One time when I was in one of these calls. It was pretty obvious it was coming, the company wasn't doing great and there were plenty of whispers.

Still, I was pretty upset I was laid off, because it's just not a fun feeling. After the HR person explained the severance and COBRA stuff, I said something to the CTO like "I wish you all the best in trying to save this company, and for the sake of this conversation, let's just pretend I'm not lying". Then I hung up.

I wish I could feel guilty over that, but ultimately they were cutting off my livelihood, they can deal with momentary hurt feelings.

It's their job to endure the discomfort of having to do the job they're paid to do. It's not your job to make it comfortable for them. That's not to say that there aren't personal or professional consequences for how you conduct yourself. Burning bridges and all that. But I feel that's completely up to you.

It takes a special kind of company for counting it as a burnt bridge for somebody that said "I hope you all fail" and gone away after being fired.

Are cherry09 and steve_ AI agents?

I thought they were real people, in a near future where everyone is so dependent on AI that not even a company so callous as to fire by video call would even think of depriving another human the tokens they need to get by.

I think the joke is they all are. It's an autonomous company replicating what it was trained on.

Oh, I'm dense. I thought it portrayed a scenario in which tokens were unaffordable to individuals, yet necessary for survival. Kinda like US health insurance.

The best satire works at more than one level, I think

“What about health insurance?”

“Your enrollment will end on the last day of this month, and we will be providing every affected employee with information about extending their coverage through COBRA.”

“The last day of the month, so, today?”

“Yes, that is correct. On the other hand, our OpenAI and Anthropic accounts are paid quarterly, so you will retain access to your chats and may continue using these tools until the end of September.”

During an exit interview as I was going to a new job, they let me know my coverage was good until the end of the month.

Me, never able to not say something stupid, "Got it. Don't get hit by a bus on the 1st."

Dead silence. HR playing ping-pong with their eyes. They eventually told me something like that had happened to a person who'd just left a few months prior to this.

One of these days, I'll learn, yeah?

"Is assisted suicide covered by the severance terms?"

"Absolutely. It's covered through the end of the month, per our generous benefits policy. "

I fell for it!

Corporate culture sucks but, as with most things, comparing it to the Holocaust is both wildly unfunny and incorrect.

I dunno, man. I just... dunno.

> it is legally forbidden to have any morals that get in the way of shareholder profit.

That isn't true. It's just the favored solution chosen by sociopaths who climb to the top. Maximizing value does not require minimizing overhead to the detriment of future value creation.