> if you were on the bubble and the CEO decided to cut into the bone and perhaps you didn't need to be let go, how would you feel?
Your question has the same problem as the modified (blocking the rail with a person) trolly problem. It's a hypothetical so you get to state what's true. In the real world, people have much more limited knowledge.
You get to know whether you're cut or not. You get to know whether another cut was needed or not. You get to know whether the company survived or not.
No one ever gets to know if someone was cut but didn't need to be. Not even in retrospect. Especially if they're "on the bubble".
No real problem that happened this week. Business had precipitous revenue decrease. Could get better, could not. Had to cut employees. Do you cut 35% or 40% of corporate?
Do you cut more just to hedge the economy won't recover? I appreciate the philosophy 101 lesson but your premise is completely not true. If you cut the Sr. Manager of XYZ and hire another one 120 days later...you probably didn't need to cut the one you did.
> If you cut the Sr. Manager of XYZ and hire another one 120 days later...you probably didn't need to cut the one you did.
If you make cuts based on a pessimistic projection and the future turns out to be much rosier than you thought, were you wrong? I don't think so. You just had limited knowledge.
This is compounded by an unusually wide spread between pessimistic and optimistic projections during times like this. Will someone find a cure? Will enough ventilators be made? How soon will people be allowed to go back to work? How effective will self-isolation be?
Today, no one knows the answer to these questions. We'll know much, much more in 4 months.
It's just not reasonable to expect that decisions made today will seem perfect 120 days in the future.
You err on the side of cutting "too much", because a. as the original author suggested, you want to cut once and b. because the downside of cutting "too much" is better than the downside of cutting too little. For everyone.
Your question has the same problem as the modified (blocking the rail with a person) trolly problem. It's a hypothetical so you get to state what's true. In the real world, people have much more limited knowledge.
You get to know whether you're cut or not. You get to know whether another cut was needed or not. You get to know whether the company survived or not.
No one ever gets to know if someone was cut but didn't need to be. Not even in retrospect. Especially if they're "on the bubble".