Bloodbath in Trichotomy

Still Alive

After coming back from Argentina/Antarctica, I tested positive for COVID and had to work from home. This time it wasn’t as bad as the first time I got COVID - I didn’t have to take time off of work. I suspect being in the warmth and humidity in Buenos Aires for the first few days helped me get over it sooner.

I’d like to think that, if I’d stayed there for another week, I wouldn’t have gotten sick at all.

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Staying alive

Speaking of work, New Hip Company fired 6% of its workforce the week I came back. Nobody in my team, up to and including our uber tech lead and my great-grand manager, knew beforehand, so it surprised a lot of us. Though, since so many tech companies are doing the same, I was only surprised it has taken New Hip Company this long.

I do not personally know anyone who was fired except for a friend from college who also worked at New Hip Company. But everyone is now on edge and confused about the criteria to decide who gets fired. Reportedly it didn’t matter how well-performing you are: a lot of the fired people were high-performing, long-tenured, well-respected, and highly productive. There were claims (unsure if it’s accurate or not) that even the manager of fired employees knew the firing was coming, which meant they didn’t have any inputs into who gets fired - it was all determined by upper management. No one except them knows what the criteria was, and they wouldn’t share it, the consensus among us is that the criteria was random, which I am sure was not, but probably rather based on some equally nonsensical criteria like a formula calculated based on an employee’s salary, revenue their project brings in, their performance grading, or some such. It was a clusterf*ck. A lot of my coworkers had drunk the kool-aid about New Hip Company being different, but now they are finally relieved of that illusion.

Since engineers are still short in supply, the laid-off co-workers will be fine, but it’s a hassle to find another job. I work with a coworker on my team based outside the States, and he won’t know whether he’ll still have a job in a few months. So this is quite disruptive to our work.

I still have a job for now, and I’m not too worried if I’m next, because La Professeure can be my sugar mommy.

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Audition next week

The amateur musician group will have their audition for this year’s Carnegie Hall concert next weekend. As a sign that things have bounced back, this audition has 37 entrants, as opposed to 24 from last year. It is going to be a tough job narrowing that down to 12 groups… I suspect we may do two Carnegie Hall concerts this year.

So next weekend will shape up to be a busy time.

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Last updated January 28, 2023