Comment by brk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brk | Hacker News Reader

"Zoomies"

Just fucking stop with this already. Quit pretending like your employees are so aligned with the company that some kind of special terminology is needed, or even logical.

The recent tech layoffs have clearly demonstrated, again (again, as in we've seen this play out a few times in the 2000's), that employees are basically assets that are scaled up and down as needed, like all the rest of corporate infrastructure these days.

Also, when your company is something that more or less is a B2B or B2C app (like zoom) and 1,500 employees is a number that you can lay off and still keep operating, you should have recognized this massive over staffing a LONG time ago and made more gradual corrections to get to a logical and supportable number. Note, this could be slowing down hiring, or charging a lot more for your product, but given the lingering freemium pricing, it's mostly going to be hiring less and not charging more.

These layoff emails are almost parody at this point.

> Just fucking stop with this already. Quit pretending like your employees are so aligned with the company that some kind of special terminology is needed, or even logical.

I cannot judge how Zoom works internally but a lot of companies (ours included) has a term to refer to employees. They are usually not born out of some leader making up a ridiculous term, but out of some sort of chaotic process where the origin of that term is often not found.

Some of them are legitimate, but even then there should be a form of respect where the term isn't used (though I observe they avoided the "hard-r" Zoomer because of the connotations).

And especially shouldn't be used in a case where you're laying off some of them.

I would find it odd if the only time you don't use that term on emails then happens to be layoffs.

Which is why I wouldn't use the term in general, at least from the top-down. It's inherently a "we're all in this together" term which especially isn't applicable when you aren't.

TBH I did not think much of this practice ever. I see that it's weird seeing that in layoff emails but I don't bat an eye normally.

I honestly think it's a red flag when companies do this.

The bigger red flag is Stripe not allowing its employees to use the term "Stripper"

> a lot of companies (ours included) has a term to refer to employees

Why? Employee is a perfectly suitable and applicable term. You're not "associates" or anything else that implies there is some kind relationship that is anything other than work for hire.

Granted, if you have some kind of internal way to refer to yourselves or your teams, that's great. But like politics or religion, it should probably be a thing that is internal only and not referred to in the outside world/public comms.

Terms like "Zoomies" are just childish. If some chain of events led you to be calling yourselves "The Ruby Death Squad", and you use that publicly, then I might change my perspective.

Because Millennials eat up cheesy tribalistic terms to wrap their sense of identity around and corporations exploit that.

FWIW, we all do that to an extent. Pick a label and make it good or bad, but something you can use as a yard stick. You are on the money, but oddly fall into the same trap by using label 'millenials' in a tribalistic manner ( the term has been largely made up to describe a giant cohort, and as most giant population terms, it shares the same flaws ).

I do not think you are wrong in general. I am not sure, however, if it applies to that particular group only or even in general.

Qualitatively I think there's something different about the way that people under-40 tend to think about identity, particularly the people working in tech that we're discussing here. We used to have thirtysomethings and yuppies and other groups like that. But it hadn't infested everything the same way that Zoomies and Googlers and Pythonistas/Rubyists/Rustaceans has.

Ahh, I think I see what you mean. Based on that, I think I agree.

> Why? Employee is a perfectly suitable and applicable term.

Because a lot of communication in companies is on the same level. People eventually send emails to "hey demonym" rather than "hey coworkers". I think these sort of things develop pretty naturally and unforced.

Especially because 15% of them are now Ex-Zoomies

Xoomies?

Zoombies

I think the idea is to try to create a kind of 'esprit de corps' specific to a particular organization - the idea that there is a bond and that working there is "special", out of the ordinary. It's good psychology, but rings hollow if a competent person is let go because of an economic downturn.

Yes, I think that is definitely the point, but so far pretty much all of them have proven to be a fraud.

If the CEO emails out "Zoomies, I fucked up and now I am cutting my paycheck to $1, and selling my personal stock, to help cover your salaries until we get this figured out", then it maybe means something. But "Zoomies, UR fired, wait to see if you win the email lottery, K thx" is not creating any esprit de corps.

What is the word for "name for employees of a company"? It's not "demonyms" but I've seen a whole lot of these names in the layoff notices. I think there is room for a small "employeenames.fyi" site with a table.

Scaliens, Stripes, Tweeps

"Zoomies", "Googlers", "Softies"

As part of their compensation package, they receive a diminutive pet name, like a child would.

I'll let you call me a lot of things for $50k

I bet I could get much more out of you by treating you like an adult.

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