He said he's owned multiple, but he's already running. He's currently running. That being SpaceX and Tesla and now he's got Twitter, he was with PayPal, that kind of thing. And you never heard any of that before this. So you have to wonder like, how much of this is Hyper Bowl and versus how much is it actually like, is he an actual. Slave driver, that kind of thing. So it's like, you have people, you have really smart people that work for SpaceX. You have really smart people that work for Tesla and do all this stuff, and you really don't hear any of that unless he's that good at keeping it under wraps. I don't know, maybe some sort of wizard that, I don't know. But it just seems odd that now you know, the bullets are flying when he's bought a major social media platform that people are accustomed to being the way it is. I don't know if that's the best way to put it,

Alex: 26:13

Yeah I feel like he, he deserves a bit benefit of the doubt. This isn't a guy who inherited money and decided to buy a social media platform cuz he was bored. I mean, this guy has started up companies. Time and time again to, massive success. So I kind of feel like, okay his means are a little unusual and extreme, but I'm gonna reserve my final say until I, I see a little bit. As of right now, I don't think he's done anything yet. That makes me feel like Twitter is in a terrible place and I don't think he's done anything. Yes. That makes me feel like he's some warmonger, which is what people are making him out to be. I mean, I think the last could have been handled better for sure. I mean, anyone that comes in and the first thing they do is lay off half the company. I would love to know more information about how those decisions were made. Cuz it seems like, man, that was done quickly. I mean, does he just go in and go to the director level guys and say, you gotta lay off half your reports get back to me with who's sticking around. would like to know that. Maybe we'll get more info on that as time comes and maybe there's some out there that I just haven't read yet, but I'm interested.

Pat: 27:35

Yeah, I'm interested to see what, how that goes and. For those of you that are sort of in, in tune to that, I guess, I don't know, Alex, you may edit this out depending on how this comes off, but Saturday night, the famous or infamous, no matter. Which I guess, which way you look at it, the Twitter files came out and it showed the links between certain political parties and suppressing of of info and favoritism and things of that nature. So think he's got a large task ahead of him trying to sort of clean some of that up. Just seems to me that, it just seems to me that Twitter was this Hyper bowl. Everyone talking into an echo chamber, and now Elon Musk is not the echo chamber, and now people are upset that, voices outside the regular echo chamber of Old Guard Twitter are now allowed to speak and be on the platform. And now everybody's trying to move to Macon, which I'm like I can't handle another social media account. This is bananas, I'm gonna stick with the ones I got.

Alex: 28:38

Yeah. Yeah. I don't envy his position. I, it's a tough situation to be in cuz he keeps talking about it. He wants a free speech platform and I don't, again, I don't want this to turn into overly political we'll move on from the topic soon, but the whole idea, if it's a free, where do you blur the line between free speech and. Unnecessary speech. And how do you filter that? If you wanna allow free speech, can you really have a platform that has no sensor?

Pat: 29:03

Right.

Alex: 29:04

I mean, can you really. Who determines what gets censored. I mean, seems like you gotta have a team then that's like politically diverse and, ah it's tough.

Pat: 29:16

It's a mess. It's an absolute mess.

Alex: 29:20

I

Pat: 29:21

Yeah. I don't. Necessarily think that, and of course, people wanna say, oh, well hate speech is not free speech. And it's like, well, okay, you're gonna say that. But then, like you said, Alex, who gets to decide what's free speech and what's not, like how do like, and again you, that's all down to. Discretion. Right? That's personal discretion. So if someone leans to the left or to the right, that's gonna have their bias come into the play of who's, who can, speak freely and who can't. So that I, yeah, I don't envy him at all. I think he's got a big job ahead of him.

Alex: 29:56

Should we block flat or block flat Earthers because they have a million followers.

Pat: 30:01

That's right. Right,

Alex: 30:03

Swift just comes out and says, oh, by the way, flat Earth

Pat: 30:06

That's right.

Alex: 30:07

What do we do

Pat: 30:08

Let me just say, speaking of Taylor Swift, let me just say that a couple weeks ago when she broke Ticketmaster, because they're her sales like. Literally she broke it out a Friday and on Monday or Tuesday she had the freaking Department of Justice looking into breaking up or breaking up Ticketmaster, like what kind of power do you gotta have to like to get the Fed to be like, you know what, this is too big a of a monopoly. Let's see if we could break this up like That's some Taylor Swift leverage right there, boy, Anyway, side note, but no I don't end to Elon, I do think is taking it in the right direction. I think some of his, I think some of his decisions and how he's sort of, of what he's made seem a little impulsive. I'm hoping.

Alex: 30:58

way to.

Pat: 31:00

I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks he can get a team around him that can sort of level him off a little. But that guy tweets constantly, like, he doesn't sleep, like, honestly, like you could literally roll through his Twitter file, Twitter profile and be like, you could read for hours. And it's just like, wow. All these tweets are three and a half minutes apart. holy god, this guy tweets a lot. So, no, I think, I do think he's taken in the right direction. I'm hoping he gets a team around and that levels off, that levels him off a little bit and see what what Twitter 2.0. Can be and people that don't agree with it or whatever, then you know, the, it's just the platforms, feel free to, you're free to not use the platform. It just is what it is and it's why people don't use Facebook. They don't use whatever parlor or whatever. It's just your freedom to do or not do. So. But you know, for me personally, I think the old guard Twitter was a little odd cuz I mean, you have to look. In this respect too, like Twitter was literally the town square, the public square. So you're gonna ban people from having a seat at the town square because you didn't agree with their ideologies. That just seems a little odd. let's put it that way. Seems a little odd and echo chamber ish. So we'll we'll leave it at that, but yeah we'll see what Elon does and. I do find it interesting that he fired all those people, and I guarantee you those people got in their Teslas and drove home like I

Alex: 32:30

How many fired Twitter employees drive Tesla's?

Pat: 32:34

I feel like that's a lu's, a little kick kicking the kicking the private parts, if you will, So it's interesting. So, now all that being said, to wrap it back into, How do you survive some of these layoffs? Like, do you know do you, some you see coming, some you really don't. Some aren't technically layoffs. They're more of like writings on the walls. And I'll give you my example. I have never been laid off from a job. I saw some writing on the wall that I left before. They got to me cause this management changes, but I, there technically wasn't a layoff. So, so how do you look for that? How do kinda a see it coming or at least feel it in the air versus, okay, it's in the air, it's in your face. What are you doing to stay sane about it? And what's what's some check mark list?

Alex: 33:25

So I guess we can start with how to see it coming. I guess it's pretty obvious the economy plays a big part in it. I mean, if we're getting ready to go into recession, I think you should probably consider it a possibility. Recession means people are spending less and then you can kind of make it an educated guess as to whether or not your company is going to be something that people can cut. If. the entertainment business, and it's something that people your money comes from people spending extra money and now they're gonna have less, extra money. Okay. Writing's on the wall. I think as an engineer it should be pretty obvious if, your workload's starting to get cut down a little bit. The huge red flag that I always see is you're working on a project. So for however long and then all of a sudden that project stops because there's no money for it anymore. Oh that's a scary one. I never like seeing that.

Pat: 34:25

a big one.

Alex: 34:26

someone leaves and then it'll get backfilled.

Pat: 34:30

Yep.

Alex: 34:30

I mean, that's another one. It's, and maybe there's some others that I haven't thought of yet. But you know, those are the big ones that I can think of. Anything else you wanna add to.

Pat: 34:43

I think those are the big ones, especially the money part with, you've been so focused on a project and all of a sudden the boss says, ah, hold off on that. You're like, oh,

Alex: 34:51

Or is like any way you could do this cheaper

Pat: 34:54

Yeah. Right, right, right. In, in in regards to the the World Cup that just went on, that's a red card right there,

Alex: 35:02

way you can optimize cost efficiency,

Pat: 35:06

that's right. Can you give me the Porsche performance on AO budget? Let's start with there. Hugo,

Alex: 35:13

we ever considered gray market

Pat: 35:15

Yeah. You're right.

Alex: 35:18

Do we really need maintenance support on this?

Pat: 35:21

Yeah. Right. How important is maintenance? You're an IT guy, right? Just figure it out. Oh, okay. I gotcha. I've been there. Yep, I've been there. If it plugs into a wall, it's responsible for it. You're like, Ooh. Actually, let's talk about that Oh yeah. Those are the big, those are the big ones. Yeah, it's just so interesting to me that there's, speaking of money there's never enough money to do it right the first time, but there's always enough money to do it twice. I've had that before where it's just god awful planning and it's just like, oh God, this is terrible. But no, the big projects are. Are a sound of, or I should say, are a a flyer of these. If these halts, kinda stay to yourself and look at that LinkedIn network you got going

Alex: 36:10

Yeah,

Pat: 36:11

what happens.

Alex: 36:12

I think there's, people have kind of a sixth sense for it too. I think you just feel it. Sometimes something's different. It's not the same.

Pat: 36:19

Right. Yeah. The boss starts acting different. He gets a sense. He's like, okay. yeah, that's an interesting one for sure. Yeah I would say in that aspect of being prepared, right? Again, you can kind of feel it in the air, but you should always be professionally up to date, I should say. Right? So that means LinkedIn, that means some sort of base resume, right? So you always try to tailor your resume to, to the job you're applying for, right? And then so you're, you should always have a base resume out there ready to go, and then you're just kind of filling in as you're applying to jobs. Putting buzzwords in there or, making it, tailoring it to that particular job you're applying for. Right. So that should always be done. And, again, LinkedIn is your friend your social network on LinkedIn is can be a very big asset to you on that. For sure. Being connected to those friends and associates and those friends of friends and the endless recruiters that seem to be out there on, on LinkedIn and, not knocking any of'em, but some of them just shoot something out there in the breeze and hope somebody, hope somebody sticks. And most times, and not, they don't. So we'll see what what happens. And, that being prepared, part of that comes with, your financial situation as well. Could could you live off? Could you live for the next, like you said, three months, six months, whatever it is, of, not having a job. Some people can't, some, especially in times like now where recession is the word that we don't wanna use and, inflation and all that stuff kind of play in havoc. Things are costing more and just be prepared that you. So you may have to, dip into that four or whatever, 401K or to pay those bills and, keep afloat. So that's part of being, prepared as well. I dunno if you had anything on that.

Alex: 37:59

Well, I'll go back a little bit on what you said cuz you mentioned about the writing being on the wall and in this case you kind of mentioned, reaching out to your network. I think even before you do that, You might wanna step back and kind of evaluate the situation. Cuz I think you can fall into one of three categories. Either you do like the job and you wanna ride the ship and you just wanna make sure if there is a cut, you're not part of it. Maybe you're on the second part, maybe you're just on the fence. And I think this is where maybe update your resume, maybe reach out to your network just to kind of get a feel and just. Maybe not actively interviewing, but you're you're looking for the right opportunity. If, like, if the perfect opportunity comes up, you're gonna listen. And that might be the first time you've done that in a while. And then the third one is the writing's on the wall. You have no interest in being with this company anymore, and that's where you have to be pretty aggressive. Brush up on your skill set, start actively interviewing. Going back to the first one, I think that's one that we probably skip over pretty quickly is if there are uncertain times, but you just, you love the company, you like what you do, and you just wanna stick it out, I think there's plenty that you can do there. These are situations where, I don't wanna call it a game, but maybe it is a little bit. This is where I think you gotta make your. Known a little bit. And that's not saying go out and

Pat: 39:36

Yeah.

Alex: 39:37

highlight every single thing you do, but I think you might wanna put a little bit more effort in kind of highlighting your worth. Maybe take the more visible projects, the things that people don't want to do. Maybe there's a bit more visibility into it. Take that look for problems cuz that's as simple as a guess. Your problem solvers stick around and maybe just look for. Problems that, are there, but no one's ever taken the time to go back and, rectify. And especially if they're slower times, maybe you have the time to do that now, but I think that's something that people, rather than just kind of curling up into a ball and then just making yourself a candidate to be cut, I think take the aggressive route and, try to, Prove to people why you should be there. And I think that's something that I'm not sure everyone does, and maybe that's not the first thing people think of when they're layoffs. I think they kind of jump to the, oh my, all right, let me start updating my resume when, Hey, if you like the job, you like the company, fight for it for a bit.

Pat: 40:41

Yeah.

Alex: 40:42

I think it's the advice I would give to some.

Pat: 40:45

Yeah, I would I would say that as well. I also would say, when layoffs are on the horizon and you sort of have multiple people feel it, or your coworkers feel it, right? Those relationships that you have with those coworkers can get ugly pretty quick. right? Especially when layoffs are around and it's sort of the cutthroat. Environment, who's gonna get cut or whatever. Or, people's stress level go through the roof because they are, at risk of getting cut. Right. So I would say, stay above that fray if you will. I would say, cause we go back to the office politics episode we had a couple months ago and trying to stay off, stay away. That office gossip session, if you will or negative conversations, things of that nature. Discussing the upcoming cuts is only gonna ramp up. Everyone's anxiety, with that. And so, the person you're talking smack about today, you might need a reference from tomorrow, right? So I would always try to temper on the side of just keep it professional. Y'all are in the same boat and lean on each other in the ways you can what can you both do for each other that that's a mutual benefit and kind of, kind of go from there. But I would also mimic what you said as far as, earning your keep sort of thing and, letting your bosses or boss, know about it, right? So, Doing the little things devils in the details, tho those sorts of sorts of things documentation, anything you can kind of do to, get your hands dirty and focus on the things that others, either A, didn't have time to or a b didn't want to. Focusing on those things and cuz more times than not, those are the things that get noticed when, the details come out in the wash and say, oh yeah, Alex did this or Pat did that. And, maybe he's he's good to keep around at least for this, at least for this round. And then, cuz it's a very round by round thing. I would think, right? So if you're, if you survive one round, it doesn't necessarily mean you're. You're gonna survive the next one. Right? So you have to take them in individual pieces. And Alex, you've been through a few of these, so I don't know if that, is that an accurate statement of, each round of layoffs, it's its own its own thing? Or are they loosely are they loosely junked together with? Okay, we're gonna let the, we're gonna let marketing go the first round, but engineering's the second round.

Alex: 42:56

Yeah, I've been through a few and they've all been so different. I don't know if I can really categorize it and say what's the norm? So I've been through my first IT job where just we were bought out and the entire IT staff was just replaced cuz we were oh hundred person shop replaced by 10,000 plus company. We, we were just replaced and then, At Evolve IP that had multiple rounds. And I don't even remember what the difference between the first and the second one is all I know is just being kind of floored by who was let go in the second round and just really not understanding what's next. And I think that's the part that got me to leave the first one, the first round of layoffs made a bit more sense to. So I kind of thought, okay, well this makes sense. These are people that weren't here long. These are people that were or were upper management and new management has gone in. So, it's just, that comes with the territory.

Pat: 43:55

Sure.

Alex: 43:55

But then, yeah, the second round was just people that, in my eyes, were the people that. Were, I kind of thought were untouchable, the people that I kind of built the company and knew where all the skeletons were. So when that happened that's when I just, I didn't quite understand it anymore. And because I didn't understand it, I couldn't convince myself I, that I wasn't gonna be part of round three if there was a round three. And that's kind of why I left. I don't know what normal. You said you haven't been through one, so I guess you can't get an update on

Pat: 44:31

No, I

Alex: 44:32

your experience been.

Pat: 44:33

Like I said, I just, not necessarily layoff, but I saw the writing on the wall where company brought in another big shot from across the pond and the guy from across the pond did not like my boss. The feeling was mutual. And then basically they gave my boss the ultimatum and saying, look, we're either gonna fire you or you walk away with diligence. And of course, the boss walked away with diligence. So once the boss was gone, and I figured. My team is not is not on the safest of places in the most solid ground. So I I got moving as well. So not necessarily a layoff as far as I go, it's coming, but it was more of a, I gotta get outta here before they get to me sort of deal. So I guess they have similarities, but they're not really in the same vein.

Alex: 45:18

Okay. Yeah. And then the final example I had with PlayStation is that was just the complete blindside, so that might be similar to the Twitter thing That was. And this is not to say anything negative about PlayStation. I still love the company. I really do. And in retrospect,

Pat: 45:37

I just plugged mine in like, like literally 10 minutes ago. It's been unplugged for months cuz I didn't have a place to play it. It's on the TV behind me. Damn right. I'm getting that new Call of Duty. Boy, let me tell you.

Alex: 45:47

Yeah. I just downloaded a new God of war, I

Pat: 45:51

There you go.

Alex: 45:51

that here shortly. But yeah, in that situation, like I said, I think maybe it was similar to the. Twitter situation, maybe not quite. Cuz I guess when that whole thing was going down, they thought that might happen. But we were so out of the loop with this coming that we were actually interviewing a person for my team the day that the entire team got laid off

Pat: 46:15

No kidding. Wow.

Alex: 46:17

So we were like, oh, So wasted some people's time in the last few weeks.

Pat: 46:25

Wow,

Alex: 46:26

And,

Pat: 46:27

Crazy.

Alex: 46:28

that was abrupt. It was very that morning we get a message saying, Hey, all hands on. Then a 32nd, you are no longer gonna be employed. And then an hour later we lose access to everything

Pat: 46:42

Yikes. Yeah.

Alex: 46:46

would prefer that to be.

Pat: 46:48

Oh yeah. Rip that bandaid off and get it

Alex: 46:50

Yeah, just it's like, oh, okay. That's good.

Pat: 46:53

Do that.

Alex: 46:55

yeah, and just let me know what my severance is and thanks for your time.

Pat: 46:59

That's it. Yeah, let me go cause I'm gonna look for jobs later this afternoon, That's how it goes. Yeah, so that was kind of it. I know we like, we kind of were all over the place, especially with the Twitter thing and the layoffs and, but we wanted to at least at least bring it to people's attention. It's not the, it's not the best topic, it's not the happiest topic, but it, I feel like we do, we did need to give it.

Alex: 47:21

Yeah, it's on everybody's mind.

Pat: 47:23

Yeah, it is. It just is what it is and where we're at right now as a country, as an economy, and it's bound to happen. So we figured we would try doing some justice and give our takes on it. So, do you have anything else, Alex, to wrap it up or?

Alex: 47:36

I guess I'll reiterate again, anyone who hasn't gone through this before, this isn't new. anyone again, who's part of oh eight and people that remember the.com. Boom and bust. This has happened before and it'll happen again. So yeah, just try to put yourself in the best position, grow some tough skin, and if you're unfortunate enough to be part of these layoffs, hopefully you glean something from this and can take something from it.

Pat: 48:11

Set. Yep, that's it. So, we are gonna get outta here, but before we do, I want to mention this time of year one of my favorite websites. Not that I get to do it a whole lot, but I think it's a really cool concept. tryhackme.com has their 25 days of. Christmas hackathon going on right now. So, you hack, you do a lesson every day and it enters you for prizes and things of that nature. So if you are a cybersecurity folk that Is trying to break in or just looking to grow your skills. tryhackme.com. It's got their their Christmas 25 days hackathon going on right now that you can really compete for some cool prizes out there. So I figured I would throw that out there to everybody. The only thing I want to throw out there is a pat on the back to Alex Kyle and I. Pat myself on the back, and you guys do the same. We've reached, we've officially reached 5,000, listens, 5,000 downloads for the show, and we started last September, labor Day last year. And we missed a couple of episodes due to Second kid of mine coming in March. And we missed a couple of last couple of weeks to get some schedule stuff. So, some schedule differences, but we've been pretty consistent over the year and we hit 5,000 downloads or 5,000 listens. So we appreciate everybody who's ever listened, who's ever taken the time to share the show and tell your friends about us. And we appreciate everybody and we hope we, you find some value in this show. And we enjoy. And we've met some great people doing this show, some of their great content creators that that you know, we're gonna have on the show coming up shortly here as we get schedules ironed out here. But now we want to take a minute and say, thanks everybody for for the 5,000 lists. I think that's a great number and we're looking for, looking forward to the next 5,000. So well done.

Alex: 49:53

good.

Pat: 49:54

Yeah. Other than that, we'll get outta here. Again, thank you for joining us this week on the new episode of Breaking Down the Bites. Again, our website's out there, breaking Bites, pod.io. You can subscribe to the show on your platform or choice. Up there, there's a subscribe button and it brings you to all kinds of links. So whatever show or whatever platform you listen on, we are there. Throw us a rating on iTunes. That's where most of our listens come in from. So you're already there. You might as well throw us a rating. That would be awesome. Again, tell a friend about the show. That would help us out too. Word of mouth is great. Follow us on again, Twitter Instagram, Facebook discord servers out there in all that stuff is in the show notes. And we also have the survey that's out there as well. So right around Christmas time through the new year. We like to have the survey thrown out there again to see what you guys like and don't like about the show. And it's completely anonymous, so we don't collect any info or anything like that. It is completely anonymous, so just, it just aggregates answers for us. And just a couple of questions. I think there's like nine or 10 multiple choice questions here. So, go fill that out. That helps us with the show and really know in our audience. So, we appreciate. And again, that show, the link is in the show notes as well. So Alex, it's been great. Always fun time talking and we'll see everybody next week.

Alex: 51:06

All right. Talk to you then.

Pat: 51:08

See ya.