I had a stupid thought whilst reading a thread...

Has there ever been any mention in SR of a mega laying people off?

I can't think of anything off-hand, but like any business, people are often let go for one reason or another.

Threats 2, Art Dankwalther gets laid off IIRC. Also in System Failure it mentions that he has a twinge of conscience when the damage he does to Novatech causes them to engage in a round of layoffs.

That said, it's not very common. Shadowrun businesses are the businesses of the 80s. You may be a corporate slave, but you were a corporate slave for life short of major screwups.

~J

Given the scope of megacorporate operations, I'd expect layoffs to be handled like base closings. Civilian contractors will be out of luck, but the corporate people will be redistributed.

Like BRAC?

Ouch.

I agree with Mercer. "Well we've decided to close out facility in Great Falls but since you are already cleared with us and know our routines you can accept our offer to relocate you to our complex in Bilouxi. You call. If not you can stay in the corp housing here until the end of the month, bye."
In the dangerous world of 2065 I think most people will stay with the mega.

Especailly given the investment some of the corps might make in their personell, or the insider info said personell might have. In many cases in the world of SR such personell might conviniently disappear.

We don't lay off anyone. *polishes barrel of a machine gun*

Instead it's a fabulous 3 week vacation to the Corp R&R(D) facility in the Carribean League. Sadly though, it's a higher than anticipated season for Pirate activity, many hands have been lost this year to them...

Not really. Most of corp people are pretty much brainwashed, so they WANT to help their corp "stay afloat" or whatever dumb idea they have. And people who work for idea generally work better than those taken for 3-month contract.

I doubt it's so much they really care about the company so much as their will has been broken and they don't really care to search for a job anywhere else. You see this happenning far too often at crappy companies; people convince themselves that either 1) they're not good enough to get a job anywhere else, or 2) anywhere else will be just as bad. It's how bad companies can still manage to employ good people.

I say that Demotivation seems to be the business paradigm of the '60s.

The idea of corporate loyalty is near-omnipresent in older sourcebooks and novels—several prime characters (including Sam Verner) go through a "woah, wait, the corp isn't really my mommy?" phase.

~J

I think it is a lot more interesting and realistic if you heavily stratify company loyalty. Above some level the employees are mostly fanatically loyal and when a branch is closed down, sold, etc these people are usually kept and moved elsewhere in the company. Below some level the employees are easily replacable cogs, and know it. They are sacked whenever it is convenient to management, and probably aren't even working for the mega in some technical sense. Then there is the even less happy middle where they think they are close enough to getting into the top group (though it very rarely actually happens) that they are all trying to act fanatically loyal, but are treated like cogs (like temps at microsoft, or wherever).

Of course people in the higher level are being kicked out pretty frequently as well, the survivors are just indoctrinated well enough that they pretend it isn't happening.

Then there is the really high level where the loyalty is entirely a facade to keep the upper bottom level in line, those people are loyal to some faction of the company, though the people at the top of the faction are just pretending loyalty to the faction to keep the people below them in line.

Anyway everybody hates everybody below and above them, though many of them pretend not too and far more people are moving down than up in the company. This implies that young people are often starting out pretty high for no good reason, then falling through thier careers.

Well, remember. These aren't just corporations, these are micro (and not-so-micro) nations. You don't just work at Renraku, you eat at Renraku resturants, rent a Renraku apartment, go to play a Renraku-approved Simsense game. You pay for all of this with your Renraku corp-script which is tied into your corporate-provided SIN which is being transmitted by the credstick / commlink you probably from a corporate store. Afterward you retire for a quiet evening of work-at-home while listening to Renraku Presents: 50 Greatest Hits of the 2040s.

Leaving a megacorp would be closer to defecting from your country than quitting your job.

A 'country' which is free to use subliminals all any manner of advertising tricks to make sure that the corporate peons stay loyal.

Man... Yeah, that's pretty flucked up.

Why do layoffs when you can give your loyal employees exciting new opportunities in the research department?


Its not like the 'test subject' position is likely to have a pension that actively needs to be funded.

Economically, there are reasons to keep some employees and fire others.

Workforce experience is part general, part specialised to the corp in question. Low skilled labour tends to be general experience, customer relationship is specialised because of the personal connection between manager and customer.

If I sack an unskilled worker, I lose nothing. Yes, that happens. If I sack a manager, I might lose knowledge that has to be build up and is not available on the market. Might be a good idea nonetheless, but that depends.



To the "megacorp = nation"-notion: Yes.

Ares Arms will be more careful with key UCAS facilities than a russian noName producer of AKs. Aparent loss of safety of corp employment reduces loyality of the whole workforce, not desireable.

You Are Not Paid to Think

A Mindless Worker is a Happy Worker.

Shut Up and Do Your Job

--From Matt Groening's "Futurama"

Mom's Friendly Robot Company is so a AA megacorp it's not funny.

I'd say that, statistically, an upper management employee is more likely to be laid off than the lowest manual laboror simply because of politics. No one cares about the peopel at the bottom so they are realitivly safe. The people a tthe top have plenty of enemies and some fiascos demand an upper manager or even an oficer play sacrifical goat (metaphoricly for most corps, literally for Aztechnology).