Roblox tells employees they have to come to office three days a week or take severance package::Roblox CEO David Baszucki told remote employees that they’ll have to start coming to the office Tuesdays through Thursdays.

  • FraidyBear@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Take the severance package. If they are offering a severance package then they are already planning a layoff and are just taking volunteers first. Trust me, this is exactly what happened in tech this year. Take the package or face layoffs / gatting managed out.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Going to hammer hard on this too! Happened to me a few years ago.

      This is definitely the goal. And those “loyal” who stay have a dice roll chance to get laid off with nothing later down the line.

      • FraidyBear@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is exactly what happened to my dad during the .com crash. He worked for Enron, worked in server maintenance. Waited around as everyone got laid off because they said they would keep him, he was the best but not the most senior. Push came to shove and with only 4 people left in the department the higher-ups had to cut one more or take less money. They decided to cut my dad. By then the industry in that city was packed with Enron refugees so my dad had nowhere to go. We lost everything. Seriously y’all, cut your losses it’s not worth it. Just find somewhere else that’s more stable.

    • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Read the details first though and compare to what else you can find out. Some companies are sneakily reducing severance package standards just for remote employees. It may be better to just aggressively job hunt while still getting a full paycheck as long as possible.

    • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What’s the benefit of VR over IR? I’d have thought the terms would be better with IR, plus you get to be paid a salary for longer

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Could be. But it’s also a wise choice even if they have no layoffs planned.

      Let’s say they don’t offer voluntary severance. It’s just RTO or quit. Lots of people will grudgingly RTO while they look for a new job. That makes their time of departure unpredictable and it means they’ll be disgruntled as long as they’re still around. Why not just rip off the band aid, invite these people to leave immediately, and help them do so? You can move on from that.

      And maybe by shedding these people, they can actually avoid a layoff.

      Paid severance is a tip-off that a layoff may come, but RTO is also a big fucking deal and I could see it possibly having a paid severance component even with no layoffs in sight. Possibly, mind you.

    • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      At a lot of orgs, I think executive leadership are basically buying the service of assigning blame to the consulting firm if things go wrong. If that happens, they can tell the board they took the advice of one of the big consulting firms everyone has heard of. The consulting firm got paid and will still get business, so I doubt they care. Though they are certainly also farming out critical thinking at the same time.

      • jaybone@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If that’s the case though, why wouldn’t the consulting company just throw the workers a bone since it’s no skin off their back either way.

        • Meltrax@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Because McKinsey wouldn’t want to follow that advice themselves. They want their analysts in the office where their MBA managers can micro-manage them and can make sure that they work 12-15 hours a day.

  • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s really ironic when makers of socially interactive 3D experiences demand their employees meet in physical space. Even more ironic that they tell us that virtual property is valuable.

  • MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As a long time gamer, playing Roblox with my niece made me feel old for the first time. I have no idea why the hell kids play that game so much outside of the social media aspect with their friends.

    It really seems like they are tapping into the addictions of children. I’ve wasted money on game DLC before, but the amount of crap kids buy on Roblox is insane. I don’t think parents really know what they are giving them when they buy gift cards for it. If it makes them happy, okay fine, but I really think it’s something psychological that the company is taking advantage of.

    Rant over. I agree with everyone else. Something is about to go down. I hope they all take severance and leave. Three days is still better than what I get… which is like 20 WFH days a year… but ultimatums are never a good sign.

    • ramblinguy@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Gaming these days, at least multiplayer or those “games as a service” games, just seems so shitty. With all of the “gacha” aspects of lootboxes, or battle passes where you have to pay to play the game, or just plain predatory psychology manipulation to get you to buy random stuff… Games nowadays feel like you’re basically working a second job, or you can pay money so that you don’t have to work the second job because it’s not fun.

    • LurkNoMore@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My kids play it. 9 and 11. I’ve played it. I’ve spent money in it. It’s the amount of content. The games are actually really good.

      And it’s super easy to make something and just send it to the world.

      As a developer I used chatgpt and it just spits out whole games.

      Edit: Some games are really good. Some games are crap.

    • intothemild@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      They actually carved out a part of that for key staff. Basically anyone they deem to have deep knowledge doesn’t have to return back.

      This is one of the worst RTO requests I’ve seen because it’s just so obvious what it is.

  • DrCake@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m sure par of the reason for this so they can lay off a bunch of employees.

    What’s funny to me is that Roblox and other companies have to threaten peoples jobs to get them to come into the office. Surely if it was as great as they say people would just want to come in x number of days a week.

    • uis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Every time I hear some government tries to destroy privacy “for sake of kids”, I think “where have all you been when roblox exploited kids?”. When I was a kid and went to municipal children library(most of books are for childern or about children) to play Minecraft do 100% legit research, I’ve seen some kids play Roblox and hear them talk about them spending insane amount of money. Thank Faust it wasn’t me, this is really scary.