HN Explorer

Wayfair fired a bunch of people again today, after using them to train AI

149 points by MountainMan1312 ↗ HN
As my friend logged into work today, they were told to join a mandatory meeting, as was everyone on their team and everyone they had known at the company. It wasn't a meeting though, they were the only one in it.

After being shown some stupid bullshit video about how Wayfair is "moving in a new direction" or whatever, they were locked out of their accounts almost without warning. Friends barely got a chance to say goodbye to each other.

For the last few months, they've been training an absolutely useless AI to replace themselves.

They made all the managers wait till later in the day to come into work so they could be fired separately. Of course, they kept the one manager who lives in a place with underpaid labor, where they are offshoring the work for managing this new AI to near-slaves.

Of course they were told not to go posting about it on social media, and I couldn't find anything yet, so I took it upon myself. What a trash company that doesn't care about its people one bit.

92 comments

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pfdietz
It seems one of AI's major successes will be the production of schadenfreude (as when this effort goes disastrously pear shaped.)
drewcoo
No more than offshoring. I don't see much news about those failures.
orwin
Because the business side doesn't want to communicate on the 'success' of offshoring. Which, to be fair, isn't an issue if you pay the locals fairly, have a correct vulture based on good communication and clear vision.

I've worked for a French bank that messed up its tech offshoring badly, and is one of the _European_ bank that spend the most for its IT division, despite being nowhere near the top _french_ bank in revenue.

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pfdietz
> correct vulture

This confused me until I realized c and v are adjacent on the keyboard.

lamontcg
Probably won't. As long as they stick to things that are already 'enshittifying' at warp speed (like customer support) there won't be any real consequences to bottom line because everyone they're competing with is racing to the bottom anyway.
pylua
Wasn’t this the company where the ceo urged everyone to work insane hours?

These people only care about themselves.

MountainMan1312
Yeah, they said something like "better work-life balance" when telling people they'd be working ridiculous hours
ungreased0675
When and why did this soulless dismissal process become popular? Is this really the best way to treat people?
justinclift
> why

Un-empathetic leadership + lack of unionisation?

globular-toast
It's similar to how people buy meat all nicely wrapped in plastic from the supermarket and pretend the slaughter and cruelty doesn't happen. Many of them claim to be "animal lovers" too. Self-delusion is a powerful thing. It lets people do things they wouldn't otherwise feel comfortable with. Treating people like humans, getting to know them, making friends etc. means you inevitably start thinking of them like equals. That's no way to get on top.
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surfingdino
It's not a new thing, every time a new consultancy is hired to "help you" and begins process of "discovery" it's a signal to get your CVs updated.
lotsofpulp
Buyers choosing to buy equivalent or sufficiently “good“ products or services sold at the lowest price is a very, very old thing.
anal_reactor
When companies grew so large that they stopped caring about their impact on their immediate surroundings.

In my friend's tiny town there are literally two companies that employ everyone living there. Once my friend was complaining to me about poor performance of one employee. I asked "can't you just fire him?" to which he replied "then I'll have a jobless bum walking around my town, I need to have him doing something".

Meanwhile modern big corporations don't care about such issues because they are completely shielded from the results of their mismanagement.

billy99k
A friend of mine was just fired after he worked on a 6-month death march project. He worked until 2am almost every night with meetings at 7am the next day, including weekends. He missed New years, Christmas events, kids birthdays/other family events, and any planned vacations.

His reward was the elimination of his position at the end of the project.

nine_zeros
NEVER sacrifice your life for an artificial deadline.

How to determine if something is an artificial deadline? Because if it were a real deadline with significance to the business, they'd pull more hands on deck, remove roadblocks relentlessly day after day, and even offer to take portions of your work on themselves so that the deadlines can be met.

If they are not making such moves, rest assured that the deadline is not critical - but only required for some BS stack ranking, or for the management's own promotion. They WILL fire you after putting all the work if it fits their BS processes.

ryandrake
The only people who will remember you worked insane hours are your family.
mrazomor
This is amazingly well said! It deserves a huge virtual billboard.
moe_sc
Just adding more people to a team isn't useful if you don't have the time to integrate them well in a project.

Even then, it might be what you call a "real deadline", doesn't mean you should overwork for months, a couple of days or even some weeks is okay, but you should also be compensated for it.

realusername
I'd go further and say to never sacrifice your life for any deadline at all. Part of having a work contract specifically means that all risks rests on capital holders shoulders and not yourself.
noir_lord
That is an incredibly succinct way of summarising the way I started to see the world about a decade ago (and more than a decade into my career as a developer).
anal_reactor
Me and my employer are in a contract that legally obliges us to pretend we care.
lotsofpulp
This seems trivially false. The risk that a worker stops being paid because their capital holder no longer has income is always going to be there, and that could be because one or more workers were unable to accomplish one or more tasks necessary for the capital holders to sell a product or service.

Of course, some workers are also capital holders, and should be negotiating appropriate terms such that their mission critical contribution is appropriately rewarded. And no one should be compelled to sacrifice their life without this “appropriate reward”, but exactly what that is is always in flux depending on many parameters.

realusername
It's on the capital holders to make sure that the deadlines are reachable and appropriate to the amount of time you actually have working normally, rushing as a worker doesn't make any sense.

Either they miscalculated the number of employees they needed or they just aren't profitable enough to sustain the workload, both cases are failures on the company side.

And sure, if the company is willing to, they can share some of that risk and reward associated with it to the employees

cqqxo4zV46cp
You’re clearly saying this from a position of privilege. A whole lot of “should” not any “this is how it is in reality”.
realusername
Sure, I'm opened to some strict law enforcement and heavy fines to make sure the company doesn't step outside their boundaries.
lotsofpulp
>both cases are failures on the company side.

Who/what/why fails is irrelevant. Anytime you are selling something, including labor, there exists a risk that the buyer stops paying, for myriad reasons. One of those reasons is that the buyer themselves (which could be a business) are not able to sell. Which means that some of the “capital holder’s” risk is inherently a worker’s risk.

realusername
The worker usually has no input on that anyways, what can you realistically do if the business model doesn't work?
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bzykubd
Seeing people working overtime with the idea it may pay in the future always put a smile on my face. Luckilly new generations are not that stupid and they are much more hesitant to do it than boomers or even millenials.
nh23423fefe
I put in extra hours over 2 months to hit a deadline. People patted me on the back the whole time and during annual review I was given a raise, a promotion, and fat stock award.

Anecdata sure. But not all hard work is wasted.

lnxg33k1
These kind of people are detrimental to the whole sector, I am kinda happy when I hear these stories, maybe in his next job he will work contract hours
wickedsickeune
"These kind of people" are being taken advantage of, it doesn't benefit anyone to blame them. You don't know under what kind of pressure they made these choices, so don't rush to judge.
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VoodooJuJu
A good but painful lesson: do not suffer your job, because it will not suffer you. Suffer your family, your friends, your hobbies, and other passions. The job is just a means to those more important ends.
leet_thow
Boycott all these assholes and their shitty products.
VS1999
I don't really understand the moral issue with a company eliminating jobs. Similarly, I also don't think these companies are doing a moral good for creating jobs in the first place.
MrJohz
The moral issue comes because these jobs are tied to people's livelihoods and ability to provide essentials like food, housing, healthcare, etc for themselves and their families.
VS1999
So is the company doing a morally good thing when it provides the ability for someone to have food, housing, healthcare, etc? If not, it doesn't make sense to blame the company for eliminating jobs if they also don't get credit for employing people for however many years.
MrJohz
In a system where those things can't be taken for granted: yes. That's why people talk so positively about job creation, and we praise job creators. It's also why we shame and indeed ban companies that don't do those things: for example companies that pay below what is considered a minimum wage.

Of course, we could also discuss whether things like housing and healthcare should be tied to an employer in the first place, but this is a different discussion.

AStrangeMorrow
I think the issue that most people have is also that companies expect a certain level of respect and dedication from their employees but are not willing to reciprocate.

Make sure to work as hard as possible for us, pleas work extra hours if the company is doing bad. Don't take your vacations when it might impact team performance badly. If you leave give up a big heads up.

However we'll refuse your raises and bonuses if we feel like it. Also must be willing to move and uproot your whole life with no guarantee we'll keep you for long. We'll fire you one day after telling you your job was safe, and close all your company accounts before you get to save any of your documents or say bye to your colleagues. And remember no complaining after you leave, or we'll get you. Happened to quite a few people I know, not me thankfully.

And just "get an other job if you company sucks" doesn't always work. You might not know that your company sucks until you're out the door, or finding a new job in your field or without moving your whole family might not be easy

VS1999
I never said to just get another job. I know solutions are never as easy as those annoying "why don't you just..." one liners. Those are all bad practices that should be condemned, but what I'm saying is that just firing people is not immoral in itself unless hiring people is also morally good. It just doesn't add up.
lordofgibbons
Do you also boycott farmers for using tractors instead of thousands of laborers?
drewcoo
That would be proverbially trying to close the barn after the livestock have escaped.
ironmagma
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

I boycott Dominos for putting up a "don't feed the workers" sign. It doesn't matter if other companies do the same, I'm boycotting that one.

4death4
What does the AI do?
MountainMan1312
Answers questions wrong and then agrees with you that their answer was incorrect
sph
Jesus I had ChatGPT do that once and it was infuriating.
Intralexical
With the right system prompt, you can also have it answer questions wrong and then insist to you that the correct information must be mistaken or malicious.
sph
It is trained not to blame you. It is too "smart" to blame itself. The next step is blaming whoever has trained it.

"Sorry about that, they have fed me the wrong data. Unbelievable. Anyway, you can send any complaint to the OpenAI technical team at the following email: ..."

badgersnake
Every time. I haven't tried GPT 4 though, I'm not paying for this nonsense.
sumek83
I've paid for a month! Now letting subscription lapse. ChatGPT-4 is still garbage
iancmceachern
Wayfair already has had a terrible user experience. I've been waiting for something I ordered 3 years ago to arrive.
thrillgore
Wasn't Wayfair also caught selling stuff to ICE?
toast0
Wayfair is like a retail outlet for garbage products right? Why wouldn't they sell to anyone with money?
junon
Eh idk, I've had some Wayfair stuff in the past and it's all been solid. I'm sure a lot of it is subpar though.
surfingdino
It's a marketplace that also handles the global shipping, warehousing, and delivery of goods on behalf of the sellers. It's a low-margin business that puts a lipstick on the pig that is a bunch of incumbents in the manufacturing and global shipping industries. I do not approve of how they got rid of employees, but I do not envy them. Their partners love mainframes, MS-DOS apps, and faxes. It's hard to work with them.
nunez
I don't know if they do this for all of their products, but one bed frame that I purchased from them turned out to be a bed frame you could buy on Amazon for half the cost, just under a more upscale name.

(That bed frame lasted two years. I replaced it with a Thuma. Incredible product.)

VS1999
It this really an issue? It's selling chairs to a legitimate government agency. People's politics have become so skewed. That's just completely normal behavior.
blackhawkC17
What’s wrong with selling furniture to the ICE?
xcv123
ICE as in the US federal law enforcement agency? Yes, US companies do sell products to the US government sometimes.
schwartzworld
Yes, they had a contract for furnishing the detention centers.
fithisux
The governments do not protect us.
moomoo11
Step 1: have a moral compass and don’t work for shit tier companies.

Is it really that hard?

I find it hilarious when people work for these garbage companies in the first place. And then I’m supposed to do what when they turn on you? Cool story?

It’s really on them imo. There are other jobs out there. Better yet you can do your own thing. But nah fam.

nunodonato
Although I don't disagree with what you said, I disagree with how you said it. Some people are in a though spot and need a job fast. And not everyone else is able to create a startup and be an entrepreneur. It's never that simple.
BriggyDwiggs42
Step 1: have parents rich enough to support you for a while so you don’t have to take a job with the shit company that exploits you

Is it really that hard?

moomoo11
I am from a third world and grew up without a bathroom and electricity. It’s not that hard to work 5-10 years as a swe and living below your means to accumulate a few 100k by the time one is 27-30.

Its not that hard to interview at multiple places and pick one that isn’t awful.

Excuses are easy though.

BriggyDwiggs42
I’m sorry for implying that was your background, but I don’t think that blaming the worker for taking shitty jobs is remotely fair. The jobs aren’t shitty because of the workers; they’re shitty because the owner/upper hierarchy of the company, the people who make every single decision about the company’s structure and large-scale actions, want it to be shitty. Blaming people who need to work somewhere to feed their family or escape poverty for taking a job with a crap company that pays good money just seems completely backwards. Glad you could avoid that, but in the absence of good alternatives (similarly paying, non-shit companies) I don’t think we should blame the person who takes the bigger check when people have good reasons to need money.
klabetron
Ex-Wayfair engineer here. Problem is that not every company is shit from the start. They were pretty cool when I joined. Not so much when they cut my entire department 7 months later. (They started getting noticeably less cool 3 mo in to my tenure, but still.)
lotsofpulp
The only constant is change. Always be selling, and always be closing.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/always-be-closing.asp

Also, Wayfair is in the business of selling low quality, low profit margin goods, competing with Aliexpress/Amazon resellers/Walmart/etc. I would not expect much from working there. If the business is earning crumbs, then workers will also likely get crumbs.

Wayfair also does not even earn crumbs, it loses them.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/W/wayfair/profit-m...

And the people who study businesses’ performance think its value has not changed in 7 years, a time period when other businesses have skyrocketed:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/W/wayfair/market-c...

All signs that workers are not going to get much. Can’t squeeze water from a stone.

AStrangeMorrow
As much as I agree that people should try to avoid companies with bad ethics, it is not always that simple. I know some junior in tech that need to send 300+ applications for even just an internship and it is not uncommon for even more seasoned people to have to send 100s of applications to just even get a decent number of interviews. It is just hard to get a perfect view of the ethics of these hundred of companies. And if you just do that check at the interview step, which I am sure quite a few people will do, it can be tough to refuse 80% of your interviews because of companies have bad practices, when you struggled badly to land these few interviews.
moomoo11
That’s life though. And fwiw I worked part time jobs for a few months while I interviewed to find the best first job.

So again end of the day it’s up to individuals and the choices they make.

Maybe you can’t flex on your peers as quickly or you have to live below means. But at least it always works out in the end. It did for me and my only conclusion at my age now is that people make excuses for shortcuts and bad decisions and end up in non ideal situations.

And there will always be jobs. Always. You can always make it work. And a job is just a job. If your company ends up being ass you leave and get a new job where they treat people not like commodity animals.

drKarl
It seems that senior management in these companies you are talking about are following Royce du Pont's advice.
alumic
I had to double check the reference just to make sure you were in fact talking about business luminary Royce du Pont. His negotiation tactics are second to none.
woopwoop24
do it like the french and blow shit up
surfingdino
I'd be curious to know in what part of their business they were replacing humans with AI?
matthewtse
Yes same, my first conclusion would be customer support?

But I would also assume customer support wouldn't be working long hours to train an AI, the AI would simply be trained off what they're already doing.

lnxg33k1
To me was always weird how a company whose only means of doing business is a website, always had friction towards testability, to the point where I was continuously told by managers “we’re not a tech company”, while also having to revert multiple commits per day because of broken / untested code
kioleanu
Oh yes, Wayfair. In this case I’m pretty sure AI will be an improvement. Their customer support was abysmal. I needed to send a package back, they sent a company to get it and then refused to refund me because they somehow lost a piece of furniture and it never arrived.

I sent them the documents showing that the package was collected and then came a reply if I could check the apartment better, maybe I’ll end up finding the missing piece of furniture

nojvek
AI is not your friend, it is the corporation's friend. AGI by meaning means "do what humans do, even better". AGI === cheaper human that takes no breaks, doesn't get sick, needs no benefits.

If AGI gets here faster than natural decline in human population, we are fucked! Likely scenario is that it will.

The divide between poor and rich is ever growing, middle-class being eroded. If you are an employee, you are never secure.

Not worth sacrificing your health and relationships for a job, unless they are paying you $$$$ worth early retirement.

malaparte
Wayfair has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt at this point that as a company they place little value on their employees. They're certainly not the only ones, but this is a timely reminder to be watchful of the signals companies send and be clear about your priorities.
lulznews
Wow just straight up playing a video saying you’re fired is crazy.