Former Blizzard Employee writes about it on Dailykos

Community General Discussion
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I was posting it for more on the humanistic perspective than anything else.

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I read the article, I used to want to be a blizzard GM, I was making more than he was 10 years ago still am. I feel really bad for these people. I was a part of layoffs due to business decisions years ago, it sucks, it sucks bad. I understand his anger, and the betrayal he feels. One of the call centers for the company I worked for got a notice on their doors at Christmas. The call center where I worked, we got notice, but we had to stay on while they trained our replacements to replace us or we wouldn’t get our two week severance pay.
We were skilled workers but the company went where they could get tax breaks and pay lower wages.
They used to use my calls to recruit new clients, yeah I was that good.
We were an over flow order processing center, and customer service for The Sharper Image.
I don’t think the company even exists any more, and we helped build it, they went from one center in Minneapolis, to many in the MIdwest thanks to us. Even the owner of the company sat in our section to listen to our calls. I can understand how this person feels, the betrayal you feel when you love where you work and this happens, is very painful.

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23

About seven years ago now I was managing a GameStop and they decided to build one across the street. I had a great relationship with the District Manager, So he is told both stores will stay open, (which was the way things worked back then) and we trained the staff for the other store. Then corporate reveals they learned that closing one store gives the other half the revenue. So they shut down the mall location.

It was an opportunity for me, I took the severence and made a better life.

But I didn’t have a mortgage and I didn’t have kids or anything else that was critical or dangerous. I also had some unique opportunities.

Even then it was rough to leave the people I cared about and a job I enjoyed. It’s upsetting.

And I was lucky.

At the end of the day, robots are coming for customer service jobs first, so we will be seeing more of this. But it’s terrible for those involved.

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A few years ago my oldest son was working for Sprint and before he was laid off they had him and his fellow workers go down to Mexico and trained the people who were going to replace him. :crying_cat_face:

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AFAIC they should offshore the management. Save a lot more money!

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I was fortunate to be unaware that the people I was training weren’t replacing me…

But at the same time, I had like, no turnover. So when you’re training some people and just assuming they can always call on the store next door where people have worked for like, a decade, and get support…

I don’t think it ended well for any of those kids. Not sure. was more concerned with making sure my people made it out ok. Then I left the state and went onto new adventures.

But that was more self-imposed hardship. I had a network and could have grabbed a job locally pretty quick.

Hopefully your son is doing ok.

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Can’t say that I’m surprised. Some might find those who got the boot “useless”, but those were their jobs they lost. In my opinion that’s a lot of people who lost their jobs. I think this is the trend now. The days of making profit are not enough. Infinity and beyond is the new goal. I don’t know what else you can call this other than a squeeze? Cutting the fat? Losing your job sucks and it never matters until it happens to you. I have seen it happen first hand where management will call for a meeting and then explain how they have to lay off people and that the ones remaining will have to take on more work with a 10 percent cut across the board even when the company made more than they did the previous year. Where this will end I don’t know but I do know more people will be offloaded onto the masses little by little.

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Still what you went through wasn’t right. I understand large companies have to do things to keep their business going but it’s so often at the expense of their employees. I’m all for capitalism, freedom, liberty but our entire economic system has just gotten too big but I don’t see any way to go back or make it more personal. We’ve made great strides since the last century when there was child labor, slave labor, etc…but it seems we always need to stay on top of it because of corruption and abuse.

Thank you for asking about my son, he’s doing just fine. Good to know you’re doing good too!

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This story doesn’t even say what the persons name is or what they did at Blizzard. For all you know it could be a lie or some mid-level marketing person who is completely and utterly expendable.

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The guy who runs it is obnoxious for sure but lol what? Communist website?

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The founder of the website is a fan of Óscar Romero, a famous Catholic bishop who was …let’s just say - a socialist for sure, a Communist probably.

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They don’t understand that social democracies and communism are different things…

I mean… CNN seems communist to these dudes. If you describe FDR’s America and 1950 America to them without telling them it’s America they’ll tell you it’s Communist.

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Right, the Catholic bishop gunned down in broad daylight by gunmen likely trained at the School of the Americas. I remember the name.

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The dude (Oscar Romero) is literally a canonized saint.

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You have no clue who it was written by, and everything in the article has been published in other articles. There is nothing new. And no I’m not happy about the layoffs, but you putting this out there as something original and unexpected is a sham.

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And the current pope is a Communist. That doesn’t really change things. Liberation Theology is a Communist invention.

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Daily Kos.

Lol.

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You’re hilarious.

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Again this is assuming the reason they were laid off is because they couldn’t afford to pay them. Most likely not the case.

If a company deems your job superfluous should they have to keep you? No. Blizzard paid the people it laid off a years salary to go find another job. I feel for those affected but this pity party is ridiculous.

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I think you need to brush up on your civics. Not that the Pope shouldn’t be a communist since Jesus was, but you don’t seem to understand the distinction between socialism and communism.

Besides. Socialism is sick. We live in a country with socialist policies (Medicare. Social Security)

I’m personally all about FDR’s second bill of rights. But we’ll get there.

What country do you live in? It sounds awful.