Intel to lay off Bay Area employees

[IndyColtsFan]

You're right I'm not in the US, we have laws that say you have to pay OT for salaried employees. There are even rules on how much overtime can the employer demand. Of course it's entirely other question how well these rules are enforced.

I understand that some people get done more in less time, but where I am that doesn't mean they get off work earlier, it means they get paid more (if they are smart). I'm pulling this number from air because I'm lazy to look it up, but here more than 99% of workers are salaried. Being paid hourly is very rare, and even then likely under the table.

Ah, that explains it. Here in the US, there are non-exempt (hourly), exempt (salaried), and a newer category called salaried - non-exempt. Salaried (exempt) employees are typically executive, professional, and administrative positions and are not eligible for overtime. I’m sure most of the Intel employees laid off fall into this category. Folks in this classification typically get extra compensation in the form of larger bonuses, stock options, etc, that hourly workers in their companies won’t get.

Salaried (non-exempt) is a salaried position eligible for overtime - legally, you must earn under $47,000 and have a position which otherwise meets the requirements of a salaried position.

Being salaried has many benefits (as I mentioned earlier), but being hourly has its own benefits too. There has been talk in Washington over the years about extending the overtime laws to cover more professions and people, with the salaried (exempt) classification being the first salvo. Some companies do abuse salaried employees especially when the economy is bad and jobs are scare; however, with workers being hard to find and people’s attitudes toward work changing, I think this will happen less and less frequently as time goes on. For me personally, up until my current position, working over 40 hours was rare for the last 12 or 13 years; generally, I look at my position as what it is: a job, not my life, and me working all those extra hours generally doesn’t benefit me at all so I generally refused.

 

[Thunderdolt]

I love this thread. I love this thread in so many ways.

In the real world, the magical unicorn employees who think they get their job done in 3hrs and then kick back and relax for the rest of the day are typically considered to be bottom quartile employees. They tend to be difficult to work with due to their attitudes and they demand oversized compensation despite the fact that the foundation of their claim is that they're both lazy and aren't actually any more productive than the other employees. An employee who takes six hours to do the same work but keeps on going for 8 is going to be getting 30% more done every single day. Why would a company prefer to have the narcissistic slacker who complains a lot when they could have a good employee instead - and for the same or less money?

Yes, Bay Area tech weenies do get paid massively more than they do anywhere else - but mostly at lower level positions. These positions (E1-E4) get paid 2-3x in the Bay Area what they do even on the East Coast in areas like NYC and Boston. Most of this difference is in salary. The rest of the difference is stock, but that's liquid the moment the selling window opens. Director and up get paid more like 1.25-1.5x.

No, Bay Area tech weenies aren't necessarily overpaid just yet. There is still enough funding available and demand for warm bodies that the market price is justified for companies that are locked into that geographic area.

We're approaching the point where the writing is on the wall though. VC money is exploding in every region other than the Valley. In the Valley, VC money is just growing. FAANG are all shrinking the % of their footprint that's in the Valley by opening up significant offices in other areas of the US as well as OUS. The extremely high burn associated with these high salaries makes it much harder to launch startups without massive VC funding, and startup founders are [very] slowly starting to learn that taking on massive VC funding is actually a loss for them and not a win. So, I think we're going to see a more significant correction happening over the next few years. But I think that correction may be that tech weenies in other areas see their pay go up rather than the Bay Area tech weenies seeing their pay go down.

In terms of the incredible amount of unique geniuses being isolated to the Bay Area, that's a load. Most of the talent there gets imported from other regions of the US (typically Boston, Chicago, and, to a lesser extent, the PNW) as well as other countries entirely (Korea, India, a bit of China). Almost zero of the work in the Bay needs or benefits from having advanced degrees.

But another way in which I love this thread is that everything I just said is unrelated to the OP even though it is a response to 90% of the posts in the thread. WTF does this have to do with a RIF at Intel? This isn't really even a true RIF though, since 125 employees works out to about 0.1% of their headcount. These are most likely non- or under-performing employees (see examples of them replying to this thread above) who were flagged by a periodic workforce audit. Sucks for them I guess, but pretty meaningless to Intel.

 

[absolute_yed]

there is a lot of bay area circle jerking in this thread but as a recent tech refugee directly from California to Texas(maybe i just couldnt "make it") i fortunately know the right questions to ask:

regardless of your increased salary do you own property, or could you realistically own in the near future?

if the answer is yes do your own googling because it is not remotely typical versus any export states. your retirement and huge chunk of income is going into boot-licking rent. the end. now, i love/miss california, and eating cat food when i am 70 might still be worth it for San Diego at least haha. but people trying to justify that the salaries match the cost of living difference are coping looney toons. but again- i think it still might be worth it

 

[sfsuphysics]

regardless of your increased salary do you own property, or could you realistically own in the near future?

This is why I can get away with being a teacher in San Francisco. I'm more or less set for life, the biggest worry I have is the seemingly near constant attacks on education by cutting all over the place to save money. The job is primarily for health benefits for my family with a little extra to pay the bills And yeah I don't see a huge "increased salary" versus teachers in Texas at a similar position as me (15+ years experience, advanced degrees, etc)

 

[absolute_yed]

This is why I can get away with being a teacher in San Francisco. I'm more or less set for life, the biggest worry I have is the seemingly near constant attacks on education by cutting all over the place to save money. The job is primarily for health benefits for my family with a little extra to pay the bills And yeah I don't see a huge "increased salary" versus teachers in Texas at a similar position as me (15+ years experience, advanced degrees, etc)

hey being a teacher in california is a great career, you are indeed set for life. the california teachers union is second only to the cartels in brutality. i dont say that sarcastically, take what you can get, good on you!

 

[sharknice]

A new low for the forums. A joke and, seemingly, a celebration of people getting laid off, then a meaningless debate of which state has way more awesome tech people. Just garbage.

I love reading this stuff. It's interesting to hear the different perspectives even though most of them are absolutely retarded. I especially enjoy when people try to back up their reasoning with completely irrelevant data.

It's bad because some people will believe the bad information they get here, but it's entertainment for me.

It would be fun to train my ai to identify and rate the level of bullshit in each post and get user ratings and whatnot.

 

[absolute_yed]

I love reading this stuff. It's interesting to hear the different perspectives even though most of them are absolutely retarded. I especially enjoy when people try to back up their reasoning with completely irrelevant data.

It's bad because some people will believe the bad information they get here, but it's entertainment for me.

It would be fun to train my ai to identify and rate the level of bullshit in each post and get user ratings and whatnot.

post repo or gtfo

 

[sfsuphysics]

hey being a teacher in california is a great career, you are indeed set for life. the california teachers union is second only to the cartels in brutality. i dont say that sarcastically, take what you can get, good on you!

Yeah but I'm not K-12 teacher, they're the Cartel level of brutality when you think teacher's unions, and yeah I've been in the job long enough to recall times when money was available for ALL schools (even colleges) and they kind of just stepped up to the table like "We're gonna eat first..."

 

[absolute_yed]

Yeah but I'm not K-12 teacher, they're the Cartel level of brutality when you think teacher's unions, and yeah I've been in the job long enough to recall times when money was available for ALL schools (even colleges) and they kind of just stepped up to the table like "We're gonna eat first..."

sfsuphysics makes sense now lol anyways heres this for people wondering.... the union went to bat for this guy(this is why teachers have it good in CA):

https://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/justice/california-teacher-bondage-photos/index.html
"Berndt, 61, was accused of taking bondage photos of more than two dozen students in his classroom, some showing suspected semen-filled spoons at the children's mouths, authorities said."

 

[Joust]

I love this thread. I love this thread in so many ways.

In the real world, the magical unicorn employees who think they get their job done in 3hrs and then kick back and relax for the rest of the day are typically considered to be bottom quartile employees. They tend to be difficult to work with due to their attitudes and they demand oversized compensation despite the fact that the foundation of their claim is that they're both lazy and aren't actually any more productive than the other employees. An employee who takes six hours to do the same work but keeps on going for 8 is going to be getting 30% more done every single day. Why would a company prefer to have the narcissistic slacker who complains a lot when they could have a good employee instead - and for the same or less money?

Depends on what the guy gets done in 3 hours. If he really is the rockstar making money rain from the skies with his ideas or unique skillset, then that beats the crap out of the hard working prole down the hall.

Ideally, you want both. A hard-working rockstar. However, there's an argument for both. The trouble is, as you've identified, a lot of cars that *think* they are rockstars...aren't. Simple as that.

 

[DeeFrag]

AMD will probably start hiring people more pretty soon.

So AMD could learn how to make 14nm processors again?

 

[jimthebob]

Salaried employees are paid for their time too, to spend 40 hours / week working for the company, if they finish their assigned job early they get another job, not go off to get a haircut, that's ridiculous. I don't know what kind of arrangement you have at your workplace, but that is definitely not the norm.

Speaking as a salaried employee, it's not not the norm. On a slow day or if I'm ahead of schedule or whatnot, I'm not afraid to run a quick personal errand. I'm not gone half the day and it's not a daily thing or a frequent thing but it does happen. On the flip side, I am on call 24/7 and I have come in my fair share of times after hours or taken after hours calls so it balances out...sorta. The on call thing sucks because my phone is linked to our Fire Panel so getting after hours calls is more frequent than I'd like. What I'm getting at is don't take an uninterrupted nights sleep for grated.

Exchanging overtime for an early day off is not the same as going to get a haircut during work hours at a whim.

Kinda. Salaried employee's (at least in my experience) don't usually come out ahead. The company is always more than willing to ask you to come in after hours to do your job or pick up the slack if your staff isn't pulling their weight but the company is never the first one to pat you on the back and say "you've done a good job, why don't you get out of here early today". When I was hired, I was hired to "get the job done". I was told if that means spending 50+ hours a week here, then so be it.

So your arrangement is not that great after all, every place I've worked at had salaried employees plus paid overtime.

Until recently, I've never heard of a salaried employee getting overtime. To me, that doesn't make sense. If you want to be an hourly employee, be an hourly employee and get the benefits of overtime. If you want to be a salaried employee, be a salaried employee and get the benefits of having a bit more flexibility in your schedule along with the motivation to get your job done asap so you don't have to put in unpaid overtime.

 

[sharknice]

post repo or gtfo

https://github.com/sharkson/sharkbot/

 

[M76]

Until recently, I've never heard of a salaried employee getting overtime. To me, that doesn't make sense. If you want to be an hourly employee, be an hourly employee and get the benefits of overtime. If you want to be a salaried employee, be a salaried employee and get the benefits of having a bit more flexibility in your schedule along with the motivation to get your job done asap so you don't have to put in unpaid overtime.

Well here in EU that is the norm, in fact asking an employee to do unpaid overtime is against law. As salaried means you work X hours / week for a fixed salary, and anything beyond that is paid overtime. X usually being 40 hours, in some cases 30 or 20. And the overtime has to be scheduled at least a few days ahead, meaning they can't just tell you at 4pm just before you'd get off work to stay another 2 hours.

I've never seen a company where the employees could get off work if they finished their task. Maybe this is the remnant of the communist system, but even when there is literallly nothing to do, emlpoyers would rather make up a task than let the workers off early. Like cleaning the equipment or doing R&D when there is no operative work to be done.

When we talk about flexible work, we don't mean doing less or more hours, we mean when you do the hours.

 

[absolute_yed]

https://github.com/sharkson/sharkbot/

its an api

 

[jimthebob]

Well here in EU that is the norm, in fact asking an employee to do unpaid overtime is against law. As salaried means you work X hours / week for a fixed salary, and anything beyond that is paid overtime. X usually being 40 hours, in some cases 30 or 20. And the overtime has to be scheduled at least a few days ahead, meaning they can't just tell you at 4pm just before you'd get off work to stay another 2 hours.

I've never seen a company where the employees could get off work if they finished their task. Maybe this is the remnant of the communist system, but even when there is literallly nothing to do, emlpoyers would rather make up a task than let the workers off early. Like cleaning the equipment or doing R&D when there is no operative work to be done.

When we talk about flexible work, we don't mean doing less or more hours, we mean when you do the hours.

I should clarify; if I the tasks I have set before me for a day, I don't just kick out and go home. I generally find other things to do or improve. That being said, if I have a doctor apt or it's pay day and I need to run to the bank, I don't generally hesitate. I wish I got overtime but apparently I'm just at the cusp of being exempt so I don't get that overtime benefit

 

[Thunderdolt]

Depends on what the guy gets done in 3 hours. If he really is the rockstar making money rain from the skies with his ideas or unique skillset, then that beats the crap out of the hard working prole down the hall.

Ideally, you want both. A hard-working rockstar. However, there's an argument for both. The trouble is, as you've identified, a lot of cars that *think* they are rockstars...aren't. Simple as that.

If the unicorn employee is making money rain with his half days, then he’s an idiot. A true genius like that would be running his own company, not working for somebody else’s. He would be the boss, not have a boss.

Something that self-declared unicorns forget is that they’re still replaceable. If they’re truly one-in-a-million geniuses, then that means there are 300 more just like them in the US alone. If we’re being realistic, they’re probably 1 in 100k at best, which means 3,000 replacements are waiting.

 

[Joust]

If the unicorn employee is making money rain with his half days, then he’s an idiot. A true genius like that would be running his own company, not working for somebody else’s. He would be the boss, not have a boss.

Something that self-declared unicorns forget is that they’re still replaceable. If they’re truly one-in-a-million geniuses, then that means there are 300 more just like them in the US alone. If we’re being realistic, they’re probably 1 in 100k at best, which means 3,000 replacements are waiting.

A few observations:

Not all jobs take the same amount of time on a daily basis.

There are many reasons to work for others rather than for oneself. Institutional support and resources for example. Similarly there are many reasons not to start a shop. Many. Moreover, perhaps our fellow in question is an expert at whatever it is he does. That doesn't necessarily translate to business sense or skill.

Pretty much everyone is replaceable. Your example is too simple, I think. However, not everyone is easily replaceable. And then, some are simply not replaceable. Once again, people tend to over estimate their value and importance while underestimating their ease of replacement. I recently heard a grocery stock clerk tell me that the place would fall down without him - and he meant it.

There are very few rockstars, relative to the population.

 

[Dayaks]

If the unicorn employee is making money rain with his half days, then he’s an idiot. A true genius like that would be running his own company, not working for somebody else’s. He would be the boss, not have a boss.

Something that self-declared unicorns forget is that they’re still replaceable. If they’re truly one-in-a-million geniuses, then that means there are 300 more just like them in the US alone. If we’re being realistic, they’re probably 1 in 100k at best, which means 3,000 replacements are waiting.

My last job I worked on average 4 hours a day (some days were 16 hours, some 0) and was told to work less by my boss. It was task oriented.

I wouldn’t go into my own business because I have young kids and would rather the low hours, lower stress.

My current job is more typical salary. Some days can be longer but are encouraged to take off early on Friday if we work extra, ect.