171 points

At-will state fantasies

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78 points

Exactly this. If you don’t want me to quit without notice, do you also vote against politicians who vote for “right-to-work” legislation?

Yeah, you don’t get to write a fucking law that says you can fire me on the spot for any reason at all and then insist that I give you two weeks.

Besides, these days it’s a different world - there’s a labor shortage. A serious one. Warm body? You’re hired. Nobody gives a fuck. They can’t afford to. Especially in minimum wage.

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31 points

Unless you’re in IT, apparently? Idk.

Relatedly, my conspiracy theory is that the spate of recent layoffs are coordinated pushback against all the strikes and unionizing as well as pushback against RTO etc. Just a wild idea I had… May be total horseshit, idk.

On the other hand, we have seen collusion in the past within some sectors (e.g., price fixing, no poach agreements, wage fixing), and antitrust violations often go unpunished or weakly penalized, corporate leadership is strongly driven by profit often to the exclusion of ethics and at the expense of all else. And employee compensation is a significant part of most company budgets. So, I think my wild idea is at least somewhat plausible.

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12 points

Unless you’re in IT, apparently? Idk

As someone from IT, there isn’t really a shortage. There are literal crowds of quite advanced developers searching for jobs. The only problem is that they don’t have commercial experience and all companies only want seniors/teamleads/cto’s with 10+ years of experience, to do at best middle-level developer’s jobs. The shortage is artificial, but, I’m not complaining, as it’s the only reason I get paid decent wage.

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11 points

It’s my fault. I finally got so fed up with blue collar stuff that I decided to start getting into the tech field, then pretty much immediately it all collapsed. Sorry for trying lol

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3 points

That’s not a wild conspiracy, that’s just how capitalism works? There is always collusion between capitalists to suppress labour power. Like we have repeated historical exemples of this. And yeah, through the same historical examples, get ready for the rise of fascism lol

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2 points
*

I think the layoffs in IT are directly related to AI. I’m in IT and I have been for decades. With AI I can easily say my output has quadrupled. Maybe even more. But when everybody in your workforce can do the work of five people, you can wake up one day and realize your company is overwhelmed with redundancy.

This isn’t going to remain limited to just IT and no, it’s not just like the Industrial Revolution.

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2 points

IT as a whole isn’t having a problem, just the developer segment of IT is getting canned because 7/10 people who went into “IT” in the past 20 years got pulled into development work and now there’s too many. IT is a huge sector, development is just a part of it, a part everyone went into because Silicon Valley was paying a ton of $ but not guaranteed stability

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126 points

While I doubt this actually happened, I’m still disturbed by everyone cheering it on absent any context that would make OP not look like a petulant child.

Quitting without notice doesn’t require justification, fuck the bosses, whatever.

But for all we know, this manager had bent over backwards to stand up for their employees, or cover for them. Maybe this employee took advantage of that and was miserable to his coworkers. Those are just as likely as anything else, given that no further information was provided.

At least invent a backstory how this manager was dogshit or abusive, or the company was awful. Make us want to believe that you’re not just someone with a persecution complex who’s quick to anger and lash out.

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The manager is an agent of the company, the default assumption is that they have the company’s interests ahead of the workers.

Individually, your experience may vary.

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4 points

It is sad this is the defacto situation now, but it shouldn’t be that way. Managers should be there in interest of employees, to keep them on board, happy, and able to do their job efficiently… The company can’t run without workers. Too many companies have forgotten that. A manager should be a buffer between the employees and the “corporate machine” (or better yet get rid of the corporate machine, but ya know…).

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8 points

Can’t derive an is from an ought, idiot

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7 points

Maybe MY experience is limited, but what manager these days isn’t pulling double duty? They do 3/4 of the job time with duties no different than the people under them, and also have to do all the managing part when possible. This is how it’s been in the public service, retail, and customer service jobs I’ve worked.

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32 points
*

I’d be more inclined to see your point, except that the manager in question said “each job requires 2 weeks notice” like he was indignant that he didn’t get something he deserved.

That’s not only not true at all, it’s active manipulation on their part in a hail Mary attempt to have their work covered for enough time to look for another employee.

It may be unprofessional to quit without notice, but it’s really unprofessional to present the act of quitting as requiring 2 weeks’ notice, particularly in a place that might also allow the employer to fire someone for any reason at any time with no notice.

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7 points

it’s really unprofessional to present the act of quitting as requiring 2 weeks’ notice

If it’s part of the contract then it’s not unprofessional at all to bring up the terms that you’ve agreed on. My job requires a month’s notice and it wouldn’t be unprofessional for my employer to bring that up if I tried to quit on the spot.

That being said, I don’t live in a place with “at-will employment”, which is a fucking travesty and should never have been allowed in the first place.

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16 points

I’m not from the US but I always assumed “at-will employment” works both ways. You’re telling me it doesn’t?

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1 point

Mine tend to ball out to a month’s notice (on either side) for every year employed at the company…but i do business critical shit. I do not get the impression this is what is in the text conversation depicted.

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29 points

I have a very nuanced take that involves licking boots nuancedly

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3 points

Pointing out the lack of context and the tantrum like behavior isn’t nuance. The fact that you think otherwise makes me concerned for your ability to safely cross the street.

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20 points

If you see this and your immediate reaction is to chastise some hypothetical tantrum then you might just be a bootlicker. At least own up to it instead of deflecting with arrogant ableism

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16 points

Tantrum behavior like doing mass layoffs in response to a labor strike, a la UPS?

Of course. When workers stand up for their rational self interest, it’s a tantrum. When bosses retaliate en masse against workers standing up for their rational self interest, that’s just business 101.

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lick that funky toe mold, white boy

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6 points

Silence, nerd

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4 points

U NO AGREE WITH ME THAT MAKE YOU STOOPID punches wall and cries

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1 point

It’s not licking boots to acknowledge that managers are people.

Every evil organization in history has had good people working for it. You hating them is yet another way the “above” people divide the “lower” people.

That being said, absolutely assume the manager is on the side of the company. This is a meme, we can’t even prove if this shit is real. Fuck the company.

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-7 points
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I just like the taste, ok? Same with cocaine, I just like how it smells. Got any coke? Or boots?

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15 points

I’m curious about the relationship to managers in different industries. Fast food compared to programming. Warehouse/stacking managers have always treated the workers like idiots where I’ve been at. IT support depended on the company. Mail sorting was pretty chill as long as the work got done.

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15 points

Thank god you’re here, I was tossing and turning in bed at the thought that nobody was considering the feelings of the poor managers!

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15 points

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2 points

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5 points

removed externally hosted image

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11 points
  1. It’s a meme, all that backstory wouldn’t fit
  2. You’re saying it’s silly to assume/make up the backstory of the employee, yet you dedicated a whole paragraph making up a backstory for the boss
  3. It’s a meme my guy, in a community titled Lefty Memes, what do you expect?
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5 points

Hey, fuck you… just kidding.

TBH I just clicked on this when scrolling All and didn’t even notice what community it was until well into my comment taking off with replies.

The conversation evolved, and devolved, from there. Not much to do about it now.

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3 points

Hey, fuck you too. Just kidding, have a great day

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10 points

If you doubt this actually happened clearly you’ve never worked in customer service/ food service

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12 points

I’ve spent my life in customer service/retail sales/food service and I doubt this actually happened.

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-3 points

All 2 years of it I see, my man you gotta open your eyes then. The amount of pettiness in that industry is insane. Your ignorance of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist

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10 points
*

How many Lemmy users do you think have never worked retail customer facing jobs, or food service? I’m betting it’s a minority, but I could be wrong.

Either way, whatever internal compass you use to determine another user’s job history needs some tuning because I’ve worked in plenty of service industry jobs.

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3 points

Y’all are pretty tech savvy around here. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out that the majority of Lemmy users skipped the retail/CS/hospitality jobs in favor of entry level IT/ tech jobs.

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1 point
*

I’m guessing this has more to do with the US, than the particular profession.

I’m so used to workers rights, that getting a glimpse into how things are over there feels dystopian. Laws everyone would want, and benefitting everyone, except perhaps exploitative businesses, are “controversial”.

It’s very difficult to even fire someone here, and even if you did, 3 months to find something else is the norm. More often than not, you’d also be paid without doing much work during that time. If you resign, the company also has 3 months to figure something out.

Why… Would you not want that kind of predictability be the norm? It’s not a net benefit to be able to resign or be fired on the spot. The only way that makes any sense is to just focus on one of the sides, at the convenient time. Bleh.

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1 point

why would you not want that kind of predictability to be the norm?

You say this like this is most people’s choice

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7 points
*

Tell me your dad left you his RV dealership and you never had a job before that without telling me

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2 points

Amazing. You’re really something special. Have you tried staring at goats?

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5 points

no

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6 points

Very fun “both sides” argument about a potentially billion dollar company ;)

It appears lemmy.world and the midwest has found us.

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3 points

federation was a mistake folks

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2 points

Hog out or log out.

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-1 points

Nah. Fuck em. If they were a decent manager they’d thank them for the notice they did get because they know that many managers punish people for giving notice.

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-6 points

No. The managers speaking on behalf of the company, and the company can fuck itself.

All companies can fuck themselves.

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-13 points

I’d say the reply from the boss is enough to justify that response. The boss is chiding him for not putting in a 2 weeks notice, calling him unprofessional. From this one interaction you can make a pretty good assumption as to the quality of the boss. The only proper response to someone quitting is either a counter offer or a farewell, not a guilt trip.

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31 points

Not really… It is unprofessional. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily wrong, just that it’s not always unreasonable for a manager to point that out. Again, we lack any other context for the situation.

I would add, that he also followed it up with a good luck and didn’t drag it out. So, based off what limited evidence we have available, he seems like the more reasonable person in this situation.

Have you never had a good manager and a bad coworker?

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-5 points

Not really… It is unprofessional.

When companies firing people for base reasons, i.e. reaching quarterly targets, is also universally seen as unprofessional and shunned as such, we can talk again. Until then, they deserve exactly as much courtesy as they are willing to give.

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-6 points

Sorry, how is it unprofessional? Who set that standard? What is it there for?

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24 points

It is unprofessional though. And that boss was not really being a dick.

Now this person has to go call the staff to find someone to fill shifts last minute, which everyone hates.

Unless your relationship with your boss is absolutely awful, it’s not hard to give notice.

The “you’re lucky you even got a text” really looks like the employee is toxic.

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14 points

A good rule of thumb is to never, ever burn bridges with past managers. Keep your dignity and remain professional. You never know when you’ll need them as a reference.

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14 points

Fuckin managers will fire you with 0 notice, but that’s life and “at will employment”. You fire the business and you have to give 2 weeks because business run “lean” and “at will” is only supposed to be used by the business.

Well, there’s risk and reward in business, and more risk in running lean. Managers can always structure their departments to not be impacted by an inopportune departure. After all, people can get hit by a bus leaving their house in the morning.

Hell, if an employee is that critical, maybe they should be put under an employment contract with set terms and compensation agreement. You know, like most directors have.

But we all know these things will never happen.

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16 points

Saying you did something unprofessional is a guilt trip?

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4 points

It is to the kids on lemmy.

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0 points
Deleted by creator
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3 points

Dunno why you’re getting blasted, you’re right. What good is chastising the employee at that stage going to do if it isn’t meant as a guilt trip? Does anyone really think the manager had his best interest in mind and is trying to look out for his future? Or is it more likely he is trying to keep shifts covered for 2 more weeks so productivity doesn’t completely tank? I’d be completely okay with a simple “ok” or thumbs up emoji compared to a lecture.

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3 points

Pretty much this. The manager, from one text, comes across as a holier than thou, “think of your coworkers!! We’re family!!” Kind of person. One text can reveal that much. The “good luck” doesn’t come across as sincere, since it follows that whining. Dude wants shifts covered for 2 weeks, he can hire someone else, do it himself , or fix whatever problems (probably money) made the person leave in the first place. Or they’re a middle manager and get off on being overly focused on the “rules”. Or he’s just a low end shift manager, in which case why lick the boot that hard my dude?

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3 points

I feel like this is absolutely an appropriate response. A really shitty boss would sue or fire them for cause. Chiding them is pretty dang tame.

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6 points

You can’t (successfully) sue someone for quitting and you can’t fire them when they have already quit.

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They deserve exactly the same notice they give when they axe thousands of jobs, Zero. Fuck the bosses.

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20 points

Well, laws can change that. So instead of fucking bosses, fuck workers protection laws.

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3 points

It’s also a shame that holding ourselves to bare minimum of laws is acceptable. Laws should not have to equal moral contracts for people to have moral contracts…

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93 points

If they’ll fire us with no notice, we should quit with no notice.

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31 points

The only reason to give notice is if there are benefits to giving notice, like having banked PTO paid out or something (if you’re in a state where it’s not required to be paid out). Otherwise, absolutely call the morning of and let them know you quit.

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32 points

That may not be the best advice. Depends on your industry, but burning a bridge so quickly may hurt you in the future. I’ve had former coworkers and other managers help me get my foot in the door for another job.

Besides, there’s something cathartic about knowing the end is right there and still getting paid for it.

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12 points

Yea, I should have been explicit for the caveat being that it’s not a job you need as a reference or anything. If you’re in retail, they don’t give a shit about past jobs, just that you’re a body now. If your current retail gig is toxic, that’s when to pull this shit out.

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3 points

If you work in IT it’s even more fun as they slowly cut off your access, hoping you don’t notice haha.

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3 points

Sure, but that’s on a case basis. If it makes sense then do that. But all these people in here saying you can’t do it because it’s unprofessional are ridiculous. Was it unprofessional for the boss to just schedule someone for zero hours?

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8 points

Take the notice period required when quitting and mandate they pay you that much extra when they fire you.

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-3 points

Depending on the job, that can be pretty fucked up for the people you work with. Your co-workers often deserve some consideration too. If you’re doing something that doesn’t require knowledge transfer, then whatever, but if you have specific and complex knowledge of systems that you need to transfer to other people who will be responsible for maintaining them in your absence, it’s pretty messed up to just dump that shit in their lap.

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9 points

That is just a sign of poor management in general. If an employee quitting causes that much disruption, there is usual a direct correlation with poor practices.

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8 points

Your co-workers often deserve some consideration too.

If they don’t like it, they should unionize.

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6 points

Unionization doesn’t magically allow everyone to know everything about what happens at your place of work.

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4 points

Sounds like management’s problem if they didn’t require you to document your job for the next person.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor

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6 points

Having some documents isn’t the same as having a knowledge transfer session.

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91 points

No notice for 20,000 layoffs? Oops, 2 weeks from… uh, 2 weeks ago.

The key is to dip after changing the password on the vital database they decided one person was enough to manage ;)

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29 points

In the US there is no notice period for firing in “at-will” states (which is all except Montana). It goes both directions though, there is no notice period when quitting. So chances are, if the OP is in the US, the boss was full of it.

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23 points

Believe it or not, nobody can make you work if you said you’re done.

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6 points

Well, they can but that particular employment method was abolished in the US (though not made illegal, which is an interesting distinction that definitely hasn’t ever been abused before) with an obvious (to the people who made it) exception for prisoners.

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6 points

US military has entered the chat

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2 points

Depends on the country. Here in the Netherlands you usually have a 1 month notice period. This is the default, you can put a different notice period in the employment contract but it’s not common. Regardless, the notice period for the employer is always double that of the employee.

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9 points

It can be unprofessional without being illegal.

2 weeks notice is a pretty much universal standard when quitting. Layoffs usually gives with severance pay, so unless you pay severance to the employer when quitting, giving a courtesy of possible doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.

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14 points

But severance pay is almost always part of consideration in a “you can’t sue us” contract. So the company is not just giving you pay in lieu of notice, they’re buying your rights away.

I’ve also seen plenty of corporations that punish you when you give two weeks notice by immediately barring you from working and you end up losing two weeks pay by planning on being considerate.

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14 points

It’s as professional as no notice layoffs are. It’s a two way street.

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7 points

Layoffs for in-demand careers might offer severance pay, but most layoffs offer nothing other than a heart felt “fuck you”.

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While this is very funny folks just be aware you can be sued for sabotage

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3 points

It’s just my silly brain thoughhh :(

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9 points
*

Honestly if you’re the one person maintaining a system you don’t even have to sabotage, just the act of leaving itself is sabotage, and that you most definitely cannot be sued for

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5 points
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The key is to dip after changing the password on the vital database they decided one person was enough to manage ;)

Pretty sure this kind of sabotage can expose one to legal consequences

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2 points

It’s just my silly brain thoughhhh.

The password was like at least 8 characters and nobody wrote it down for me :(

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Lefty Memes

!leftymemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the “ML” influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.

Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.

If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.

Please don’t forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, upvoting good contributions and downvoting those of low-quality!

Rules

0. Only post socialist memes That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)

1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven’t considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.

2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such, as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the “anti-USA” flavor.

3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries. That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of “Marxist”-“Leninists” seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML’s are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don’t just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).

4. No Bigotry. The only dangerous minority is the rich.

5. Don’t demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals. We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.

6. Don’t idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals. Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people’s/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.

7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)

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