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Take Two is laying off 5% of it's workforce

BbMajor7th

Member
Well.. people didn't want to go back to the office.. now they get their wish .. permanently
Doesn't have anything to do with it. This has happened right across the industry because leadership refused to acknowledge that the pandemic profit boom was a freak occurrence, not a growth trend. Everyone outside (and probably inside) the C-Suite knew this. The cowardly, money-hungry ideologues at the very top didn't dare to tell investors that the graphs would go down next year. What's happened in the last eighteen months is that ideology has hit reality and instead of taking responsibility for the fuck up, leadership decided to slash projects and headcount instead.
 
Well.. people didn't want to go back to the office.. now they get their wish .. permanently
I don't understand this argument at all. To me this just comes across as sour from something you experienced personally.

You don't know the productivity of workers at this specific organisation, or at least I can make a good assumption that you don't. If productivity wasn't impacted by working from home, then why is a forced move back to the office happening? Just because you're asked to do something doesn't mean that it shouldn't be challenged. I'd certainly challenge a move like this when it saves me time and money every day from travelling and buying additional expensive food.

On topic - I read that the CEO just got a massive pay increase too. Kind of fucked up to let go of staff when the CEO gets a big bump and the biggest game of all time is releasing in probably a year.
 

Bernardougf

Member
I don't understand this argument at all. To me this just comes across as sour from something you experienced personally.

You don't know the productivity of workers at this specific organisation, or at least I can make a good assumption that you don't. If productivity wasn't impacted by working from home, then why is a forced move back to the office happening? Just because you're asked to do something doesn't mean that it shouldn't be challenged. I'd certainly challenge a move like this when it saves me time and money every day from travelling and buying additional expensive food.

On topic - I read that the CEO just got a massive pay increase too. Kind of fucked up to let go of staff when the CEO gets a big bump and the biggest game of all time is releasing in probably a year.
You can challenge whatever you want... is your right .. and is the right of the company to tell you to fuck off and get another person for the job ... thats capitalism... deal with it
 

Bernardougf

Member
Doesn't have anything to do with it. This has happened right across the industry because leadership refused to acknowledge that the pandemic profit boom was a freak occurrence, not a growth trend. Everyone outside (and probably inside) the C-Suite knew this. The cowardly, money-hungry ideologues at the very top didn't dare to tell investors that the graphs would go down next year. What's happened in the last eighteen months is that ideology has hit reality and instead of taking responsibility for the fuck up, leadership decided to slash projects and headcount instead.
It maybe ... or they simple cut the workforce they see fit to cut ... 2-3 weeks after asking them to comeback to office ...Im not on the board so I wont pretend to know exactly what happened... what did happened is that a bunch of entitled cry babys went to social media complain about have to boohoo work from the office and now maybe they are out of a job ... so tough luck I guess...
 

BbMajor7th

Member
It maybe ... or they simple cut the workforce they see fit to cut ... 2-3 weeks after asking them to comeback to office ...Im not on the board so I wont pretend to know exactly what happened... what did happened is that a bunch of entitled cry babys went to social media complain about have to boohoo work from the office and now maybe they are out of a job ... so tough luck I guess...
You're right, corporate CEOs often base high-level business strategy on shit staff whine about on Twitter. I'll just never not find it weird when ordinary people get a happy little boner watching others get stamped on by management. Then again, some people get a kick out of the whole sub-dom thing - I'm not here to judge.

You can challenge whatever you want... is your right .. and is the right of the company to tell you to fuck off and get another person for the job ... thats capitalism... deal with it
No, that's corporatocracy - where large private businesses have absolute power and you have none. In capitalism, labour is a commodity sold under contract and the terms of that contract can be negotiated. Negotiation is about having the balls to stand up for yourself and not let bigger people push you around. Sometimes that means a whole group of you getting together and telling management to fuck off all at the same time (unionisation) and quite often the company is forced to back down.

Back in the early- to -mid twentieth century, when people still had balls, they routinely told the higher-ups to go fuck themselves because they weren't intimidated by trust-fund shitheels in shiny suits. They won all kinds of freebies, like mandatory holidays, sick pay, maternity leave, compassionate leave and all the rest. Now we're saddled with a generation who are letting all that get chipped away. The sort of people who either go looking for a shoulder-rub circle online rather than actually standing up for themselves, or worse still, sneer from the sidelines, and say dumb shit like 'fuck around and find out'.
 
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You can challenge whatever you want... is your right .. and is the right of the company to tell you to fuck off and get another person for the job ... thats capitalism... deal with it
Yeah you're right, but there is no fucking way they are letting go only those who complained about returning to the office. Although it is America, I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't employment laws in place to protect employees in this way.
 
I enjoy a lot of the games by the big corporations of course, but we need more private firms that are not publicly traded in the game development space. The relentless drive to give the shareholders bigger numbers certainly has its obvious downsides.
 

Mortisfacio

Member
True, only solution is to unionize.

I dunno how privatized union jobs are, but I worked Government Union for just over 5 years (got my CalPers vesting and left). By far, not even close, the laziest group of people I've ever worked with in my life.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
I dunno how privatized union jobs are, but I worked Government Union for just over 5 years (got my CalPers vesting and left). By far, not even close, the laziest group of people I've ever worked with in my life.
I'll never not be fascinated by the ironclad conviction that hard work is a virtue. You know that was an idea that companies managed to seed in the working classes. People at the top of the ladder know that the ultimate goal is to get as much return for as little investment as humanly possible and they are amazing at it. Meanwhile, the closer you are to the bottom of the ladder, the less you actually earn every day, the harder you're expected to work - not just by your higher-ups (who - very sensibly - want maximum return at minimum cost), but by your own co-workers, who honestly think working your fingers to the bone, even for a shitty company with low pay and no benefits is some badge of honour.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I'll never not be fascinated by the ironclad conviction that hard work is a virtue. You know that was an idea that companies managed to seed in the working classes. People at the top of the ladder know that the ultimate goal is to get as much return for as little investment as humanly possible and they are amazing at it. Meanwhile, the closer you are to the bottom of the ladder, the less you actually earn every day, the harder you're expected to work - not just by your higher-ups (who - very sensibly - want maximum return at minimum cost), but by your own co-workers, who honestly think working your fingers to the bone, even for a shitty company with low pay and no benefits is some badge of honour.
It's not about badge of honour. It's about just being a good person and putting in work whether it's school or work. The easy way out is to sit on a couch all say and slum it. when I did PT min wage job in school or summer jobs, the company probably gets a government subsidy so really my shitty $6/hr jobs I could probably standing there all day doing nothing or taking a nap on the toilet and no boss or current worker there will care anyway. It's not like they are going to fire a summer student whose only around for 3 months on gov dime. But I still put in my best effort and even was more productive than the current workers slacking off.

I could easily pass my undergrad and master degrees by coasting get all C's. Graduating with A's and B's makes no difference than passing with C's. Everyone still gets a piece of paper worth the same. But some students try their best or learn and achieve trying to understand the material (not just memorize stuff), while others try to pass with as little effort as possible.

But in life, there's those who put in effort and those who dont give a shit.
 
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BbMajor7th

Member
It's not about badge of honour. It's about just being a good person and putting in work whether it's school or work. The easy way out is to sit on a couch all say and slum it. when I did PT min wage job in school or summer jobs, the company probably gets a government subsidy so really my shitty $6/hr jobs I could probably standing there all day doing nothing or taking a nap on the toilet and no boss or current worker there will care anyway. It's not like they are going to fire a summer student whose only around for 3 months on gov dime. But I still put in my best effort and even was more productive than the current workers slacking off.

I could easily pass my undergrad and master degrees by coasting get all C's. Graduating with A's and B's makes no difference than passing with C's. Everyone still gets a piece of paper worth the same. But some students try their best or learn and achieve trying to understand the material (not just memorize stuff), while others try to pass with as little effort as possible.

But in life, there's those who put in effort and those who dont give a shit.
If you feel good going the extra mile, that's fine, but other people are no less 'good' for doing what the job requires and nothing more. People who put in the extra effort quite often make their fellow workers look bad and raise employer's expectations.
 

Mortisfacio

Member
I'll never not be fascinated by the ironclad conviction that hard work is a virtue. You know that was an idea that companies managed to seed in the working classes. People at the top of the ladder know that the ultimate goal is to get as much return for as little investment as humanly possible and they are amazing at it. Meanwhile, the closer you are to the bottom of the ladder, the less you actually earn every day, the harder you're expected to work - not just by your higher-ups (who - very sensibly - want maximum return at minimum cost), but by your own co-workers, who honestly think working your fingers to the bone, even for a shitty company with low pay and no benefits is some badge of honour.

When I say laziest group of people I've ever worked with, I'm talking "Do 1-2 hours of work in a 5 day work week" level of worthless. We even had a guy on the Help Desk call himself from his own phone to keep his line busy all day so he didn't have to work. When attempting to fire him, the union fought that he didn't know any better and it was an honest mistake.

These people are absolutely worthless. I'm not asking for unionized people to abandon their families and dedicate themselves to their job, I'm just asking them to earn their paycheck. Especially when, in my case, their paycheck is taxpayer funded.
 

Roxkis_ii

Banned
The soft lay off was calling everyone back to the office. I guess that didn't cut enough people, so now it's a hard layoffs to appease shareholder overlords.

What a bunch of bullshit.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
When I say laziest group of people I've ever worked with, I'm talking "Do 1-2 hours of work in a 5 day work week" level of worthless. We even had a guy on the Help Desk call himself from his own phone to keep his line busy all day so he didn't have to work. When attempting to fire him, the union fought that he didn't know any better and it was an honest mistake.

These people are absolutely worthless. I'm not asking for unionized people to abandon their families and dedicate themselves to their job, I'm just asking them to earn their paycheck. Especially when, in my case, their paycheck is taxpayer funded.
In my industry, I've known one person who was from a unionized gov job and she joined my past company as a analyst on one of the sales teams. It's your typical numbers job you analyze data and support the account managers to grow sales.

She fought the team on tasks to do because when the boss or account managers asked her for this or that, she'd complain it wasnt stated on her job description. When it comes to office life jobs, that job description is going to have a holistic view of the job with some pointers. Expectations are it's a flexible kind of role doing this or that which still involves the job. It's not like they are asking her to serve food in the cafeteria or take out the garbage.

She couldnt comprehend that. She literally thought all her job was is whatever those 10 bullets are on everyone's job description. The only time in life I have ever known someone doing that. Even as a summer student making min wage, I could understand that if the role involved working a production line making shit, it could logically involve using a forklift or taking out garbage to the giant metal bin at the back of the building, even though those tasks were never part of the job description.

And they wonder why so many non-union private sector companies avoid hiring government workers.
 
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BbMajor7th

Member
In my industry, I've known one person who was from a unionized gov job and she joined my past company as a analyst on one of the sales teams. It's your typical numbers job you analyze data and support the account managers to grow sales.

She fought the team on tasks to do because when the boss or account managers asked her for this or that, she'd complain it wasnt stated on her job description. When it comes to office life jobs, that job description is going to have a holistic view of the job with some pointers. Expectations are it's a flexible kind of role doing this or that which still involves the job. It's not like they are asking her to serve food in the cafeteria or take out the garbage.

She couldnt comprehend that. She literally thought all her job was is whatever those 10 bullets are on everyone's job description. The only time in life I have ever known someone doing that. Even as a summer student making min wage, I could understand that if the role involved working a production line making shit, it could logically involve using a forklift or taking out garbage to the giant metal bin at the back of the building, even though those tasks were never part of the job description.

And they wonder why so many non-union private sector companies avoid hiring government workers.
Take a minute to flip it the other way around. If it's in the company's interest, they'll happily enforce your contract to the absolute letter. If they need to fire you some reason, they'll get so exacting with the binding agreement you signed, that they'd make an over-zealous union worker look positively laid back.

And I'm not saying that a work-to-rule mindset isn't sometimes impractical and unnecessary but can you ever imagine a company being asked to accept a contract that gave "a holistic view of the company's responsibilities and liabilities with some pointers?" Not a goddamned chance. And here's rub: she looks at her contract, sees the ten bullet points and says 'right, that's me'. If the company has something different in mind, why not put the same level of care into the job description as they do into shit like the social media policy? Most of them have dedicated HR teams for this kind of stuff, so why not put more effort in and manage the expectations of new hires better? Why leave it to managers to argue with difficult employees over vague contracts when the HR team could have clarified it all upfront?

I have so little sympathy with companies in this situation because when it comes to upholding your part of the agreement they'll be the most pedantic bastards going.

When I say laziest group of people I've ever worked with, I'm talking "Do 1-2 hours of work in a 5 day work week" level of worthless. We even had a guy on the Help Desk call himself from his own phone to keep his line busy all day so he didn't have to work. When attempting to fire him, the union fought that he didn't know any better and it was an honest mistake.

These people are absolutely worthless. I'm not asking for unionized people to abandon their families and dedicate themselves to their job, I'm just asking them to earn their paycheck. Especially when, in my case, their paycheck is taxpayer funded.
My point is that what that lazy Help Desk worker is doing is exactly the same thing CEOs are doing: get out as much as they can for as little cost, push their luck as far as it'll go and when they finally get caught tag in some legal representation to get you off on a technicality. The difference is that the people doing this at the bottom do relatively little harm because they have very little responsibility; the people doing this at the top can cause massive amounts of harm and rather than costing one company a little in lost productivity, can cost thousands of people their jobs and livelihoods.
 
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RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Absolute cunt of a company, CEO not only gives himself an enormous bonus but they are also on the cusp of making the most money ever for a single entertainment product launch and these cunts simply couldn't keep on these people and take a small bit of pain?
 

nush

Member
Absolute cunt of a company

I used to work for them and ended up sitting across the desk at a new job with someone else who also used to work for them, but we didn't know each other before because we were in different offices.

We were shit-talking Take 2, comparing notes.

Person 3 sitting next to us asked us why we were shit-taking them because they were supposed to be "good".

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