November 1, 2025 • 45 mins
Recent waves of layoffs in the tech industry have disproportionately hurt women. In this classic episode, we look at a few examples and untangle some of the myriad reasons why.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and welcome to stuff I Never
told you production of iHeartRadio and welcome to another classic.
I am a solo today, but Samantha will be back soon.
(00:27):
In this episode I wanted to bring back even though
it's kind of recent and kind of more specific to
the tech industry. But unfortunately here in the United States,
we are seeing a lot of layoffs right now, a
(00:48):
lot of people losing their jobs as this comes out.
I'm recording it on October twenty eighth, twenty twenty five,
but it's coming out a little bit later. The government,
the US government is still shut down, and it has
been used as an excuse to not only fire or
lay off a lot of people, but also to particularly
(01:13):
target things organizations or jobs that are in any way
about helping women or helping marginalize people. And so even
if the numbers aren't there yet because the government is
shut down so they stop reporting on that, we do
(01:35):
know that that is happening and that that does have
a larger impact on marginalized people and women. So it's
something that we're going to have to keep an eye on,
and it's something that's really sad because that's just decades
of work that's being lost in some cases, like I
have people I know who worked in some of those
(01:57):
sectors and they are just devastated because that's they'd finally
built up on all of this, finally got to this point.
You know, we've recently talked about that with We're finally
studying actually women and their health, and this backtracking is
just really upsetting. So, as I said, even though this
(02:21):
episode is a bit more specific, I just wanted to
bring it back. And also I hope everyone out there
is okay. If you've lost your job, I'm really sorry.
And if you have anything you want to write in
about that you think we should talk about, or any
resources you would like us to share, please let us know.
But in the meantime, here is this classic episode. Hey,
(02:48):
this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff I've
never told you production of iHeart Radio. Content. Warning, as
the title suggests, we are talking about layoffs and losing
a job just not fun. Have you ever been laid
(03:11):
off or fired, Samantha.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yes, I have rood of you to ask, but I'm
going to tell you anyway. But essentially I think it
was more pragmatic and it's just the timing of everything,
but it did feel great. I did get unemployment though
for a while. Oh, that was an interesting process.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's that's nice. You'll have to tell me because we
are going to talk about that briefly. Yeah, in here
you'll have to tell me about that. I have never
been laid off. I have lost a position before where
they were like, you're just not good at this, why
don't you do this? That's all right, you've been re arranged.
(03:51):
I was rearranged. I kind of feel like I was
stell fired from Longhorned Steakhouse, which.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I told that story before, Like you didn't even though
I both.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Feel I was still fired, but also I wasn't showing up,
so there was no official process. We just both kind
of ghosted to each other.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I'm trying to think if I have ever had that.
I don't think so. I've always put in my notice
and left.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I had I've worked for a company that went I
don't think it went under, but something happened where within
the first week I didn't have a job. Yeah, but
I didn't feel like I was. It felt like that
whole thing just went away, so right, but I had
to go find another job quickly. Because I was in
Europe and I was anticipating That's why I was there,
(04:41):
and I did. I was very fortunate. Yes, we've through
the time I've worked at this company, which long.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Time now, Yeah, I kind of forget you have other jobs.
You've ever had other jobs, That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
It feels weird to me too, to remember. We have
had rounds of layoffs and it is scary. We had
a pretty emotional one when I was an intern, where
like I was young and I didn't it was my
first time I think ever when at this particular instance,
(05:18):
they like sat us all in a room and told
us about it and that people were crying and like
people were packing up, and.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Oh my gosh, that you feel like, well, it's just
a very destabilizing feeling. Yeah, And we recently had around
the layoffs here and several of my friends were laid off.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So it is it's scary, and there have been there's
been a lot of stuff written about what's happening in
the tech industry, specifically with a lot of the layoffs
that have It kind of started in twenty twenty but
twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four were a big
year for les unfortunately, and they impacted more women and
(06:05):
marginalized folks, and we're going to talk about that and
why that is. I would say you can check out
our past episode spoiler alert on pregnancy discrimination, our work
from home episodes Women and Unions perhaps, and the episode
we did What's Happening at Blizzard which we should update
that one. Oh my, but okay, so yes, for this,
(06:28):
we're specifically looking at several rounds of tech and journalism
layoffs that happened this year and how they have disproportionately
impacted women and people of color and throughout the year,
this year being twenty twenty four, we have seen several
high profile rounds of layoffs and we're going to look
at a few examples that highlight some troubling trends.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right and some baseline numbers to start off here. Since
the beginning of twenty twenty three, huge companies like Google, Meta,
and Amazon have laid off tens of thousands of their employees.
More recently, Tesla laid off fourteen thousand. The amount of
jobs lost in the tech sectors are estimated to be
upwards of three hundred and forty thousand, and the number
has sense grown yep.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
In April of twenty twenty four, Tesla fired the five
hundred ish members of their supercharger team, including the top
woman manager, Rebecca Tanucci, who was the company's top female employee.
Allegedly Elon Musk, who if you somehow managed to avoid it,
in which case, congrats to you. Runs tell us your
(07:31):
secreta secret, that's his company. He sent out a questionnaire
requiring managers to justify their human resources with an email
that contained the line, hopefully these actions are making it
clear that we need to be absolutely hardcore about headcount
and cost reduction. Meanwhile, many industry journalists reported that this
(07:53):
action made no sense for the success of Tesla, like
that was a big project. It didn't make sense. Another
Elon Musk company, Twitter, slash X, also saw mass layoffs
fifty seven percent of those layoffs for women, and that
that company is embroiled in so many lawsuits and some
(08:13):
of them are about that right.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Just especially with the amount of money this specific dude
gets for doing nothing. But reek havoc. I mean, you're
going to say, probably tens of thousands of jobs just
by cutting your salary in half. Other companies like Dell
have been accused of stealth layoffs targeting women. With their
return to office policies in early twenty twenty four, they
gave their employees two options, a hybrid option of coming
(08:39):
into the office and working remotely or continuing to work
completely remotely. However, choosing that option came with penalties, so
one of them were quote no funding for team on
site meetings, even if a large portion of the team
is flying in for a meeting from other Dell locations,
no career advancement, no career movements, and remote status will
(09:01):
be considered when planning or organization changes aka workforce reductions.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yes, and according to one employee interviewed, if someone got
promotion while working remotely, it required them to come in
thirty nine days every quarter to accept it. And just
a note, Dell wasn't even necessarily providing these offices or
(09:28):
they didn't have enough space, I guess, and working remotely
was and had been a part of their hiring policy.
Was how they hired a lot of people who were like,
I just want to work remote, and they're like, we
got you. We're a cool company, and that's great.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
For the cool mobs.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, they kind of they were all about.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
It, and which is what tech does I feel like?
And Dell is such like the boomer of tech company.
Let's just be really honest. It's like they're like, look,
look we're cool. Not only can you work from home,
but yes we originated with the open spaces and the
unlimited PTO which you really can't take, and snacks and
maybe a cool concert here and there.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna in a second, but yes, this
is pretty It's pretty ridiculous though, because this is from
the standard you were reading, Samantha. Those that was from
like an official Dell email and to say like JB,
well you better come in or you're not going to
(10:37):
get any career advancement, and you're going to be the
first we consider when we're thinking about cutting our workforce.
And as we did discuss in our women working remotely episode,
it does benefit a lot of women, especially if there's
childcare involves. I mean, obviously that still sucks if you
(10:59):
have to work while doing child care, but it is
a way that people were able to have these jobs
where maybe they couldn't before. Okay. In November of twenty
twenty three, a woman laid off from Octa in twenty
twenty filed a civil suit in San Francisco Superior Court.
She alleged that, along with other women, she came forward
(11:21):
with concerns about gender discrimination and then after that her
views dropped drastically until she was eventually fired, and the
suit claimed that women experience quote, severe bias and inequity.
The lawsuit read, like other women, missus Ho was encouraged
to speak up and was told that this is a
safe place to tell all that it was a big trap.
(11:42):
Once she found courage to speak, she was retaliated against.
And that's in the larger conversation about retaliation that were
not necessarily getting into today, but that is part of this.
While a lot of what we are talking about is
tech specific, journalism also has been really impacted and in
a lot of ways, a lot of that industry has
become a tech industry. In early twenty twenty four, a
(12:05):
wave of layoffs hit the journalism industry, and people raise
the alarm that a lot of them hit women and
people of color, and how that was going to negatively
impact the landscape of our news and information was being
reported on how it's being written. According to the Coalition
for Women in Journalism, they reported that there were seventeen
thousand layoffs in this space in twenty twenty three. Entertainment
(12:29):
companies like Netflix and Disney also have similar conversations to
be had, but those are very different episode. Also, this
is not at all just a US problem, but we
are talking mainly about US based companies today, and a
lot of those companies are so big people all over
the world work for them. And a lot of this
(12:50):
has been underscored by the fact that when many of
these companies were just getting started, they were mostly run
and staffed by white men. As more attention land on
that point, as more people were like, hey, it's the
calls for change grew, these companies made bold promises and
being more inclusive in their hiring practices in the twenty tens,
(13:11):
especially as they got bigger and made more money and
became more structured in corporate but a lot of them
were still really famous for the yeah, the thinking outside
the box in terms of office life, of like happy
hours and gaming areas and bowling alleys and movie theaters,
all of that stuff that in a lot of ways
didn't suit women, especially if they had kids. But even
(13:34):
things like feeling safe with your employees or employers after
hours or getting home late, and that's what we talked
about in the Blizzard episode, kind of the difference between
a woman going to a conference and having a drink
versus a man doing it, and how it can look
really gross in office space. On top of that, a
(13:55):
lot of companies supported and encouraged people moving during the pandemic,
and we've discussed it before, but those policies again did
benefit a lot of women and marginalized people. So one
of the things that can get kind of lost is
that some of the numbers indicate more men were laid
off in these cases percentage wise, but the key thing
(14:16):
is women often represent less percentage wise than the workforce.
So for instance, in one analysis of three four hundred
people laid off, fifty five percent were men, forty five
percent were women. However, women only made up thirty nine
percent of the total workforce, so it impacted them far more.
(14:36):
Some estimates put the number of women laid off as
higher in the women in the industry also as lower.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So a piece of this is that women are more
likely to get hired in positions that are more easily
cut at least to the higher ups, like customer service
or HR. When it comes to seniority too, men are
more likely to have been there longer. This isn't even
touching on women or marginalized folks who left because of
burnout or harassment.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Other episodes we've done, Yes, yep. Studies show that women
are less financially prepared for layoffs than men, and this
could be because of a lot of things like the
ginger wage gap, pink techs, all kinds of stuff. Women
who relocate for their spouses, especially in the military, are
disproportionately impacted too, and this brings us to the pregnancy
(15:27):
discrimination part. In the wake of the tech layoffs that
happened in May of twenty twenty four, a disturbing number
of accounts about pregnant folks, people with postpartum or on
parental leave came out, about them being a large percentage
or a significant percentage of the ones that were cut
in terms of the number that they represented. Lawyers reported
(15:50):
receiving calls about pregnancy discrimination across the country. However, there
just aren't safeguards in place specifically protecting pregnant folks or
people on parental leave under the grounds of business necessities.
The discrimination is difficult to prove in the face of
mass layoffs too. But the thing is like a lot
(16:11):
of these big companies use their parental leave plans to
attract new employees too, especially women. But in these recent
waves of layoffs, a lot of the people who were
laid off were women, especially women on leave, So it
doesn't seem to be matching up right.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And that's not even the conversation about like FLSA and
what you have to do to qualify for that and
how to get through that and how to fire before
getting with that. So it's really scary to lose your
(16:52):
job at any time, but especially when you've had a
big life change like having a kid, that is going
to put more financial pressure on you and your family.
On top of that, if you have a baby and
no access to childcare, is going to be difficult, if
not impossible, to get a new job for at least
a little while.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yes, and so this also goes back to a point
we've discussed before, but a lot of these companies just
put into place these diversity equity inclusion DEI initiatives around
women and people of color and LGBTQ plus people and
people with disabilities, but without really making any change to
how the company functioned to make those things work. Look,
(17:30):
they didn't think it out beyond just saying, yeah, we're
going to do this, or to account for the reality
of what being truly inclusive would mean. So we've also
seen a lot of companies doing away with those initiatives entirely.
In recent years. It's become something of a controversial issue
(17:52):
in our political landscape.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
That's literally a platform like that people are using to
be like I should be your governor, your congressman, your
board of directors, whatever, Like it's absurd, like I will
get rid of DEI. I mean, we need to come
back and talk about the fact that the damn Asian
person who was puppet essentially coming after DEI initiatives and
(18:16):
inclusivity initiatives for higher education and now the number of
Asian students being accepted has lowered, no other numbers, just
the Asians. I'm like, yeah, that's what you get.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, yeah, And there's a lot, there's a lot going
on with this, because it really does feel to me
that well, I mean, number one, obviously most obviously their companies,
and they want to make money, and they thought like
saying these things would make them money.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
And they still do even during this time when it
like when it benefits them, aka like pride parades are like,
we're going to be in here even though we've already
backtracked in all of these policies, right, And it's.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Like the second that it becomes oh they're striking or
oh they're doing this, we don't need this, and it's
just like they're just saying it to get the points
and then not doing anything about it. But I also
truly do think they didn't even think it through about
how this would work or look, or they didn't want
(19:28):
to mess up with their their boys club, bowling alleys
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Right they're happy hours.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And there are a couple of like
key things people have written about we've spoken about on
the show. One is the importance of mentors in spaces
like this, but if all the mentors are white men,
doesn't really work. And then there is the myth of
the white male genius who, so I can never make
(20:04):
a mistake, is like the god of whatever company. Uh.
And then so even when they clearly do make mistake,
they never face these consequences, but everyone else who is
not there.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Does, right, I mean the president again?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, yeah, I laugh because I'm miserable. There's also going
back to what you kind of mention Smith, that there's
this this return that we're seeing happen to hardcore bro culture.
And so Elon Musk is a great example because when
(20:47):
he took over Twitter, he was like boasting about you're
going to sleep at work, You're gonna be working all
the time. You're like all of these things, as if
this is a good thing, right, But that is that
was the myth of a lot of these companies that
(21:07):
started to startups was like you lived there, That's yeah,
that's how it worked. But it's strange because that company
was successful, right.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
But you start looking at the companies that have this
these thought processes. They made a whole freaking movie on
Facebook alone, and you realize the majority of the success
comes from stealing things from people. Yeah, more than that,
like not Napster, all of those things. You're like, wait,
these boys are not geniuses. They just know how to
get away with stealing.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Exactly and exactly they are taking credit, yeah, just taking
credit for other people's.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Work, right, and Elon Musk Bezos is the same thing.
And then I know you're about to get into it,
but it's amazing, this whole mentality, like you have to
dedicate your life for a company, but we're not going
to reward you obviously, And like even the fact that
Amazon had that whole day they could not go take
back and breaks, so they were peeing in bottles, and
of course women can't freaking do that really at all.
(22:06):
And they have this mentality that if you leave that
station and you are stealing time, stealing time from work, yeah,
which is absurd, being paid for not working. You're like,
that's not how this works. And we're backtracking on all
these things that were protected so that people could have
access to be human, right in this whole culture of like, no,
(22:27):
but if you really care about making money, if you
really want to be successful.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
This is what you do right, right, And if you can't,
if you can't hack it, then get it, then.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You're going to be fired and will replace you.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
You're easily replaceable, exactly, exactly, And it's just it's bizarre
also because of course they try to paint it as
if you were being weak women. You're like, really, you
think people just want to sleep at work or eat more.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Like you think that this is a thing that they
like being human once again is a detriment like eating right,
I'm sorry, we are hungry. You cannot live that way.
We've had people die recently, a couple of incidences at work,
and no one found them because they did not care
(23:21):
about these people.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, and that's the thing is like, you know, Elon
Musk is gonna be fine, essentially, like even.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
With the millions that he's gonna be sued. He may
be sued, he may go to courts and may even
go to jail. He'll still be fine.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
He'll be fine. And so he's just asking his employees
to fix something he broke and bruin your life while
doing it.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
He's broken in so many times. Can we talk about
how moody his whole thing is, Like the whole new
block thing is rumored that because he didn't want he
wanted his ex wife's access to hit her account, and
is she blocked in and so the reason that they
changed that up recently is so that he could still
access her stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
That's the rumor, isn't that Like that comes up an
embarrassing amount for you white male geniuses, is that it
was a woman that hurt you somewhere and so.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Therefore he has to do all these things in retaliation.
I'm like, how petty he's going to be. And You're like,
so you changed the whole blocking access, which did not
that's the one thing that didn't really need to be
fixed because you were upset that you could not see
your ex wife's content. Really again, rumors, this is not.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Surprise me.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
But I'm like, it's really coincidental.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
It would not surprise me at all. What I mean. Also,
I want to come back and do an episode on this.
But when I say like return to this hardcore bro culture,
it's happening online as well, and it's happening in a
lot of spaces that some of them we've touched on.
I've seen some around the world that are happening. But
(25:12):
a part of it is because of this, because of
people like Elon Musk who come in and do all
these terrible things, Fire all the people of color, fire
all the women. And so the technology that is people
are using is really boosting that content, and it's been
sadly effective in a lot of ways. But yeah, that
(25:37):
kind of were we got away from it for a minute.
But then I also I was reading a very depressing
article about this, but Essentially it kind of snapped backwards
in the way so many of these things often do
for a lot to for reasons, but.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Well, I think I wonder if it just looked that
way once again. It was just a pay perspective, because
when we talked about the Google creator and content developer
and the things that she went through, she was like,
a this AI stuff is not going to go well,
this's going to be racist and we should not be
doing any of these things. And she immediately got fired
(26:22):
and everybody's etcter like it was always there, but it
was better hidden, and now just people just don't care anymore,
especially with the fact that the government allows so much
leeway for tech companies to do whatever the hell they want,
which is a whole different conversation that we've repeatedly have
had to have, and no one's really talking about these issues,
(26:42):
Like I've really upset and concerned that we are. Again.
Abortion is a huge issue. Don't get me wrong, I'm
not talking about that. Queer rights huge issues, but all
these things are happening, but we're like, what about the
underlying things that we need to talk about with each
one of these Congress people, which a few people have
brought up, including John Ossoft being like, ay, so we
(27:04):
should not allow government officials to be a part of
the stocks, but that should not be able to practice
in trading because there's some really shady stuff happening. And
I completely agree with that on both sides. This is
where I'm like, this whole system is corrupt, So I
have a whole like, ah, yes, I am far leading
(27:25):
left and I am losing it, like I am going
faster on that track because we are seeing like even
the people that we were supposed to trust and that
we put on pedestals, and we're so proud of calling
our representatives or at least like representatives in the States, like, oh,
but you just made tons of money on this one
thing that really hurts the American people.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And you know this.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
That's why like cracking and those issues are such a
hug just because you are putting money and banking on
how much money you're going to make and using your policies.
So all these conversations that this is a huge thing
we should be looking at, but we haven't really even
considered it at all. And I say we, including myself,
because we have to look at the You're a huge
victor first to save democracy. Second, yeah, we'll come back
(28:05):
to the big issues with like the constitutional stuff at
the Supreme Court. And then thirdly we'll come to these
other things of like why are they doing this and
whose interest this is for?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, And that's the thing too, is like a lot
of these big companies they do get occasionally, they do
get fined, but for them, it's nothing like it's.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
It's better to be fined than to correct something and
do something that's better for the people. Like that's right,
that's this is the biggest concern. Is like even with
the small companies that had good intent, they've grown into
such big companies that have been taken over and or
that have made enough money that they're like, I don't
care anymore. This is that makes me sad. But the
(28:44):
fact that all of these things are happening and these
big tech companies do not care. They would rather have
a fine and have a whole like smear campaign about
the fact that they are sexist and racist and like
all of like anti LGBT, like all of those things
that homophobic as hell. They don't care because it still
makes the money and it doesn't do it much like
(29:04):
because the governments and or policies have held them up
and being like yeah, yea, but you can still do that.
That's racist, but it'll probably help us in the end
and we can we can make better jobs, bigger, more jobs,
and events, which is not true. But like all of
these conversations that I'm like, yeah, that's part of the
big problem is that these companies will never change because
(29:26):
they're never ever and they're also not taxed correctly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Oh yeah, well that's the whole secret. I know.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I'm opening up both all these doors. But like when
we see these conversations, these layofs why they don't care
and they put on like the lipstick on the pig
type of conversation is literally like that's what they do,
and knowing that, they'll just talk about the next company
that does it. Yeah, and we'll be lumped in here,
but they'll they'll forget because there's so many of us
and they can't do anything to all of us because
(29:55):
the policies protect.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Us, right right, And it does, I mean so many
there are so many things in place like this, coming
back to coming back to the office and coming back
to the like hardcore pro culture. I mean, it does
these models. So many of these models, even with the
like oh now we're open space, do favor men. They
(30:19):
were designed with men and mine, right, And so having
this idea of like coming into the office that's better.
It shows that you like, really care and like even
if they won't, they'll tell you, well, it won't penalize you.
But if you don't come in, they do, even if
it's not purposeful, even if it's like just in the
(30:41):
back of someone subconscious.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Right, the more you're seeing, the more you're likely to
be remembered. This is kind of that conversation too. But
if I had it interesting, I'm going to go back
to Ireland experience. The last time we were in the
studio and we had Maya, our executive producer, who was
a powerhouse. I didn't know, like, I didn't know how
strong she really was. So I'm willing to stand up
(31:04):
for like what she felt was a wrong. But the
fact is, have we not? We were being pushed over
for men, like it was so interesting how quickly people
wanted to side with a bigger name, any of those
like on there's two separate sides. There's a radio side
and there is a podcast side. This was one of
the things that came together during the pandemic in hopes
(31:27):
that they could save money. Ab they're being like, we're
gonna be working from home anyway, so it's fine. Then
they started being like, come back into work. We were
like why, but then like, we did come back to work,
and the moment we did, we were like being pushed
as a secondary in comparison to a bigger, like male
(31:47):
group of broadcasters. It wasn't their fault, but everything they
were doing was literally like, no, but but we were
more important. Oh no, but yeah, we have a system
where it's set ups to sign things up on like
a whole big calendar. But that's that doesn't matter unless
because we are more important. It was a whole different
(32:08):
like and I feel like most of that and this
is again on us, but at the same time on society,
where we were like, oh, okay, okay, we don't want
to cause conflict, We'll move okay, okay, but Maa being like,
oh hell no, no, no, I will fight with you.
I will fight with the heads in here.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
And she made sure to get put the respect and
she's like, we being like, you are disrespecting us, and
she never really says that she was just like, this
is absurd, this is not how it goes. We need
to set a boundary. And I was like, damn okay,
because it's like societally we would have just moved on,
like that was what we have always been told. We've
even in the old office, there's moments we were.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Like, why is this happening?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
We have to shrink and people wonder why, and then
when we did, and I was like they impressive, Like
everything worked out. But it just feels like that type
of culture is what we have seen so often. Yeah,
in like the likes of any like any space. And
I'm not saying anything bad about our company necessarily in
this in this specific moment, but like things like this
(33:16):
have continued to happen in the office to the point
that this is why Maya was like, I'm done, I'm
done well, and.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
It's like this was a very particular instance. But in
this instance, uh, everyone involved had done everything right, everything correctly.
We had the space, many of the other most of
other studios were open, so it was it wasn't it
(33:43):
was odd. It was odd. A lot of threads here, obviously,
but I'm glad. I'm so glad Maya stood up and
before it worked out fine, but it took time out
of our day and I ended up getting home I
think three hours later then I had planned, right, and
(34:03):
that was unnecessary. It was unnecessary. It was a waste
of time, right.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
And honestly, like in this like scope of what we
was but it just so the bottom line on this
was like, it feels like a standard because we've had
this done to us a few times the few times
that we were in the studio, we've had this done
multiple times where we were like, eh, scooch over sorry,
and that's that expectations. And typically it has always been
men who overtake our studio. Am I wrong? Every time?
(34:30):
I remember those situations always been dudes. Yeah, because they yeah,
they feel like this is a this is a standard.
I can do this, we can do this, and it's
kind of a and even even when we had been like, hey,
this is an issue, they'd be like, oh, just comply
for now and we'll fix this later, which again teaches
(34:52):
us and them nothing's going to be done. And I
think this is where this is the first time again
why we saw my being like, nah, I'm over this,
and which again I was so thoroughly impressed that. I
was like, oh, because this is the first time we've
seen it from someone who was in charge of our
our time in studios place, so it was impressive for
(35:14):
that matter, But also this has been It wasn't a
big deal, but it is the bigger scope of things
of like why is this a standard and y'all think
this is okay? And then y'all want us to be
in here and talking about being empowered and acting like
this is a safe work space when you obviously show
how little we mean as a part of this family company.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
When I was thinking about this topic of running through
my head, I also I wanted to do an episode
on the origins of the phrase go back to the kitchen,
because I've just seen it. It's it's so it's everywhere,
and it's been everywhere. It's like one of the first
things usually men will say to a woman who they
(36:12):
don't agree with. And I was just like thinking about that,
and I still I feel like that can kind of
translate here where it is still seen as like, well,
they can they don't have to be here, they can
go back home, they.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Can go do that as as people are expendable.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Right, like that idea just permeated, and I was also
thinking about a lot of the invisible work people do
women do usually and we've done episodes on on it,
like the whole spectrum of it. But like as a
single woman, you can get asked to do a lot
(36:49):
of the parties, the planning, all of these events that
you don't get paid for, really don't get recognized for
because you don't have kids, so what are you doing?
But then on the other sid side, people with kids
being penalized because they have kids, right and they have
to go home. So it's just sort of all of
these expectations are punishments that are just there, even if
(37:17):
they're not writing, they.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Are there, right, And the extra amount of work that
is expected again, planning a party is a pretty significant
deal when you're having a giant group of people. To
be fair, I think like people have realized this is, yeah,
an ordeal for the most part, especially when people don't
knew it. They're like, no, I'm not giving this anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I think that that conversation is like the whole women
in layoffs and then really figuring it out to the
they're expendable, we can easily replace them. We could all
these conversations and putting again putting them at positions are
replaceable in their minds, whether or not they understand how
big of a conversation like no, they're not as explicable
(38:07):
as you think, right, but especially when they put the
load that they do on most of these types of
positions that they think it's so minial in their bigger
scheme of conversations when like I know, the saying goes
is essentially you rise up to do less work like
if you don't, if you actually want to not have
(38:28):
to do much, get a promotion type of thing and
people will do the work for you. And I think
that's what we see and which is why again white
women are at the forefront of being laid off and
or excuse like again the pregnancy, which blows my mind
in every respect. I'm like, I just I don't understand
(38:48):
why that's the qualifier. Just okay, whatever, There's so many
things in this conversation that needs to be again readdressed.
But yeah, as I am going on my tigh rate
of like, it doesn't change the culture of business. Who
says they're trying to appreciate the marginalized people are the
same people who are like, yeah, but you need to
be able to be shrunk, you need to be smaller
(39:11):
so we can exist as an peaceful office, like you
need to make peace, you need to be okay and
don't make any waves here. And it's such an interesting
thing in that same way, but like they're willing to
get rid of those people. Well, probably the peace keepers
of the office.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Probably and are most likely doing a lot more work
than you're not realizing. Right. Also, this whole conversation has
also brought up conversations around things like just cause. So
that means that they have to Companies legally have to
(39:51):
give you a reason why you're fired. Not always you
have to fight for that in some cases, but in layoffs,
it's it's a kind of ambiguous space. So, like I said,
some of this is that's why it's been so hard
to prove as you can, it's difficult. Also, severence policies
(40:11):
that that's come under come to light and discussion has
been had about that and how good are bad they are.
But I did want to ask you how so you've
got some unemployment?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I did, and the amount I don't think unemployment has
gone up either, since I've had unemployment, and that was
fourteen years ago. I think the amount State of Georgia
has made the same because that, y'all, it doesn't it's
not much. And what sucks is it's tax It's taxed awfully. Yeah,
(40:45):
So essentially a weekly benefits from the for the State
of Georgia goes from fifty five dollars to three hundred
and sixty five dollars a week, but it is taxed,
so one third of it is gone. So essentially you
may be able to get twelve hundred dollars a month.
Can you imagine living on that? And if you get
a part time job that goes away, right, you cannot
(41:09):
make money and you have to show every week that
you are trying to find the job. The amount of
things that you have to do to get unemployment, and
you can easily be removed the amount of taxes that
you have to pay because you can choose not to
have a tax at the beginning and then at the end. Man,
that hurt me, Yeah, it hurt me a lot. And
(41:31):
I was trying to find the job. This is what
I just turned thirty. Everything from like the worst and
I was trying my damnness, and like trying to find
a job and try to get back into social all
these things. But the fact that it has not changed, yeah,
in that long of a period, that's the most absurd. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, And I mean the thing that's like if a company,
companies don't have to offer severance policies, and even even
if they do, if they can find a way to say,
like they had just cost, they had a reason to
fire you, right, they don't have to give it to you.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
And unemployment is also contingent on that. If they had
just cause and you got fired and it's your fault
if you quit any of those things, you don't get unemployment. Yeah,
and a job can fight against you, yes, to not
get unemployment because it comes from their taxes, brads.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So it's so gross, it is. And then again going
back to so many of these things, but especially with
women who might have children or people who might have children,
like finding a job and it's not easy. Finding one
where you can maybe have flexible hours or work from
(42:50):
home also not easy. So it is a huge tax
on women and people of color. And then yeah, it's
just hard to find a job. And you know, you
might have really cared about your job, and so you
don't quite feel like just moving on, or maybe you're
(43:13):
a little depressed. Right, there's a lot going on where
twelve hundred dollars a month is not gonna right.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Get it. Also just that conversation of the fact that
you have to give a reason as to why you're
laid off. Hopefully that you're like, oh, it was just
a mass decision, Da da da. But we know a
lot of these companies have become vindictive and saying they're
laying off based on performance.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
That's true, and that in itself is like a marker.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
On many of those people who are being laid off,
and then some who are vindictive and give bad recommendations,
which by the way, is illegal technically, well weirdly.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's a mess. Obviously, there's a lot of
other paths we could go down with this one, but.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Oh god, yeah, I'm thinking about the fact that if
there's a gap in your resume, they get they see
that as a negative. So if you're just off because
you were out with your child, they see that as
a negative. There's so many bad things there.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
I'm sorry there are. It's warranted, it's warranted, but yeah, uh, listeners,
If you have any thoughts on this, if you were
I know some of you were impacted I think by
some of the twenty twenty three layoffs, please let us
know and hope we hope you're all doing okay whatever's
(44:44):
going on in your life. You can contact us in
many ways. You can email us at Stephanie and mom
stuff atiheartmedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter
at mom sup Podcasts, or in Distagram and TikTok at
stuff on Never Tolds You. We guys have a tea
public story and we have a book you can get
wherever you get. Ear Reks thanks as always to our
super producer Christina, our executive pducer My and our contributor Joey.
(45:04):
Thank you and thanks see you for listening Stuff I
Never Told You. The production by Heart Radio form more
podcast in my Heart Radio. You can check out the
heart Radio app, Apple podcast or where have you listen
to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Anny and welcome to stuff I Never
told you production of iHeartRadio and welcome to another classic.
I am a solo today, but Samantha will be back soon.
(00:27):
In this episode I wanted to bring back even though
it's kind of recent and kind of more specific to
the tech industry. But unfortunately here in the United States,
we are seeing a lot of layoffs right now, a
(00:48):
lot of people losing their jobs as this comes out.
I'm recording it on October twenty eighth, twenty twenty five,
but it's coming out a little bit later. The government,
the US government is still shut down, and it has
been used as an excuse to not only fire or
lay off a lot of people, but also to particularly
(01:13):
target things organizations or jobs that are in any way
about helping women or helping marginalize people. And so even
if the numbers aren't there yet because the government is
shut down so they stop reporting on that, we do
(01:35):
know that that is happening and that that does have
a larger impact on marginalized people and women. So it's
something that we're going to have to keep an eye on,
and it's something that's really sad because that's just decades
of work that's being lost in some cases, like I
have people I know who worked in some of those
(01:57):
sectors and they are just devastated because that's they'd finally
built up on all of this, finally got to this point.
You know, we've recently talked about that with We're finally
studying actually women and their health, and this backtracking is
just really upsetting. So, as I said, even though this
(02:21):
episode is a bit more specific, I just wanted to
bring it back. And also I hope everyone out there
is okay. If you've lost your job, I'm really sorry.
And if you have anything you want to write in
about that you think we should talk about, or any
resources you would like us to share, please let us know.
But in the meantime, here is this classic episode. Hey,
(02:48):
this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff I've
never told you production of iHeart Radio. Content. Warning, as
the title suggests, we are talking about layoffs and losing
a job just not fun. Have you ever been laid
(03:11):
off or fired, Samantha.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yes, I have rood of you to ask, but I'm
going to tell you anyway. But essentially I think it
was more pragmatic and it's just the timing of everything,
but it did feel great. I did get unemployment though
for a while. Oh, that was an interesting process.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's that's nice. You'll have to tell me because we
are going to talk about that briefly. Yeah, in here
you'll have to tell me about that. I have never
been laid off. I have lost a position before where
they were like, you're just not good at this, why
don't you do this? That's all right, you've been re arranged.
(03:51):
I was rearranged. I kind of feel like I was
stell fired from Longhorned Steakhouse, which.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I told that story before, Like you didn't even though
I both.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Feel I was still fired, but also I wasn't showing up,
so there was no official process. We just both kind
of ghosted to each other.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I'm trying to think if I have ever had that.
I don't think so. I've always put in my notice
and left.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I had I've worked for a company that went I
don't think it went under, but something happened where within
the first week I didn't have a job. Yeah, but
I didn't feel like I was. It felt like that
whole thing just went away, so right, but I had
to go find another job quickly. Because I was in
Europe and I was anticipating That's why I was there,
(04:41):
and I did. I was very fortunate. Yes, we've through
the time I've worked at this company, which long.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Time now, Yeah, I kind of forget you have other jobs.
You've ever had other jobs, That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
It feels weird to me too, to remember. We have
had rounds of layoffs and it is scary. We had
a pretty emotional one when I was an intern, where
like I was young and I didn't it was my
first time I think ever when at this particular instance,
(05:18):
they like sat us all in a room and told
us about it and that people were crying and like
people were packing up, and.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Oh my gosh, that you feel like, well, it's just
a very destabilizing feeling. Yeah, And we recently had around
the layoffs here and several of my friends were laid off.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So it is it's scary, and there have been there's
been a lot of stuff written about what's happening in
the tech industry, specifically with a lot of the layoffs
that have It kind of started in twenty twenty but
twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four were a big
year for les unfortunately, and they impacted more women and
(06:05):
marginalized folks, and we're going to talk about that and
why that is. I would say you can check out
our past episode spoiler alert on pregnancy discrimination, our work
from home episodes Women and Unions perhaps, and the episode
we did What's Happening at Blizzard which we should update
that one. Oh my, but okay, so yes, for this,
(06:28):
we're specifically looking at several rounds of tech and journalism
layoffs that happened this year and how they have disproportionately
impacted women and people of color and throughout the year,
this year being twenty twenty four, we have seen several
high profile rounds of layoffs and we're going to look
at a few examples that highlight some troubling trends.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right and some baseline numbers to start off here. Since
the beginning of twenty twenty three, huge companies like Google, Meta,
and Amazon have laid off tens of thousands of their employees.
More recently, Tesla laid off fourteen thousand. The amount of
jobs lost in the tech sectors are estimated to be
upwards of three hundred and forty thousand, and the number
has sense grown yep.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
In April of twenty twenty four, Tesla fired the five
hundred ish members of their supercharger team, including the top
woman manager, Rebecca Tanucci, who was the company's top female employee.
Allegedly Elon Musk, who if you somehow managed to avoid it,
in which case, congrats to you. Runs tell us your
(07:31):
secreta secret, that's his company. He sent out a questionnaire
requiring managers to justify their human resources with an email
that contained the line, hopefully these actions are making it
clear that we need to be absolutely hardcore about headcount
and cost reduction. Meanwhile, many industry journalists reported that this
(07:53):
action made no sense for the success of Tesla, like
that was a big project. It didn't make sense. Another
Elon Musk company, Twitter, slash X, also saw mass layoffs
fifty seven percent of those layoffs for women, and that
that company is embroiled in so many lawsuits and some
(08:13):
of them are about that right.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Just especially with the amount of money this specific dude
gets for doing nothing. But reek havoc. I mean, you're
going to say, probably tens of thousands of jobs just
by cutting your salary in half. Other companies like Dell
have been accused of stealth layoffs targeting women. With their
return to office policies in early twenty twenty four, they
gave their employees two options, a hybrid option of coming
(08:39):
into the office and working remotely or continuing to work
completely remotely. However, choosing that option came with penalties, so
one of them were quote no funding for team on
site meetings, even if a large portion of the team
is flying in for a meeting from other Dell locations,
no career advancement, no career movements, and remote status will
(09:01):
be considered when planning or organization changes aka workforce reductions.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yes, and according to one employee interviewed, if someone got
promotion while working remotely, it required them to come in
thirty nine days every quarter to accept it. And just
a note, Dell wasn't even necessarily providing these offices or
(09:28):
they didn't have enough space, I guess, and working remotely
was and had been a part of their hiring policy.
Was how they hired a lot of people who were like,
I just want to work remote, and they're like, we
got you. We're a cool company, and that's great.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
For the cool mobs.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, they kind of they were all about.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
It, and which is what tech does I feel like?
And Dell is such like the boomer of tech company.
Let's just be really honest. It's like they're like, look,
look we're cool. Not only can you work from home,
but yes we originated with the open spaces and the
unlimited PTO which you really can't take, and snacks and
maybe a cool concert here and there.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna in a second, but yes, this
is pretty It's pretty ridiculous though, because this is from
the standard you were reading, Samantha. Those that was from
like an official Dell email and to say like JB,
well you better come in or you're not going to
(10:37):
get any career advancement, and you're going to be the
first we consider when we're thinking about cutting our workforce.
And as we did discuss in our women working remotely episode,
it does benefit a lot of women, especially if there's
childcare involves. I mean, obviously that still sucks if you
(10:59):
have to work while doing child care, but it is
a way that people were able to have these jobs
where maybe they couldn't before. Okay. In November of twenty
twenty three, a woman laid off from Octa in twenty
twenty filed a civil suit in San Francisco Superior Court.
She alleged that, along with other women, she came forward
(11:21):
with concerns about gender discrimination and then after that her
views dropped drastically until she was eventually fired, and the
suit claimed that women experience quote, severe bias and inequity.
The lawsuit read, like other women, missus Ho was encouraged
to speak up and was told that this is a
safe place to tell all that it was a big trap.
(11:42):
Once she found courage to speak, she was retaliated against.
And that's in the larger conversation about retaliation that were
not necessarily getting into today, but that is part of this.
While a lot of what we are talking about is
tech specific, journalism also has been really impacted and in
a lot of ways, a lot of that industry has
become a tech industry. In early twenty twenty four, a
(12:05):
wave of layoffs hit the journalism industry, and people raise
the alarm that a lot of them hit women and
people of color, and how that was going to negatively
impact the landscape of our news and information was being
reported on how it's being written. According to the Coalition
for Women in Journalism, they reported that there were seventeen
thousand layoffs in this space in twenty twenty three. Entertainment
(12:29):
companies like Netflix and Disney also have similar conversations to
be had, but those are very different episode. Also, this
is not at all just a US problem, but we
are talking mainly about US based companies today, and a
lot of those companies are so big people all over
the world work for them. And a lot of this
(12:50):
has been underscored by the fact that when many of
these companies were just getting started, they were mostly run
and staffed by white men. As more attention land on
that point, as more people were like, hey, it's the
calls for change grew, these companies made bold promises and
being more inclusive in their hiring practices in the twenty tens,
(13:11):
especially as they got bigger and made more money and
became more structured in corporate but a lot of them
were still really famous for the yeah, the thinking outside
the box in terms of office life, of like happy
hours and gaming areas and bowling alleys and movie theaters,
all of that stuff that in a lot of ways
didn't suit women, especially if they had kids. But even
(13:34):
things like feeling safe with your employees or employers after
hours or getting home late, and that's what we talked
about in the Blizzard episode, kind of the difference between
a woman going to a conference and having a drink
versus a man doing it, and how it can look
really gross in office space. On top of that, a
(13:55):
lot of companies supported and encouraged people moving during the pandemic,
and we've discussed it before, but those policies again did
benefit a lot of women and marginalized people. So one
of the things that can get kind of lost is
that some of the numbers indicate more men were laid
off in these cases percentage wise, but the key thing
(14:16):
is women often represent less percentage wise than the workforce.
So for instance, in one analysis of three four hundred
people laid off, fifty five percent were men, forty five
percent were women. However, women only made up thirty nine
percent of the total workforce, so it impacted them far more.
(14:36):
Some estimates put the number of women laid off as
higher in the women in the industry also as lower.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So a piece of this is that women are more
likely to get hired in positions that are more easily
cut at least to the higher ups, like customer service
or HR. When it comes to seniority too, men are
more likely to have been there longer. This isn't even
touching on women or marginalized folks who left because of
burnout or harassment.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Other episodes we've done, Yes, yep. Studies show that women
are less financially prepared for layoffs than men, and this
could be because of a lot of things like the
ginger wage gap, pink techs, all kinds of stuff. Women
who relocate for their spouses, especially in the military, are
disproportionately impacted too, and this brings us to the pregnancy
(15:27):
discrimination part. In the wake of the tech layoffs that
happened in May of twenty twenty four, a disturbing number
of accounts about pregnant folks, people with postpartum or on
parental leave came out, about them being a large percentage
or a significant percentage of the ones that were cut
in terms of the number that they represented. Lawyers reported
(15:50):
receiving calls about pregnancy discrimination across the country. However, there
just aren't safeguards in place specifically protecting pregnant folks or
people on parental leave under the grounds of business necessities.
The discrimination is difficult to prove in the face of
mass layoffs too. But the thing is like a lot
(16:11):
of these big companies use their parental leave plans to
attract new employees too, especially women. But in these recent
waves of layoffs, a lot of the people who were
laid off were women, especially women on leave, So it
doesn't seem to be matching up right.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And that's not even the conversation about like FLSA and
what you have to do to qualify for that and
how to get through that and how to fire before
getting with that. So it's really scary to lose your
(16:52):
job at any time, but especially when you've had a
big life change like having a kid, that is going
to put more financial pressure on you and your family.
On top of that, if you have a baby and
no access to childcare, is going to be difficult, if
not impossible, to get a new job for at least
a little while.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yes, and so this also goes back to a point
we've discussed before, but a lot of these companies just
put into place these diversity equity inclusion DEI initiatives around
women and people of color and LGBTQ plus people and
people with disabilities, but without really making any change to
how the company functioned to make those things work. Look,
(17:30):
they didn't think it out beyond just saying, yeah, we're
going to do this, or to account for the reality
of what being truly inclusive would mean. So we've also
seen a lot of companies doing away with those initiatives entirely.
In recent years. It's become something of a controversial issue
(17:52):
in our political landscape.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
That's literally a platform like that people are using to
be like I should be your governor, your congressman, your
board of directors, whatever, Like it's absurd, like I will
get rid of DEI. I mean, we need to come
back and talk about the fact that the damn Asian
person who was puppet essentially coming after DEI initiatives and
(18:16):
inclusivity initiatives for higher education and now the number of
Asian students being accepted has lowered, no other numbers, just
the Asians. I'm like, yeah, that's what you get.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, yeah, And there's a lot, there's a lot going
on with this, because it really does feel to me
that well, I mean, number one, obviously most obviously their companies,
and they want to make money, and they thought like
saying these things would make them money.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
And they still do even during this time when it
like when it benefits them, aka like pride parades are like,
we're going to be in here even though we've already
backtracked in all of these policies, right, And it's.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Like the second that it becomes oh they're striking or
oh they're doing this, we don't need this, and it's
just like they're just saying it to get the points
and then not doing anything about it. But I also
truly do think they didn't even think it through about
how this would work or look, or they didn't want
(19:28):
to mess up with their their boys club, bowling alleys
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Right they're happy hours.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And there are a couple of like
key things people have written about we've spoken about on
the show. One is the importance of mentors in spaces
like this, but if all the mentors are white men,
doesn't really work. And then there is the myth of
the white male genius who, so I can never make
(20:04):
a mistake, is like the god of whatever company. Uh.
And then so even when they clearly do make mistake,
they never face these consequences, but everyone else who is
not there.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Does, right, I mean the president again?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, yeah, I laugh because I'm miserable. There's also going
back to what you kind of mention Smith, that there's
this this return that we're seeing happen to hardcore bro culture.
And so Elon Musk is a great example because when
(20:47):
he took over Twitter, he was like boasting about you're
going to sleep at work, You're gonna be working all
the time. You're like all of these things, as if
this is a good thing, right, But that is that
was the myth of a lot of these companies that
(21:07):
started to startups was like you lived there, That's yeah,
that's how it worked. But it's strange because that company
was successful, right.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
But you start looking at the companies that have this
these thought processes. They made a whole freaking movie on
Facebook alone, and you realize the majority of the success
comes from stealing things from people. Yeah, more than that,
like not Napster, all of those things. You're like, wait,
these boys are not geniuses. They just know how to
get away with stealing.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Exactly and exactly they are taking credit, yeah, just taking
credit for other people's.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Work, right, and Elon Musk Bezos is the same thing.
And then I know you're about to get into it,
but it's amazing, this whole mentality, like you have to
dedicate your life for a company, but we're not going
to reward you obviously, And like even the fact that
Amazon had that whole day they could not go take
back and breaks, so they were peeing in bottles, and
of course women can't freaking do that really at all.
(22:06):
And they have this mentality that if you leave that
station and you are stealing time, stealing time from work, yeah,
which is absurd, being paid for not working. You're like,
that's not how this works. And we're backtracking on all
these things that were protected so that people could have
access to be human, right in this whole culture of like, no,
(22:27):
but if you really care about making money, if you
really want to be successful.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
This is what you do right, right, And if you can't,
if you can't hack it, then get it, then.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You're going to be fired and will replace you.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
You're easily replaceable, exactly, exactly, And it's just it's bizarre
also because of course they try to paint it as
if you were being weak women. You're like, really, you
think people just want to sleep at work or eat more.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Like you think that this is a thing that they
like being human once again is a detriment like eating right,
I'm sorry, we are hungry. You cannot live that way.
We've had people die recently, a couple of incidences at work,
and no one found them because they did not care
(23:21):
about these people.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, and that's the thing is like, you know, Elon
Musk is gonna be fine, essentially, like even.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
With the millions that he's gonna be sued. He may
be sued, he may go to courts and may even
go to jail. He'll still be fine.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
He'll be fine. And so he's just asking his employees
to fix something he broke and bruin your life while
doing it.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
He's broken in so many times. Can we talk about
how moody his whole thing is, Like the whole new
block thing is rumored that because he didn't want he
wanted his ex wife's access to hit her account, and
is she blocked in and so the reason that they
changed that up recently is so that he could still
access her stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
That's the rumor, isn't that Like that comes up an
embarrassing amount for you white male geniuses, is that it
was a woman that hurt you somewhere and so.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Therefore he has to do all these things in retaliation.
I'm like, how petty he's going to be. And You're like,
so you changed the whole blocking access, which did not
that's the one thing that didn't really need to be
fixed because you were upset that you could not see
your ex wife's content. Really again, rumors, this is not.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Surprise me.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
But I'm like, it's really coincidental.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
It would not surprise me at all. What I mean. Also,
I want to come back and do an episode on this.
But when I say like return to this hardcore bro culture,
it's happening online as well, and it's happening in a
lot of spaces that some of them we've touched on.
I've seen some around the world that are happening. But
(25:12):
a part of it is because of this, because of
people like Elon Musk who come in and do all
these terrible things, Fire all the people of color, fire
all the women. And so the technology that is people
are using is really boosting that content, and it's been
sadly effective in a lot of ways. But yeah, that
(25:37):
kind of were we got away from it for a minute.
But then I also I was reading a very depressing
article about this, but Essentially it kind of snapped backwards
in the way so many of these things often do
for a lot to for reasons, but.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Well, I think I wonder if it just looked that
way once again. It was just a pay perspective, because
when we talked about the Google creator and content developer
and the things that she went through, she was like,
a this AI stuff is not going to go well,
this's going to be racist and we should not be
doing any of these things. And she immediately got fired
(26:22):
and everybody's etcter like it was always there, but it
was better hidden, and now just people just don't care anymore,
especially with the fact that the government allows so much
leeway for tech companies to do whatever the hell they want,
which is a whole different conversation that we've repeatedly have
had to have, and no one's really talking about these issues,
(26:42):
Like I've really upset and concerned that we are. Again.
Abortion is a huge issue. Don't get me wrong, I'm
not talking about that. Queer rights huge issues, but all
these things are happening, but we're like, what about the
underlying things that we need to talk about with each
one of these Congress people, which a few people have
brought up, including John Ossoft being like, ay, so we
(27:04):
should not allow government officials to be a part of
the stocks, but that should not be able to practice
in trading because there's some really shady stuff happening. And
I completely agree with that on both sides. This is
where I'm like, this whole system is corrupt, So I
have a whole like, ah, yes, I am far leading
(27:25):
left and I am losing it, like I am going
faster on that track because we are seeing like even
the people that we were supposed to trust and that
we put on pedestals, and we're so proud of calling
our representatives or at least like representatives in the States, like, oh,
but you just made tons of money on this one
thing that really hurts the American people.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And you know this.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
That's why like cracking and those issues are such a
hug just because you are putting money and banking on
how much money you're going to make and using your policies.
So all these conversations that this is a huge thing
we should be looking at, but we haven't really even
considered it at all. And I say we, including myself,
because we have to look at the You're a huge
victor first to save democracy. Second, yeah, we'll come back
(28:05):
to the big issues with like the constitutional stuff at
the Supreme Court. And then thirdly we'll come to these
other things of like why are they doing this and
whose interest this is for?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, And that's the thing too, is like a lot
of these big companies they do get occasionally, they do
get fined, but for them, it's nothing like it's.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
It's better to be fined than to correct something and
do something that's better for the people. Like that's right,
that's this is the biggest concern. Is like even with
the small companies that had good intent, they've grown into
such big companies that have been taken over and or
that have made enough money that they're like, I don't
care anymore. This is that makes me sad. But the
(28:44):
fact that all of these things are happening and these
big tech companies do not care. They would rather have
a fine and have a whole like smear campaign about
the fact that they are sexist and racist and like
all of like anti LGBT, like all of those things
that homophobic as hell. They don't care because it still
makes the money and it doesn't do it much like
(29:04):
because the governments and or policies have held them up
and being like yeah, yea, but you can still do that.
That's racist, but it'll probably help us in the end
and we can we can make better jobs, bigger, more jobs,
and events, which is not true. But like all of
these conversations that I'm like, yeah, that's part of the
big problem is that these companies will never change because
(29:26):
they're never ever and they're also not taxed correctly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Oh yeah, well that's the whole secret. I know.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I'm opening up both all these doors. But like when
we see these conversations, these layofs why they don't care
and they put on like the lipstick on the pig
type of conversation is literally like that's what they do,
and knowing that, they'll just talk about the next company
that does it. Yeah, and we'll be lumped in here,
but they'll they'll forget because there's so many of us
and they can't do anything to all of us because
(29:55):
the policies protect.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Us, right right, And it does, I mean so many
there are so many things in place like this, coming
back to coming back to the office and coming back
to the like hardcore pro culture. I mean, it does
these models. So many of these models, even with the
like oh now we're open space, do favor men. They
(30:19):
were designed with men and mine, right, And so having
this idea of like coming into the office that's better.
It shows that you like, really care and like even
if they won't, they'll tell you, well, it won't penalize you.
But if you don't come in, they do, even if
it's not purposeful, even if it's like just in the
(30:41):
back of someone subconscious.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Right, the more you're seeing, the more you're likely to
be remembered. This is kind of that conversation too. But
if I had it interesting, I'm going to go back
to Ireland experience. The last time we were in the
studio and we had Maya, our executive producer, who was
a powerhouse. I didn't know, like, I didn't know how
strong she really was. So I'm willing to stand up
(31:04):
for like what she felt was a wrong. But the
fact is, have we not? We were being pushed over
for men, like it was so interesting how quickly people
wanted to side with a bigger name, any of those
like on there's two separate sides. There's a radio side
and there is a podcast side. This was one of
the things that came together during the pandemic in hopes
(31:27):
that they could save money. Ab they're being like, we're
gonna be working from home anyway, so it's fine. Then
they started being like, come back into work. We were
like why, but then like, we did come back to work,
and the moment we did, we were like being pushed
as a secondary in comparison to a bigger, like male
(31:47):
group of broadcasters. It wasn't their fault, but everything they
were doing was literally like, no, but but we were
more important. Oh no, but yeah, we have a system
where it's set ups to sign things up on like
a whole big calendar. But that's that doesn't matter unless
because we are more important. It was a whole different
(32:08):
like and I feel like most of that and this
is again on us, but at the same time on society,
where we were like, oh, okay, okay, we don't want
to cause conflict, We'll move okay, okay, but Maa being like,
oh hell no, no, no, I will fight with you.
I will fight with the heads in here.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
And she made sure to get put the respect and
she's like, we being like, you are disrespecting us, and
she never really says that she was just like, this
is absurd, this is not how it goes. We need
to set a boundary. And I was like, damn okay,
because it's like societally we would have just moved on,
like that was what we have always been told. We've
even in the old office, there's moments we were.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Like, why is this happening?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
We have to shrink and people wonder why, and then
when we did, and I was like they impressive, Like
everything worked out. But it just feels like that type
of culture is what we have seen so often. Yeah,
in like the likes of any like any space. And
I'm not saying anything bad about our company necessarily in
this in this specific moment, but like things like this
(33:16):
have continued to happen in the office to the point
that this is why Maya was like, I'm done, I'm
done well, and.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
It's like this was a very particular instance. But in
this instance, uh, everyone involved had done everything right, everything correctly.
We had the space, many of the other most of
other studios were open, so it was it wasn't it
(33:43):
was odd. It was odd. A lot of threads here, obviously,
but I'm glad. I'm so glad Maya stood up and
before it worked out fine, but it took time out
of our day and I ended up getting home I
think three hours later then I had planned, right, and
(34:03):
that was unnecessary. It was unnecessary. It was a waste
of time, right.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
And honestly, like in this like scope of what we
was but it just so the bottom line on this
was like, it feels like a standard because we've had
this done to us a few times the few times
that we were in the studio, we've had this done
multiple times where we were like, eh, scooch over sorry,
and that's that expectations. And typically it has always been
men who overtake our studio. Am I wrong? Every time?
(34:30):
I remember those situations always been dudes. Yeah, because they yeah,
they feel like this is a this is a standard.
I can do this, we can do this, and it's
kind of a and even even when we had been like, hey,
this is an issue, they'd be like, oh, just comply
for now and we'll fix this later, which again teaches
(34:52):
us and them nothing's going to be done. And I
think this is where this is the first time again
why we saw my being like, nah, I'm over this,
and which again I was so thoroughly impressed that. I
was like, oh, because this is the first time we've
seen it from someone who was in charge of our
our time in studios place, so it was impressive for
(35:14):
that matter, But also this has been It wasn't a
big deal, but it is the bigger scope of things
of like why is this a standard and y'all think
this is okay? And then y'all want us to be
in here and talking about being empowered and acting like
this is a safe work space when you obviously show
how little we mean as a part of this family company.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
When I was thinking about this topic of running through
my head, I also I wanted to do an episode
on the origins of the phrase go back to the kitchen,
because I've just seen it. It's it's so it's everywhere,
and it's been everywhere. It's like one of the first
things usually men will say to a woman who they
(36:12):
don't agree with. And I was just like thinking about that,
and I still I feel like that can kind of
translate here where it is still seen as like, well,
they can they don't have to be here, they can
go back home, they.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Can go do that as as people are expendable.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Right, like that idea just permeated, and I was also
thinking about a lot of the invisible work people do
women do usually and we've done episodes on on it,
like the whole spectrum of it. But like as a
single woman, you can get asked to do a lot
(36:49):
of the parties, the planning, all of these events that
you don't get paid for, really don't get recognized for
because you don't have kids, so what are you doing?
But then on the other sid side, people with kids
being penalized because they have kids, right and they have
to go home. So it's just sort of all of
these expectations are punishments that are just there, even if
(37:17):
they're not writing, they.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Are there, right, And the extra amount of work that
is expected again, planning a party is a pretty significant
deal when you're having a giant group of people. To
be fair, I think like people have realized this is, yeah,
an ordeal for the most part, especially when people don't
knew it. They're like, no, I'm not giving this anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I think that that conversation is like the whole women
in layoffs and then really figuring it out to the
they're expendable, we can easily replace them. We could all
these conversations and putting again putting them at positions are
replaceable in their minds, whether or not they understand how
big of a conversation like no, they're not as explicable
(38:07):
as you think, right, but especially when they put the
load that they do on most of these types of
positions that they think it's so minial in their bigger
scheme of conversations when like I know, the saying goes
is essentially you rise up to do less work like
if you don't, if you actually want to not have
(38:28):
to do much, get a promotion type of thing and
people will do the work for you. And I think
that's what we see and which is why again white
women are at the forefront of being laid off and
or excuse like again the pregnancy, which blows my mind
in every respect. I'm like, I just I don't understand
(38:48):
why that's the qualifier. Just okay, whatever, There's so many
things in this conversation that needs to be again readdressed.
But yeah, as I am going on my tigh rate
of like, it doesn't change the culture of business. Who
says they're trying to appreciate the marginalized people are the
same people who are like, yeah, but you need to
be able to be shrunk, you need to be smaller
(39:11):
so we can exist as an peaceful office, like you
need to make peace, you need to be okay and
don't make any waves here. And it's such an interesting
thing in that same way, but like they're willing to
get rid of those people. Well, probably the peace keepers
of the office.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Probably and are most likely doing a lot more work
than you're not realizing. Right. Also, this whole conversation has
also brought up conversations around things like just cause. So
that means that they have to Companies legally have to
(39:51):
give you a reason why you're fired. Not always you
have to fight for that in some cases, but in layoffs,
it's it's a kind of ambiguous space. So, like I said,
some of this is that's why it's been so hard
to prove as you can, it's difficult. Also, severence policies
(40:11):
that that's come under come to light and discussion has
been had about that and how good are bad they are.
But I did want to ask you how so you've
got some unemployment?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I did, and the amount I don't think unemployment has
gone up either, since I've had unemployment, and that was
fourteen years ago. I think the amount State of Georgia
has made the same because that, y'all, it doesn't it's
not much. And what sucks is it's tax It's taxed awfully. Yeah,
(40:45):
So essentially a weekly benefits from the for the State
of Georgia goes from fifty five dollars to three hundred
and sixty five dollars a week, but it is taxed,
so one third of it is gone. So essentially you
may be able to get twelve hundred dollars a month.
Can you imagine living on that? And if you get
a part time job that goes away, right, you cannot
(41:09):
make money and you have to show every week that
you are trying to find the job. The amount of
things that you have to do to get unemployment, and
you can easily be removed the amount of taxes that
you have to pay because you can choose not to
have a tax at the beginning and then at the end. Man,
that hurt me, Yeah, it hurt me a lot. And
(41:31):
I was trying to find the job. This is what
I just turned thirty. Everything from like the worst and
I was trying my damnness, and like trying to find
a job and try to get back into social all
these things. But the fact that it has not changed, yeah,
in that long of a period, that's the most absurd. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, And I mean the thing that's like if a company,
companies don't have to offer severance policies, and even even
if they do, if they can find a way to say,
like they had just cost, they had a reason to
fire you, right, they don't have to give it to you.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
And unemployment is also contingent on that. If they had
just cause and you got fired and it's your fault
if you quit any of those things, you don't get unemployment. Yeah,
and a job can fight against you, yes, to not
get unemployment because it comes from their taxes, brads.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So it's so gross, it is. And then again going
back to so many of these things, but especially with
women who might have children or people who might have children,
like finding a job and it's not easy. Finding one
where you can maybe have flexible hours or work from
(42:50):
home also not easy. So it is a huge tax
on women and people of color. And then yeah, it's
just hard to find a job. And you know, you
might have really cared about your job, and so you
don't quite feel like just moving on, or maybe you're
(43:13):
a little depressed. Right, there's a lot going on where
twelve hundred dollars a month is not gonna right.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Get it. Also just that conversation of the fact that
you have to give a reason as to why you're
laid off. Hopefully that you're like, oh, it was just
a mass decision, Da da da. But we know a
lot of these companies have become vindictive and saying they're
laying off based on performance.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
That's true, and that in itself is like a marker.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
On many of those people who are being laid off,
and then some who are vindictive and give bad recommendations,
which by the way, is illegal technically, well weirdly.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's a mess. Obviously, there's a lot of
other paths we could go down with this one, but.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Oh god, yeah, I'm thinking about the fact that if
there's a gap in your resume, they get they see
that as a negative. So if you're just off because
you were out with your child, they see that as
a negative. There's so many bad things there.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
I'm sorry there are. It's warranted, it's warranted, but yeah, uh, listeners,
If you have any thoughts on this, if you were
I know some of you were impacted I think by
some of the twenty twenty three layoffs, please let us
know and hope we hope you're all doing okay whatever's
(44:44):
going on in your life. You can contact us in
many ways. You can email us at Stephanie and mom
stuff atiheartmedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter
at mom sup Podcasts, or in Distagram and TikTok at
stuff on Never Tolds You. We guys have a tea
public story and we have a book you can get
wherever you get. Ear Reks thanks as always to our
super producer Christina, our executive pducer My and our contributor Joey.
(45:04):
Thank you and thanks see you for listening Stuff I
Never Told You. The production by Heart Radio form more
podcast in my Heart Radio. You can check out the
heart Radio app, Apple podcast or where have you listen
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