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Yahoo Called Its Layoffs a "Remix." Don't Do That.
Nerval's Lobster writes: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, in a conference call with reporters and analysts, referred to the net layoffs of 1,100 employees in the first quarter of 2015 as part of a 'remixing' of the company. A 'remix' is a term most often applied to songs, although it's also appropriate to use in the context of photographs, films, and artwork. CEOs rarely use it to describe something as momentous as a major enterprise's transition, especially if said transition involves layoffs of longtime employees, because it could potentially appear flippant to observers. If you run your own shop (no matter how large), it always pays to choose words as carefully as possible when referring to anything that affects your employees' lives and careers. Despite a renewed focus on mobile and an influx of skilled developers and engineers, Yahoo still struggles to define its place on the modern tech scene; that struggle is no more evident than in the company's most recent quarterly results, which included rising costs, reduced net income, and layoffs.
You get an extra 10%/month if you've been remixed instead of merely laid off! Yahoo!!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Because male CEOs never use stupid euphemisms for layoffs.
It's just a euphemism. I remember working for a company that started embracing offshoring, which they called "right-shoring." Layoffs were called "right-sizing." And the executives were called "cunts." Amazing how just a little "word-smithing" can make things sound better than they really are, huh?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
But....but....but all my SJW friends said she would rejuvenate the company with her Super Vagina.
Are you sure they didn't say she would "remix" the company instead?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
You're right.
This line from the article says it all and it's got nothing to do with race or gender:
If you run your own shop (no matter how large), it always pays to choose words as carefully as possible when referring to anything that affects your employees' lives and careers
And Google is whistling "Under My Thumb" all the way to the bank.
I wonder if she's still lobbying for more H1B's to fill all those piles of unfilled jobs that Yahoo supposedly has.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Don't present a corporate restructuring (including layoffs) like a kick starter campaign.
You sure we shouldn't be suggesting that companies use Kickstarter in order to avoid layoffs?
We've seen some pretty insane shut-up-and-take-my-money ventures, like the one where man is hungry and needs 10 bucks to make potato salad. What does Kickstarter net him for potato salad? $55,000.
And Walmart is laying off people because of "plumbing issues". Yeah, right.
The employees are being flushed. Seems clear and direct enough.
Would be amusing to see what would happen if every Walmart in America tried to unionize. They can't all experience plumbing issues, because there'd be nothing left except some confused buyers and warehouse staff. Oh, and a few hundred thousand shipping containers filled to the brim with Dora the Explorer dolls and Hello Kitty t-shirts.
I think your sarcasm just flew right past me. She's no captain... unless you're thinking that Costa Concordia's Chicken of the Sea from a few years back (hot damn, never thought I do quote F_x News). I am waiting for an adventuresome CEO to phrase this type of affair as a bad case of diarrhea...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
divorce and adultery.
I wonder what is coming next, hiring good 'ol Carly Fiorina as "Chief Vision Officer" or something like that? I'm sure that'd improve morale greatly. That worked out so well for HP. (Not that their subsequent two CEO's were much of an improvement...)
Where do CEO's learn to talk like this? Weren't they ever front-line employees who rolled their eyes at the exec-speak? (Judging from the breathless and sycophantic comments I see posted on my company's intranet to every word from our Fearless Leaders, I'd say no.)
I really don't see what the fuss is about. I have a lot of empathy for people who lost their jobs but software -- especially if you have Yahoo on your resume -- is a booming industry and there are plenty of jobs out there. I honestly can't muster too much sympathy for software developers who are unemployed right now.
That being said, Yahoo did need a "remixing" and whatever word you use to describe it is rather unimportant. I don't see why that was a point of focus in the story. Companies aren't around to just give people jobs for the sake of giving them jobs. If these people weren't important to the eventual strategy and success of Yahoo well...they should go, or be "remixed" or "downsized" or whatever.
>> influx of skilled developers and engineers, Yahoo still struggles to define its place on the modern tech scene
If it helps put it in context, I recently left a Midwestern tech job and advertised a yahoo email address (rather than one that would have highlighted my moonlighting - ahem) for people who wanted to stay in touch. The number of people who showed up on Twitter to give me shit for still having a Yahoo address was telling.
...since apparently common sense, intelligence, sensitivity and interpersonal skills are not prerequisites for being a CEO of a global company anymore.
Kinda makes me wonder what relevant skills she actually does have.
CEOs like to use special language because they are all sociopaths and have trouble with the truth.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Serious question: what does Yahoo! do that earns them money? I honestly can't name anything off the top of my head.
She's got a serious set of sociopath eyes.
I have some suggestions for additional terminology. An unprofitable quarter (so in other words, all of them) could just be called "dippin'" Then accidentally serving up crytowall malware through their ad network could be "trippin'" and buying out a company that they think is hot and turns out to be a complete nosedive could be called...um...not really sure on that one but Marissa Mayer is a freaking idiot. Maybe they could call it that. Call it a "Marissa Mayer" when someone royally screws up and loses a ton of money.
It was probably suggest by HR, which we all know is populated by people of undetermined gender and questionable intelligence.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
A company's one thing. Just be thankful there's no chance of one running the country.
Hang on a minute...
No, hang on another minute...
Shit, gimme a beer.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Questionable? The only question is if they can tie their own shoes or if someone does it for them.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Sounds like "we are finished fucking you". Hmm. Appropriate.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Replacing tech workers with H1bs is apparently under investigation. I am confident that it will not stop that program. More likely to be effective is to show companies that their new, cheap H1bs are prone to transfer company IP to competitors.
"This is the last time we'll fuck you, but you'll remember the pain for a long time."
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Drop the sensitivity, and just start looking for the next gig.
I believe that should be "Drop a beat! There is always the next Gig."
My question is who is remixing Yahoo?
Yahoo lost their edge years ago when they failed to see the obvious and tried to out do Google. They missed so badly, it's not funny anymore. If they had a chief executive with a little sense and a lot more than just 'how do I look' in mind, perhaps they could get a unified vision in place and move forward as a company. That will not happen. They missed it completely, and like their fellow hangers-on at AOL, who never completed the transition to broadband well, they will soon be a name in tech's musty dustbin of history before the decade is out. The only thing that people wonder about Yahoo these days is when they will sell out and who to. They are dwarfed in the ad market by many other familiar sites, so what are they hanging around for? Not even the slightest attempt to refine any of their own software (perfect example, Yahoo Messenger) in years, so what are they really doing over there in the bay area anyway? This is the problem that has no direct answer. As to the actual 'remix', it seems like a line straight out of GTA Vice City. We went in a different direction... Yeah, a cheap direction.
I get the idea that Yahoo isn't actually turning around. They're doing worse and they're going to continue to do worse and they will need to continue to lay off.
AOL had this thing in 2010 when that other Google person became CEO there where they were planning to just have one big layoff so that they could get on with life. That would have worked, if they hadn't kept fundamentally sucking ass.
"Yahoo still struggles to define its place on the modern tech scene...." Maybe, just maybe, Yahoo has no place, and investors would be better served if the company was liquidated and their money returned.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
We juss gettin' dis corporate remix started, y'all. Lemme bring out mah cronies, homies. 50 cent ain't got nuttin' on these 1 percenters. Give it up for Dr. Downsize and Lady Off. Yeah...both down with OPP! Foshizzle my nepotizzle.
We remixin' all night. My posse is packin' pink slips and escorts off da premizez. Any clockpuncher here past midnight is half off...da payroll.
To her credit, when the employees complained about them being stack ranked at a general meeting (i.e. they vote who is the worse in every team and then fire them), she categorically denied it was stack ranking with no explanations and then proceeded to read a children's book to everyone. That showed a lot of respect to...
No wait...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Seriously, how is Yahoo still a thing, anyway? The last time they were actually useful was in the '90's!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A company's one thing. Just be thankful there's no chance of one running the country.
Hang on a minute...
No, hang on another minute...
Shit, gimme a beer.
So far, the alternatives are a garden gnome from Canada, I mean, Texas, an ophthalmologist that can't spell "education" from Kentucky, or a really thirsty Floridian.
(That beer is looking mighty refreshing...)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It's like beer, some of it goes in the cup ready to be consumed. But then there's the head that just foams up and gets swiped off.
Must feel good the next morning, wife walks in "How do you feel, beer ejecta? Ready for unemployment?" "Yahoo!"
12 years into my career and I've never been fired it laid off. Maybe you need to rethink how good you think you are?
If you never fail, you aren't trying ambitious enough projects, or you're sandbagging. If you're not occasionally pissing off managers, you're not doing your job as a senior engineer. Sometimes you get a petty manager who only wants minions and finds an excuse to remove you. *shrug* If you're good, you move to a better job.
I do interesting project the right way, and I target aggressive schedules. I tell managers when they're full of shit. If that's not right for a company, I'll be leaving eventually, one way or another. Why work at a crap company?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Employees as chattle.
I think calling it a "remix" is reasonable in this case. The idea is Marissa wants to get rid of some of the people hired under the previous CEO and replace it with much more talented people. Abuse of the term is still bad of course.
Insensitive? - IBM saw the dotcom bust coming, they knew layoffs would follow so they forced all the workers to watch a video called "who moved my cheese".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's just a euphemism. I remember working for a company that started embracing offshoring, which they called "right-shoring."
It would be really funny for such terms to evolve into unwittingly offensive terms, like "Economic Colonialism", or "Nerd Trafficking".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We like to frame that as: your new, cheap H1Bs are prone to transfer your competitors' IP to you!
Vote Sam Adams?
Rip. Mix. Burn.
Not a mashup, that leaves you with something more.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
I see a pattern here. I used to be a frequent user of Flickr, paying Pro account, using it as a primary photo storage and such. After a wave of arrogant, user-hostile redesigns, I have noticed that many of my contacts stopped to come and finally after - as we could label it now - a repulsive "UI remix" two years ago, I too stopped coming. So big congratulations to MM - laying off the customers is quite a feat!
Time to remix my search engines and never use Yahoo! (or affiliated products) again. After reading "When Google Met Wikileaks" by Assange, I will add google to that mix.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Quite the opposite. I have quite a comfortable level of retirement savings, and while I can't actually retire just yet, I'll have no stress if I don't have a job for a few months (which would be unlikely as about 2 recruiters a week ping me, as my resume now has many interesting projects that actually shipped). After your first 10 years or so, the only way to stand out is to point to particularly good stuff you've delivered, so if you're not going to get a new cool project out of a year's work, you're just treading water.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Your view on this is quite absurd. No-one should get fired for occasionally "pissing off" a manager or trying an ambitious project. If you get fired over this, and find that acceptable, I suggest you look up the definition of Stockholm Syndrome.
I remember seeing the book, and then later some spoofs came out.
The spoofs were more educational.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Marissa is cold as a stone. She lacks feelings and human emotions. She is a fem bot.
Wrong. Correct choice is to vote for Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.
Thomson did this to staff just before the Reuters merger too.
She was a female Republican CEO. Seeing as her competition is Hillary Clinton, obviously some people think that if there is going to be a female president, it should at least be a Republican.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
12 years you say. So, right after millions lost their jobs when the Dot Com bubble burst. You graduated and found a job that hasn't disappeared. Bully for you.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Am I right in thinking it was Yahoo who spearheaded the mealy-mouthed use of sunset to mean terminate?
On Web 2.0, nothing is ever cancelled, closed, or shut-down. Only ever sunsetted.
...when executives use euphemisms like "right-sizing." (I have never heard of a company that "right-sized" by hiring more employees). Even "layoff" is a euphemism because a "layoff" means a temporary suspension. "We'll have to let you go" means that you want to leave and they are reluctantly but graciously acceding to your wishes.
They may be trying to make themselves feel more comfortable by pretending they aren't doing something hurtful to their employees.
As for how it makes employees feel, I wish I could find the origin of a wonderful quotation... but someone, possibly W. Somerset Maugham, once said "Don't hand me a turd and tell me it's a profiterole" (creampuff).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
12 years into my career and I've never been fired it laid off. Maybe you need to rethink how good you think you are?
If you never fail, you aren't trying ambitious enough projects, or you're sandbagging. If you're not occasionally pissing off managers, you're not doing your job as a senior engineer. Sometimes you get a petty manager who only wants minions and finds an excuse to remove you. *shrug* If you're good, you move to a better job.
I do interesting project the right way, and I target aggressive schedules. I tell managers when they're full of shit. If that's not right for a company, I'll be leaving eventually, one way or another. Why work at a crap company?
As is usual on slashdot, you are generalising from your own situation.
The truth is that, for most people, a job is just something that lets you eat and pay your bills, and the concept of "interesting" is just a handy bonus rather than a necessity.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Technically, you can't hire someone to directly replace a laid off worker for some period of time. What you have to do is shuffle the org so that your existing employees don't have the right "skill mix" for the way the company will operate in the future. Then you hire the H1B's whose resumes exactly match the posting (miraculously). Whether the new org sticks or not isn't important.
Or you could vote for a former doctor who is willing to get arrested supporting her cause, who is anti-war, pro-pot, pro-environment, and not in the pockets of a single corporation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Stein
http://gawker.com/5987043/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-installed-a-nursery-in-her-office
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
If we're lucky, we might be able to get her vote count into three digits!
slip-ons
Cheap storage VM.
and now the photos only show 2 members instead of 10
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
So far, the alternatives are a garden gnome from Canada, I mean, Texas, an ophthalmologist that can't spell "education" from Kentucky, or a really thirsty Floridian.
And they are all looking better than Hillary.
zing, wish I had a mod point.
Cheap storage VM.
"Limited Restructuring"
but what does Yahoo even *do* these days? I don't remember using a Yahoo product since...Middle school?
"She received 456,169 votes for 0.36% in the election, making her the most successful female presidential candidate in U.S. history."
And her name is easy to spell when you write it in.
Until the Republicans stop their anti-science, party of stupid and mean rhetoric, no thinking person should take them seriously. And certainly don't vote for them! Anyone, even Hillary, is better than them. I'm not saying they don't have their points, or that the Democrats don't have big problems of their own, but they've really screwed up in recent decades.
The War of Choice was one of the stupidest and meanest actions performed in decades. We haven't done anything that dumb since Vietnam. Cost a great deal of lives, and cost us a lot of money and credibility. Their thinking that Iraq would happily turn into a prosperous democracy as soon as Saddam was gone, was shown to be a particularly naive fantasy. For that alone, they deserve a long sit out. But there's so much more. Why this denialism on Climate Change? Who really benefits from that? Oil companies, of course. Even the saner pro-business wing of the party royally screwed up, as the gross mishandling of Wall Street shows. They did the equivalent of sending the referees home, because the players could be trusted to obey the rules of the game. How unbelievably stupid is that? With deregulation in full force, the players of course cheated massively, and caused the Great Recession. Before that crash there was even talk of privatizing Social Security. With eagle-eyed hindsight, we can be very, very glad that didn't happen. The primary victims of the market collapse were pension and retirement funds. The banksters wanted to get their claws on the vast savings piled up in Social Security only so they could keep the bubble going a little longer.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"