WTF?! Anybody who’s been laid off from a job will know what an terrible expertise it’s. One thing that may make it even worse, nevertheless, is the CEO sending out a 1,500-word e-mail informing workers of the layoffs, known as “refinements” within the message, and together with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
PagerDuty, a cloud computing firm specializing in a SaaS incident response platform for IT departments, is becoming a member of the depressingly lengthy record of tech companies shedding workers in these instances of financial turmoil. Round 7% of its international workforce are dropping their jobs, most of them based mostly within the US.
There is not any straightforward solution to inform workers that they now not have a job, however the layoff announcement email from PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada is producing quite a lot of warmth for its tone—and different components.
The e-mail begins with the upbeat and quirky “Hello, Dutonians,” which might be not the easiest way to start out telling somebody they will quickly be unemployed. Different factors unlikely to make the blow of dropping a job extra bearable embody the layoffs (or “refinements”) not being addressed till round 1 / 4 of the way in which into the message, boasts in regards to the firm’s achievements, reminding workers how essential they’re (or have been), and speaking about how thrilling it’s that the agency has a brand new SVP of discipline operations.
However the icing on this cake is utilizing a Martin Luther King Jr. quote on the finish, which Tejada edited with brackets. “I’m reminded in moments like this, of one thing Martin Luther King mentioned, that ‘the final word measure of a [leader] will not be the place [they] stand within the moments of consolation and comfort, however the place [they] stand in instances of problem and controversy.'”
Essentially the most tone-deaf layoff e-mail I learn up to now was written yesterday, and it comes from PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada.
The e-mail is vey lengthy, and feels prefer it was written by an AI that took all of the phrases that folks often say, and put it one lengthy e-mail.
See for your self: pic.twitter.com/TX6ntwObjE
— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) January 25, 2023
It is unlikely that King would have anticipated his quote from a pair of 1958 sermons on racial and financial fairness would sooner or later be utilized in a letter asserting layoffs, but right here we’re.
Tejada expanded on the quote with, “PagerDuty is a frontrunner that stands behind its prospects, its values, and our imaginative and prescient — for an equitable world the place we rework vital work so all groups can delight their prospects and construct belief.” Groups that have not been laid off, presumably.
Author Gergely Orosz tweeted that the announcement seems to be prefer it was created by a generative AI within the fashion of different layoff announcement letters.
As dangerous as the e-mail is, it is nonetheless higher than the tactic utilized by Vishal Garg, CEO of mortgage agency Higher.com, who fired 300 employees throughout a three-minute Zoom name—and simply earlier than the vacations, too.
Thanks, Insider
