What best captures the current state of mind is the fact that, during my last week, the vast majority of goodbyes I received went something like “congratulations,” “you’ve escaped” or “save a place for me.” I think the prevailing attitude is the result of three things: first - a lack of trust, second - uncertainty about the future and third - feeling that people are not valued. I can compare my personal feeling to that of an ant living in an ant farm owned by a teenage boy - every day you wonder if this is the day he’ll remember to give some sugar to the colony or will this be the day he decides to randomly burn an ant with a magnifying glass.
I think the erosion of trust began with a big layoff followed by a promise that there were not going to be any more layoffs. Although there weren’t any more layoffs, there was a steady stream of individual firings culminated by a group firing for “performance reasons” which caught people on H1 visas flat footed.
The uncertainty came from being told we were being evaluated on code line count but then seeing people fired for either making mistakes or saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. It’s disconcerting to see someone with whom you’ve worked for years - tearfully packing to be escorted out of the building.
Feeling not valued is driven mostly by leadership’s willingness to publicly and privately humiliate individuals. They’ve actually publicly acknowledged that some meetings were seen as “shaming,” so I know they are aware of it. Perhaps even worse is that people outside the executives’ offices can overhear them mocking individuals. Another contributing factor is that flex hours were done away with and everyone had to be in at 9:00 am - a time that forces people to drive in through rush hour with the additional stress of walking through the daily 9am stand-up which was held directly in front of the main entryway. The point isn’t that they decided to establish core hours but the fact that they wouldn’t move the time up by 30 minutes so people could avoid the worst rush hour traffic. That is, even when it seems like it cost them nothing to make people happier they wouldn’t do it.
Most of what I’ve written has to do with new Engineering management. However, I’ve also been disappointed with the Company in regard to the layoffs and firing. I’ve been at Yapstone through three changes in executive leadership and the interim periods without any executive leadership in Engineering. Through those times it was the contributions and sacrifices of dedicated individuals who kept things not just running but decreasing down time and facilitating the growth in revenue. Some of those individuals were directly affected by the layoffs or subsequent firing. I don’t necessarily expect new management to respect contributions that occurred before their tenure, but I had hoped that some of the top executives would have stepped in. At least an offer of retraining or a chance to transfer to a different department. Individual dedication and company loyalty should have been recognized, and was not. For this, I fault the top leadership.
I will note that there have been recent changes. Flex hours have been reinstated, and there will be an option to work in Walnut Creek or in San Francisco. My hope is that there has been a fundamental value shift. My fear is that it only reflects self interest (because of attrition) and without a value shift there will be more disappointing decisions in the future.
There are still a lot of great people at Yapstone. Business is good and I believe in, and wish for their success. I get that they have a very challenging mandate and tough decisions have to be made and people will be called upon to make sacrifices. I’m just saying right now things are tougher than they have to be.
