... The more I looked into this, the more it became clear to me that people need
to know the story. We need to understand what happened. And FB management, HR,
they are not covering this properly. In fact, rumors are that they are trying to
hide this and not even admit that this is a suicide. They are simply saying that
an employee passed away and that if you need help you should go get some help,
get some consuling. That's about all they are doing now.
... as well as myself that the way he chose to die he tried to send a message
out and FB upper management they are completely ignoring that and they are
sweeping it under the rug.
Anytime sth like this happens, executives will be doing everything they can to
make you forget about it. Maybe they will have a TownHall Meeting in which they
answer a few questions, tell you to get some consuling, call some crisis
numbers, and sweep everything under the rug and in two week they hope you forget
about this whole thing and they won't have to change a thing. Just probably
what's going to happen.
Let me tell you though the details I know about this case. I don't know Qin
personally. I'm still piecing together parts of the story. But the allegation
appears pretty serious which is why I think we need a full investigation. As I
understand it, he was working in the advertising group, which is already a
high-stress group, you know. Any smart technical issue, it can cause millions of
dollars of revenue loss. Now his performance rating was starting to suffer. And
if you are not performing well for multiple quarters, then you are put on the
PIP plan, performance improvement plan, which is essentially the path to you
getting fired.
According to a report, so many people in his team burnt out of stress and
starting to leave.
4:00/9:51
... and the management would squeeze every blood out of ICs to hit PSC goals.
There have been times I wanted to kill myself and were reading our death
benefits that my wife will get if I die at work."
So apparently, Qin was not alone in feeling that high stress environment. The
final straw came in when there was a SEV which is a severe site event,
essentially like a crash where production servers go down or something due to
some technical error and it was assigned to Qin, the SEV review, and apparently
he tried to delay the process, push that review back but internal script
prohibited that and blocked that process. So he was forced to do this and what's
telling was that just an hour before the SEV review, he committed the suicide.
He jumped.
And from this you can kind of paint a picture of the amount of stress he may
have been under: the REV review, the internal transfer being blocked,
performance rating meant that he would be fired soon, not to mention he was also
on an H1B visa. So his ability to remain in the US was also seriously at risk
here. Within 60 days of being let-go he would have to have another visa sponsor
or he would have to return back to China.
Some of you may be wondering with a background like that couldn't he just go get
another job? The thing is, maybe he was mentally ill in some capacity.
Depression is not logical. It is an impulse decision and, you know, I've been
there myself. I have moments too when I've been very depressed. Your heart sinks
your eyelids just want to close. And you know, you take a look at a ledge, a
balcony and you just think "Oh yeah. That's a quick way to end it."
I would encourage any of you who are feelign like this to get some help. They
have a suicide hotline which you can call. But I hope we can honor Qin's death
by making sure that it's not in vain. How sad would it be if in two weeks, two
months, or two years from now, this happen again? Over and over again, and we
just learn nothing.
You know the way he decided to die, I think he tried to make a statement in
such a public fashion. It seems that facebook leadership has simply muted it,
silenced it. They just told people due to privacy concerns and respect for the
family, do not talk about it. And essentially every facebook employee is
now silenced from this censure. Many people don't feel safe talking about this
and it's clear that so many people in that company still feel that culture is
toxic and there is a high degree of stress.
In a poll of how many employees are stressed out, 73% said so. Some employees
said they never had depression before but here they had it.
...
which largely reflect my experience as well.
You know the scary thing about this? Likely nothing is about to change.
HR@facebook they are going to deflect responsibility. They are going just to
blame this on mental illness. They are going to say: Hey if you need help, go to
talk to some consuler. They are going to have a townhall meeting in which they
answer some Q&A BS questions. I know how it goes. They'll come in and say "give
us your toughest questions. Ask us whatever you want." You ask some questions,
they just deflect it. They answer them all. They say goodbye and that's it. You
know what I like to see is a SEV review on the SEV review that ended Qin's life.
You know what I would like to see is a SEV review on the SEV review that ended
Qin's life. I would like to see a full post-mortum write-up by the direct
manager or the director, about exactly what happened everything detailing up
till the event why it happened, how much damage is done, and what will be done
to prevent this from happening again. And people need to be held responsible
here. There should be a complete criminal investigation opened up here into
workplace bullying. And for the people who worked with Qin and his manager, I
think they should seriously review their processes and think about the
environment they set up for their employees.
Now, I want to give you some real advice here. These companies, they can and
will just drive you into the ground. They will milk you for every ounce of blood
that they can get. We can sit here whine about it and demand better treatment
all day long but they may or may not listen. I would recommend you watch out for
yourself for your best interest. No company is worth dying for. No company is
your family. If you feel the environment is getting too toxic or stressful,
consider taking a vacation, take a break, or start looking into switching
companies ...
