CTO day 2: downsizing the team

Re:CTO day 2: downsizing the team by jacquesm on Sunday January 10, 2021 @08:15AM (#25714376)

The story does not give that background, I'm assuming he is an outsider because of his choice of words in the beginning and the fact that he seems to treat his apparently former buddies suddenly as cogs in a machine. Maybe that's just another way for him to fortify his own mind about doing callous things to other people. Regardless, the second day on a job you are not ready to make decisions like this until you have had a lot of conversations with different people in the organization. Any CEO that tasks a just-promoted former team lead, project manager or other non-manager to first time CTO and MT member and that then expects that person to take the axe to the team in a way that will not destroy the company is out to lunch.

This article is proof positive of that, it misses a whole slew of important considerations and will likely result in a mass exodus of the people that keep the company running within the next couple of months.

I've had to lay off people before, this is not how it is done.

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Re:CTO day 2: downsizing the team by Jon_Lowtek on Sunday January 10, 2021 @08:58AM (#25714647)

> the story does not give that background

well i have no insider knowledge of any kind, i just looked left and right beyond the blog post instead of making assumptions.

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Re:CTO day 2: downsizing the team by jacquesm on Sunday January 10, 2021 @09:14AM (#25714775)

In a way that just makes it even worse. Because a newbie that lands in a situation like that might be excused, a former team member isolating himself from his own responsibility by asking his computer who he should fire is an even bigger insult than if he came in as an outsider.

This company is dysfunctional. They have a CTO that doesn't report to the CEO but where the CEO will cross their lines of command to give direct orders to the CTO anyway, they treat their employees like they treat their docker images (like cattle, instead of like pets), they promote people internally and make their first marching orders to take the axe to the org chart, specifically the team from which they got promoted out of.

This won't end well.

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Re:CTO day 2: downsizing the team by Jon_Lowtek on Sunday January 10, 2021 @09:25AM (#25714860)

I was only pointing out the context and that the first sentence is a rather obvious tell that it is part two of a series and should not be interpreted literally.

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Re:CTO day 2: downsizing the team by jacquesm on Sunday January 10, 2021 @10:52AM (#25715867)

I have a pretty simple rule for evaluating articles: if not indicated otherwise I assume they stand on their own and that the article writer means what they say. It's on them to communicate any circumstances that are required to be able to read the article, at a minimum a link should be provided to such context if it is available.

Just read this thread and see how many people are wrong-footed by the article.

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Re:CTO day 2: downsizing the team by Jon_Lowtek on Sunday January 10, 2021 @01:08PM (#25717478)

> It's on them

Honestly, i think your reaction to having an assumption collapse is rather terrible

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Re:CTO day 2: downsizing the team by Brian_K_White on Sunday January 10, 2021 @12:56PM (#25717327)

Why is everyone talking about the computer like it has it's own agency and inhuman agenda?

The computer in this story was nothing but a human's pencil and paper.

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