One might wonder: if an employee refuses and shows up to work in a bad mood, will he be fired too?
Morale at Meta seems to have reached an all-time low. Employees are in open agitation due to a series of layoffs that, only in the last month, have led to the dismissal of nearly 8 thousand people, equivalent to about 10 percent of the workforce. These megalayoffs, as the mass layoffs due to the spread of AI in companies and the belief (scientifically yet to be proven) that machines cost less than humans have been renamed, are having heavy consequences even for those who have been fortunate enough to save their jobs. Many of those whom Zuckerberg has granted professional mercy, in fact, have suddenly found themselves performing tedious, repetitive, and basic tasks to provide training for AI models, a grueling job that, as reported by Wired, is leading to frustration in several units.
Given the situation, any boss attempting to lift the morale of their employees would have miserably failed. Let alone if that boss is Mark Zuckerberg. The CEO’s idea was to announce a hackathon – a programming marathon, a word resulting from the blend ofhackingandmarathon – obviously themed around AI (essentially, more work disguised as recreational activity). The announcement was met with icy coldness and openly criticized in the company’s internal chats.Workers, forced to manage increasingly heavier workloads with fewer and fewer colleagues to help them and fewer and fewer resources to rely on, have labeled the initiative as surreal and out of place. Among those expressing concern for the survival of their team and those denouncing the event’s incompatibility with current workloads, a clear sense has emerged that the old carefree corporate culture is dead. Even the “granting” of fixed workstations, in place of the controversial shared desk system, has not helped to placate the widespread sense of precariousness and expendability among the staff.
As Futurismwrites, making the situation even more tense are the meager results so far achieved by the company on the artificial intelligence front. Despite the sacrifices imposed on the staff, Meta is struggling enormously to launch impactful new AI models, progressively losing ground to competitors. Zuckerberg himself, while promising a halt to layoffs for the rest of the year, has outlined a horizon far from serene. In his latest memo, he admitted the complexity of the transition, confessing outright that management has already made mistakes and that, almost certainly, will continue to make them in the difficult days that lie ahead for the company.
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