That's pretty cold, un-empathetic logic. If you're rigorously practice that kind of thing, you'll get the same reflected back at you.

My company has layoffs (not massive, but some). In my experience, the affected employees keep their access to everything, and typically finish up their work and participate in transition activities (knowledge transfer, etc) over a couple weeks. Yeah, they're typically also slacking a lot and socializing more, but no one around here wants to be an ass to their coworkers. I think the only people who get their access cut off are those fired for cause.

> Companies generally don’t become militant about a subject unless they have experienced the other side of the equation.

There are obvious problems with designing your processes around the literal worst case (e.g. treating everyone like they're a criminal has consequences).

On the flip side, treating them like a crook seems more likely to inspire that kind of revenge instinct. Most people would understand removing privileged access immediately but giving them a dignified exit seems more likely to prevent problems.

It's a sad reality. For some people a "dignified exit" won't do a single thing to lessen the rage they feel that they were wronged. It's a sad situation all around.

Eh. That's a bad way of thinking, but one that I think is tempting to software engineers. It's basically taking software security thinking (appropriate for things) and applying it to people in a context where the consequences are almost certainly not that bad. It's also probably downstream of some other bad ways of thinking, that probably make it appear more reasonable than it is.

> It's a sad reality. For some people a "dignified exit" won't do a single thing to lessen the rage they feel that they were wronged. It's a sad situation all around.

You know, you're not required hire those kinds of people in the first place. Hire people who get along with others.

This has nothing to do with software engineering. It's about business risk management. I'm not justifying it, just explaining the sad reality of it.

> You know, you're not required hire those kinds of people in the first place. Hire people who get along with others.

I'm glad you have a crystal ball to perfectly predict how everybody will act in future situations. But sometimes it's the people who seem the most pleasant and helpful who take layoffs the worst, because they feel the most betrayed after everything they gave emotionally in good faith. Humans are complex and they can act unpredictably.

You should note I said that way of thinking "is tempting to software engineers," not that is exclusive to them or has anything specifically to do with software engineering.

> It's about business risk management. I'm not justifying it, just explaining the sad reality of it.

The actual sad reality that some people chose to treat others unkindly pre-emptively.

> I'm glad you have a crystal ball to perfectly predict how everybody will act in future situations.

I don't, but I think you can minimize your risk, if that's what you need to avoid being an asshole. Then you have to practice trusting others.

> But sometimes it's the people who seem the most pleasant and helpful who take layoffs the worst, because they feel the most betrayed after everything they gave emotionally in good faith.

Honestly, that seems like an argument for making sure employees have good work-life balance, so they're not giving an unhealthy to the point where they feel betrayed.

But I suspect the people who think "I'll make them angry, but that's OK because I'll make sure they can't any damage," are probably also the kind of people who would knowingly exploit an over-committed employee.