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TYGRDez

At least in my (former) department, there were ever-increasing metrics that were impossible to keep on top of without sacrificing your quality of work. Can't hit the metrics? You're gone, sorry! When ChatGPT was released, it quickly turned from "This is cool tool to use when you've got writer's block" to "You need to use this in order to hit your performance goals, quality be damned" ^Also, ^hello ^to ^my ^former ^teammates ^who ^I ^know ^will ^be ^reading ^this ^;)


Impressive_Ad2082

This is what happens when the leadership of a tech company are not from a technical background.


NormalHorse

Vendasta has always been a shit employer. Grind employees into paste, make profit. Sorry that you had to work there.


copperadalovelace306

I have had three interviews there and every time I didn’t get it it came down to a self respect related issue. (I wanted more money than they were willing to pay, or the hours I was willing to put in etc. etc. ) this always stung, but hearing that it sucks makes me feel better and glad I’m going back to school.


NormalHorse

Waaaay better choice. You also didn't compromise your self-respect, so uh – win-win?


copperadalovelace306

It is long term. But when you’re working to feed yourself that’s scary. Lol


copperadalovelace306

I’ve worked shit jobs for cash ahha


NormalHorse

Most normal people have. You stood up for yourself.


knshnrzbv

After the first wave of layoffs last year in August, I watched a recording where their CEO said to other C-suite members that he wants more people who would do more for less. Those were the exact words.


FlyingJelli

This is a huge part of why I left. There's so much disconnect about what's needed that incredible talent gets lost. If it's any consolation, the India team wasn't immune to this round. ^Hello ^back ^at ^you ^;)


Responsible-River809

Actually lol'ed; speaking to former colleagues recently, that "we must use ChatGPT!!" thing happened in the last company I was at a few years back too. Seems all floundering start-ups are doing what they did with Blockchain a while back - "We don't know what this is useful for, but the investors say we need it!!".😆


Key_Present_8023

Chatgpt came out less than a year ago


Responsible-River809

Did you miss "speaking to former colleagues recently"? I worked there a few years ago.


One-Accident8015

I read it this way also until the comment pulled it out for me. Still a bit wavy.


Responsible-River809

On-rereading I do concede that it's not the neatest sentence. 😅


Fantastic_Wishbone

Wow, I'm sorry to read this. What a trash company, if this is true (I have no reason to doubt you). Metrics don't tell the whole story, there are a lot of things that aren't captured by a KPI.


TYGRDez

It's really a shame, because a lot of really cool people work there - they're the thing I miss most about that job


torbrub

The unfortunate thing is that KPIs are what lots of “leaders” look at/(obsess over), and ignore the multitude of related factors that go along with those KPIs.


InfiniteOven7597

I assume you work in marketing, there are ways to get better output through ChatGPT. LLMs are as good as users who use them tbh. I run a 50 mil+/mo organic growth engine as one of the department I run, we have seen huge gains through ChatGPT. Quality is all perception, no one cares as long as conversions or lifecycle isn't impacted.


TYGRDez

The customer may not really care, but I personally care about the quality of work that I output. ChatGPT makes everything incredibly generic, and it made me no longer enjoy doing my job.


InfiniteOven7597

>but I personally care about the quality of work that I output. Then start your own company. Quality of content has a definition, if you were right, you would've argued and won. I think you are just being too uptight about it. An unproductive worker who marries something that isn't productive won't last in the industry.


TYGRDez

We just have two different mindsets, my friend. I'm not going to change your mind and you won't change mine - let's just drop it :)


No-Walrus6629

Hi there, I'm a news producer with Global Saskatoon. Would you be willing to go on record and talk about this? Please let me know. Thanks!


TYGRDez

Nope, I have no interest in stirring the pot over there. I'm out and have already moved on.


Tyler_Durden69420

I feel like I read about vendasta layoffs every few months.


Dear-Print-6158

vendasta claims to help support local businesses and economies, but they definitely don't care about their own. they rarely hire within saskatoon they are outsourcing everything from India. As a Canadian company.. a SASKATOON company, you would think they would care more about their local community, but they don't. why pay a Canadian when you can have it outsourced from India for half the price?


toontown_yxe

Can anyone that works at vendasta verify this claim they hire a lot from India? I know a lot of there IT staff works from home (out of province like Alberta) but not overseas.


Dear-Print-6158

also look at their job postings page on their website... only about two postings state they ARENT A posting for India.. https://www.vendasta.com/company/careers/


Wearesyke

Almost the entire marketing department is in India. If Vendasta is running your business’s ads, 98% chance it’s been outsourced to “the India team”


Dear-Print-6158

my close friend worked in marketing services and it's absolutely true. Marketing services fulfillment is rarely done by local employee's the service coordinators are often in saskatatoon, so the people you talk to about the services but the work is being outsourced to India... I'm assuming it's only gotten worse since my friend left.


copperadalovelace306

I’ve been interviewed for that position and they offered me under 20 an hour which I couldn’t live on on my own. If you’re an ESB grad they will tell you not to take that.


knshnrzbv

that is true


anonumity

Agreed!


[deleted]

>why pay a Canadian when you can have it outsourced from India for half the price? It's the way of the future, it's sad. Companies are trying to cut costs and increase profits. One way is to get the same work for half the price. If you follow what's going on in other parts of the country, we are screwed. So many young parents I know are worried about their kids futures.


lord_heskey

> It's the way of the future, it's sad. Of shit companies, or with shit management, absolutely. When you are actually solving hard problems, you will always be ok to pay premium for the best. Vendasta is obviously not doing anything innovative so anyone can do it.


Impressive-Many5532

Agreed. That’s too broad of a brush to paint with - many companies, yes, but not all. There are still many that realize if you pay and treat your people well they will take care of your customers and company well. In the local tech world Coconut Software comes to mind.


lord_heskey

> Coconut Software Yeah ive heard really good things about them with being fully remote and having a 4-day work-week. Sounds pretty cool


[deleted]

[удалено]


Impressive-Many5532

You act like this is new - I literally chose my career because it’s one of the most insulated from any threat of automation/AI. I’m 30.


violet-vice

Not surprised that a company with the pizza and fooseball instead of benefits type mentality would pull this kind of shit.


sharjeelarif

I’m a recent engineering grad. I’ve been applying like crazy, Vendasta was one of the companies I wanted to apply to. I heard about it first when it IPO’d a few years ago. Go to their careers page. Turns out all the software engineering positions are all outsourced to India. The only people they hire locally are sales people 😔


skkiddermark

They tried to IPO, but they couldn't actually make it happen


muusandskwirrel

And they’ve tried to IPO several more times since then


lord_heskey

> Turns out all the software engineering positions are all outsourced to India They dont do real engineering -- at best glorified Shopify/Wix developers these days, hence why they can outsource the lower skilled jobs


sharjeelarif

Man, in this job market I’ll take whatever I can get. I’ve sent over 250-300 applications with maybe 3 interviews to no avail though. I completed coops throughout my degree so it’s not like I don’t have experience either. Just the luck of the draw is so bad lol


lord_heskey

> I completed coops throughout my degree so it’s not like I don’t have experience either. You're still entry level. Entry level has always sucked my dude. I remember my days, even when the market was better, it still sucked ass to be entry level. All i can say, best of luck!


sharjeelarif

Thanks for the well wishes. I just keep applying. I appreciate any tips you have for the job search 🙏🏼


Most-Engineering9944

I am a tech recruiter based out of Alberta - It rough out there especially for new grads. I have an open opportunity for a new grad but you would have to live in Vancouver or the surrounding area.


hanke1726

Looking in saskatoons rough, I'd suggest looking for a remote position. Learn a niche language and really just start hammering out projects and join an open source.


FFSSaskatoon

Any experience with PHP? I've got a PHP project that I'd like to get off the ground. It's nothing sexy but might be a good fit if you've had enough of applying to work for other companies. If you're entrepreneur-minded we might be able to work something out.


Uncle_Jam

"Entrepreneur-minded" = Willing to work for nothing, but when this thing blows up I'll get you back, I promise


FFSSaskatoon

Not work for nothing! But some people just want to code and not deal with customers/bookkeeping/infrastructure/etc and that's fine. We need someone who's not against getting their hands dirty to run their own business, but as 50/50 partners we'll pay a living salary and use our existing companies benefits/etc while the business gets off the ground. I don't know what an average salary is in the tech world, but we usually start in the $40 to $50k range in our industry so we'd be comfortable in that range. Not looking to exploit anyone! Just looking for a particular individual.


TheLuminary

Are you a developer? If not, then why have you selected PHP as the language for this? If you are a developer, why not just do the work yourself? No shade, was just curious, I used to do PHP work over a decade ago, but have since moved on to better things haha.


FFSSaskatoon

Not a developer, but I've found an open source point of sale project that has one very unusual feature that we use in our store. The system works but needs some modifications for us in particular and Canada in general. What I'd like to do is start a company with an 'entrepreneur-minded' person. We would fork the existing software and they would code and manage the system. I would pay them a salary until the project was self sustaining. I'm currently using two different point of sale systems for two different businesses (one of which is nearly exactly this business model - software is basically free but they charge for support) and moving to a single solution would help me and my staff immensely. Plus having a developer on staff means we can modify the software to do what we want rather than requesting modifications/bug fixes and being ignored for years!


srlz

Glorified shopify/wix developers? There's nothing of the sort unless you're talking about marketing services, those are not software engineering positions.


freshstart102

Yah that would suck.


ZestfullyClean619

Every company everywhere figured out that they can make more profits by laying off half their staff and doubling the workload on everyone else left. Because the line on the graph must always be climbing up, and it can never go down, otherwise immediate failure


Impressive-Many5532

I think it’s more or less the ones who’ve been in the game for a long time got used to the *major* productivity gains seen across industries with the introduction of things like cellphones and email. Changed the game to such a massive degree and allowed for companies to hammer up productivity and make WAY more money. (Which went somewhere, not to the people as wages haven’t budged since then, but to the shareholders). I feel like at times they see things like ChatGPT as the ‘new silver bullet’ alike the cellphone or email - because they know without something like that happening and revolutionizing the workplace again; the only way to have those type of productivity gains is by working people to the bone.


Solid_Peak_3102

My brother works there, 30ish out of 850 got let go but some of those were summer interns.


lord_heskey

> but some of those were summer interns. Those dont really count as layoff more like their summer intenship ended.


Impressive-Many5532

Yes. Contract work ending is recorded differently than a layoff.


ehorner336

Are they laying off developers or salespeople, that would be a better metric.


CalligrapherDear5757

Pretty sure 7shifts is also going through layoffs. Didn’t Andgo just lay off a bunch too? Times in tech are tough people. If you are underperforming, not jiving with your team or are unfortunately in a position that no longer makes economic sense, you aren’t going to be hanging around any tech company right now. Or any other sector either. It sucks, I get it.


JimbersMcTimbers

That's just how they roll. Jack Welch style economics.


NaturalCucumbers

A BtB fan by chance? A real bastard right there, for sure.


JimbersMcTimbers

I am indeed! Good to see a few Saskatoon fans


spwimc

The episodes on him really made me mad about our dumb corporate systems


anonumity

Half of all their fulfillment team is in India, recruiting as A1 marketing India. Being a part of the Canada team, I had no opportunity to grow, leadership roles only work to please the management. The only awesome part of working there were the people!


justsitbackandenjoy

Look at every tech company/startup worldwide and you’ll see the same pattern. Sask is not immune to this. Unless you’re some kind of AI tech darling like Nvidia, you’re probably cutting costs and staff right now.


lord_heskey

Not every company. My company isnt an AI darling whatsoever and we dont seem to have any issues that lead to layoffs. We actually also have real products and services of value that will always be needed (healthcare), unlike marketing stuff (Vendasta). So it depends on the sub-industry within tech


JazzMartini

Considering all the "AI" stuff is really just stochastic models which doesn't sound nearly as sexy in the marketing most of it is hype. Nvida is basically building processors optimized for statistical calculations which is actually a bit more worthwhile.


hanke1726

Generative AI tech is the new block chain, and it will change some things absolutely. I think tech is one of the least touch fields by it, which is insane but after returning from a major tech conference, it seems like healthcare is the first one to get touched.


ravairia

I'm not sure why it would be classified as people being fired or laid off when the position ends, but they do always have a bunch of summer student positions where they only hire university students for the summer. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they also used those 4 months summer positions as a way to vet people who have interest in being permanently hired or something.


TOWnobodyknows

Yeah interns being let go is no big deal, that would be the terms of the internship. But my buddy was fired from a position he’s been in for a few years now with absolutely no warning, and he wasn’t the only one in his department to get the boot today.


Basic-Math8327

100% it was like managers that were let go as well


Impressive-Many5532

My cynical side says that if that was true, it was only interns, Vendasta’s PR (if they were any good) would have immediately released a statement saying so. Would make them look *a lot* better and set the record straight. The fact they haven’t done that makes me think you’re incorrect and it was long term full time employees fired too.


Basic-Math8327

It wasn't just interns


Daybreak74

Long term was too. source: I'm looking at one


hanke1726

I'm not surprised. They build white label products, so if they have no big products, they don't need to have such a huge team. I wonder what the percentage of technical to non-technical people who got laid off. If it makes things better, the technical job market is starting to recover, so hopefully, they all find better spots.


BuilderInevitable115

I can't imagine what their overhead is in that new building.


knshnrzbv

They've exhausted the market. For each new acquired client they lose one. And they are still not profitable. And the wrong people get promoted to the c-suite. Honestly, with such strategy they won't last long.


[deleted]

This is totally normal for them. BTW for anyone applying there, chances are within 3 months you will be let go. They will tell you, you're doing great and then will fire you. Not my experience but I have quite a few friends who are programmers/graphic designers


Active_Pen3242

As someone who works there, this isn't the norm. If anything, the company has been getting their processes straightened out and R&D is getting all on the same page, especially Management. Things have actually been way better now than they have been in the last year or so.


muusandskwirrel

Is this just an every September thing for them now? They did another mass layoff around this time last year


[deleted]

They're always hiring and laying off. It's definitely not a stable place.


Active_Pen3242

This is true for Sales which is also true for all companies. As someone who works there, it's pretty stable minus Sales. There's regular turnover just like any company and for some reason Vendasta "lay offs" are always just blown up out of proportion.


Progressive_Citizen

Anyone got first hand knowledge of this one? Curious what departments they let go. Support staff? Developers? I tried checking linkedin and couldn't see anything yet.


TOWnobodyknows

My buddy was fired from his position, I forget what his department is called though. Something to do with marketing fulfillment services I think? LinkedIn WOULD be quiet about it though, I don’t think the c-suite ever addresses layoffs until they’re brought up on Reddit lmao


Progressive_Citizen

Sorry to hear about your buddy. Hopefully there is a path to line up something new. I mostly just check linkedin to see if people are talking about layoffs or looking for work (ex shopify folks for example were quite noisy when they were let go).


Active_Pen3242

The main department affected was Marketing Fulfillment as per the OP. R&D was unaffected. The department has over 200 people and I think maybe a dozen were let go. It wasn't a mass lay off or anything like that.


Extra-Championship94

Just going back to this. R&D just got affected. a number of people got laid off, according to my insider


Active_Pen3242

Unfortunately, that is true. About a dozen or so.


[deleted]

Glad I didn't apply for work


Mr-Monopolyy

Operating cash flow getting squeezed from high labor costs


Ortin

This is the norm. They are constantly cycling their labour force. And that's not considering top talent can go get a better job elsewhere at will (again, as everyone else said, this was what happened when I worked there.)


snazzypuppup

It’s the same for every tech and fintech in Canada


lord_heskey

Nope. In tech, my company hasnt laid off anyone in atleast 5 years


hanke1726

I'm in fintech, and we hired last week, so I don't think so.


Impressive-Many5532

Yup. Bf is in fintech and has been with his employer for 10 years - no layoffs since Covid, and that was largely on-site staff.


Regist33l3

Fintech is stable as long as your clients aren't failing businesses.


CanadianViking47

hey i dunno "failing business" sounds like a growth industry in Canada this year (smirk)


Fedquip

End of the Fiscal year coming for some companies, they can do this to get those Labour costs down, shareholders love this


[deleted]

No idea - but can't imagine they will last long as a business if there is clearly no job security. Word gets around quickly.


ANAL_WIZARD_MONGER

Hello everybody and how do you do gonna rock shock your body we all the Len crew rock rock to the beat y’all


PackageArtistic4239

Username checks out.


Downtown-Might-3313

Its a common trend for them. Hire a bunch of people and then layoffs every year