Layoffs with Zero Empathy — a true story

Layoffs are pure shit to begin with. Doing a layoff without any empathy for those affected is despicable…

January/February 2009 — you can look at my LI profile to see the company it was with at that time… I was asked in our 1 on 1 by my direct manager (the VP — Engineering) for a list of resources (engineers and QA) who I would keep and who I would let go.

I was the Scrum Master — certainly not anyone who had any authority over any people, just a shepherd tending to the process. This request came out of left field for me, since up to that very moment I was told I had zero authority and not to believe that would change in the future.

My manager and I had a very contentious relationship — he told me flat out in my interview with him the previous August that he wouldn’t hire me, or even be talking to me except that everyone else in the interview loop had such positive things to say on review that it would look bad if he didn’t take that time. I was essentially forced on him by group consensus.

So given the constraints to use to make this list, I went off and put together three different scenarios covering all four teams in the Software Development area. Did not discuss anything with anyone else, since given all the layoffs that started happening, including that Microsoft had just announced their first…