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sarawearsskirts, the admin that grew Etsy teams and the Etsy promotional workhorse that teams are has been laid off from Etsy. Her last day is at the end of December. How nice of them to tell her right before Thanksgiving.
From her blog, girlscantell:
"moments before my parents arrived to spend the thanksgiving holiday at our house, i learned that at the end of the year, my position at etsy will no longer exist. "
"it's no secret that i love etsy, and gave working for the teams everything i could, despite never receiving the tools or resources the program really needed to flourish"
Like Etsy corp did with sellers, once you've promoted the hell out of the site, go fuck yourself. BTW, could it be that Etsy has no money for teams anymore? Maybe this is why they need more listing fees coming in and redid the search pagination (oh yeah we heard about this, more to come tomorrow)
We also heard (from HeyMichelle regarding GG appearances) that kfarrell is no longer working at Etsy.
Our question is: Why is DXO still fucking there?????!!!!
Of course none of this was announced by Etsy, it's information gleaned from Twitter, Blogs, and incidental communication with admin about other things - just another day in the Etsy neighborhood.
Did we miss anyone? Let us know!
31 Comments:
From now on, I am promoting the hell out of my artfire shop, and personal website. I will not renew anything on etsy. Products will get one go around and I will hopefully be able to wean myself from this horrible, black, stinky teet. If etsy didn't represent most of my business I would quit today. I'm sorry that I can't.
I am pissed off beyond belief about the search change and the way they didn't even have the f'ing coutesy to tell us about it in a direct manner. This weekend was really the last good weekend for holiday shopping and etsy fucked it up something wicked for everyone.
DXO must have something on someone. I'm convinced.
I would not be surprised if there were more layoffs than Sara's right before thanksgiving, and those admins just didn't blog about it. The timing does suck because of the holidays, but unfortunately the end of the year is a very common time to do layoffs, to meet the next year's budget. I've worked at places where they handed out pink slips the DAY OF the company Christmas party. (uber-boner)
Regardless of my issues with Etsycorp, I do feel bad for anyone who loses their job during the holidays.
In a company with as large a staff as Etsy, it's pretty unlikely that just one layoff would be done, I bet there were more we just haven't heard about yet.
There are secrets about secrets at Etsy, and they like it that way. In another life or another economy, Etsy might have gone public, and had to admit that the unethical behavior of their paid employees led to profits gained from these very same secrets. And that many paid employees don't actually perform their jobs (if they have job descriptions at Indie Etsy) because they are way too busy running & promoting their Etsy Stores, and (we assume) actually packing up and sending them out. Or do they use the Etsy Mailroom do to that for them?
The funny thing about secrets and unethical behavior is that - eventually - they come back to haunt you with a bigger wallop than you ever expected.
Layoffs might be the tip of the iceberg. There are tens of thousands of sellers who can't figure out what 75 fulltime employees actually DO at Etsy. They sure ain't staffing a Customer Service Department!
Etsy is so overstaffed for what they actually do for the sellers who pay for them, it's an implosion waiting to happen.
Etsy is doing really well these last few weeks....
http://etsybitch.blogspot.com/search/label/fired
If you add the label "fired" to this post (and future ones about lay-offs), we'll all be able to keep track.
CaterpillarCowboy (Dave Lifson from http://tinyurl.com/6xu9td ) is gone.
His blog mentions looking for a job, so it doesn't sound like he left because there was something better waiting.
They didn't strip him of his admin orange badge and his profile page still says he works for etsy.
Andrea, we used the label 'layoffs'
Anon at 617pm. You must choose a name, any name, in order for your comment to be published.
The backwoods part of Georgia where I live is very familiar with the "good ole boy" network, so one would think I would be used to that sort of thing. However, it seems the network of Etsy has taken that "good ole boy" mentality and reused/up-cycled it to a new form of nepotism. This latest jab is yet another way for all those admin shops that get featured in GG and FP to truly take away any hopes the regular Etsy Seller may have had in actually being seen by shopper doing a search. Now what will be next?
And if I was in anyway knowledgeable in computer graphics...the bull on my logo would have its tail raised and proudly "shitting" on a big Etsy graphic...defiantly giving some Bull Shit back to the management/admin for their real crappy business practices.
It's not a layoff - she says they are eliminating her position.
And yet the CEO is going around meeting with various Etsy teams personally, so it doesn't sound like Etsy is abandoning the idea of organizing and encouraging street teams.
Without knowing anything about anybody personally, I see the CEO taking a personal interest in one aspect of the company and the person in charge of that aspect leaving. Sounds like a "change of focus" to use the polite term, not a round of layoffs.
The priority when Maria came in seems to have been the infrastructure, and a new Tech position was created and two high-profile ones eliminated. This looks like more of the same to me. Watch for a new position to be created, probably one that reports directly to Maria.
bluh, from the dictionary:
layoff - noun- The act of suspending or dismissing an employee, as for lack of work or because of corporate reorganization
her position is eliminated therefore she is being laid off as opposed to being fired (which requires cause) or her quitting (which is voluntarily leaving the position)
Maybe there's another label that can be used to keep track of former employees? Fired is different than getting laid off, so I see why that isn't a good choice. But, having one consistent label for this type of information would make it easier for all of us who are keeping score!
From my personal experience with SaraWearsSkirts, I have to say I never had an issue with her- she's always been kind and good mannered with me. On a general level, yeah, there were a few things that I didnt agree with on, but I dont agree with most of the fuckups Etsy Admin puts out daily anyway. With all of the shit that never gets done around Etsy, wouldnt they consider cross training their staff? Why cut someone when you can move them around and repurpose their job description? Oh, thats right, because Maria has no fucking idea what is really going on back in Brooklyn.
Wanna cut someone? How 'bout good ol' Dani or better yet, cut that cunt Emily Bidwell. Or even the creme de la creme Sarah Feingold.
Mr. BeanCounter, I bet you could find a way to keep Sara on staff if EtsyCrap really wanted to. Maybe trade in her salary for the accounts delinquent on their $1.20 that you are going to sell out to a collection agency.
FAIL.
I wonder what is about to happen with the teams? They seem to have been on their own for a long time anyway.
I never see any admin involvement in the teams I belong to.
I have always thought it sucked that companies choose to scale back and layoff at holiday time. What a horrible time to learn your job is phased out or that you are on the bottom of dog pile.
Is Etsy just trying to piss people off? Really is that the strategy there going for? If it is, it's working well! Etsy really is SO many ways to fail!
Come on folks get on board with ArtFire! Spread the word! GO ARTFIRE!!
Oh, good, someone has a dictionary.
"Layoffs" in modern American parlance also refer to large-scale reductions in the size of a company's work staff, usually in response to an economic downturn, as in "General Motors is implementing a layoff." That's the way I understand the usage in the OP, which is supported by the speculation that several other employees are also being let go in what would amount to a "layoff."
Layoff is also not a term usually used to refer to management-level positions. It's the hourly staff and workers who are laid off. Management go through "reorganization" and get severance packages, etc.
There are a zillion ways to be fired without actually being fired. Having your position redefined and reorganized out of existence is one of them. Being brought in and told "It's going to be this way now - are you able to do that?" is another. We're all speculating here but my money says Etsy isn't having a round of "layoffs."
Bluh, I don't know anything about this specific situation but I come from a very corporate background and a family of human resources execs. Just about everything you said about the usage of the word layoff is incorrect. The term is used to refer to management level positions and does not necessarily refer to large-scale downsizing.
All I want to know who... Who the hell is sleeping with DXO and why??? That's the only way she could possibly by hanging onto this job, right?
She's a miserable excuse for an employee and is absolutely no help at all to teams. She's screwed me royally a few times and I absolutely refuse to work with her regarding my teams.
justasayin' - I'm trying to get at what is actually happening, not what the dictionary definition is. The OP seemed to be referring to layoffs in the larger sense which I gave an example of - an example which is not incorrect - and I think I explained that this was the interpretation I was responding to. I was not saying mine is the only definition. Quoting the dictionary is one of the lamest online "arguments" that exists.
I think this is more of what we have already seen - Maria is cleaning house. Go ahead and call it a layoff if it makes you feel better. That word is also sometimes used when there is an expectation that the person may be called back to work. I don't think that's happening.
Okay, I started a thread on the Fora about this because I'm a Team Leader and I saw here that sarawearsskirts has had her position terminated (honestly, who the hell cares whether she was laid off or fired?) and I wanted to know what was up with Teams now that sara was going.
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5942855
On page 29 of that thread wondercabinet comes in (she was the Admin wonderamy), tells us that she hersef was fired in a "most hellacious and unprofessional manner" and then proceeds to tear the thread a new one because we dared to discuss what Sara had PUBLICLY POSTED ON HER BLOG.
Sorry, but if Sara had wanted to let Team Leaders know that she was leaving, perhaps she should have done it BEFORE making a blog post?
*headdesk*
For the record, I did not want to cause any trouble for Sara (I wonder if she's being reamed by Admin) but if you want to keep something a secret, don't blog about it.
wonderamy rants (in triplicate) about getting fired by Etsy in a "unprofessional" way.
The irony is hellacious! I don't doubt that she got fired in an unprofessional way because that's how Etsy does everything, maybe they were the bad guy and she was a victim, but HOLY JEEZ you do not bash your former employer to their customers ON THEIR OWN SITE.
It's just not done. That is unprofessional to the 10th power.
This is what Etsy can expect from the type of employees they choose. They wanted a bunch of young hipsters and friends with no experience or training, and that is exactly what they got. Loose cannons who think NDA is the latest indie band.
If anyone's getting reamed right now, and brickwalled soon I will wager, it is wonderamy.
I feel for Sara.
I was in a similarly suck position when I was laid off about 2 months ago.
I had to be the one to tell my coworkers that I was laid off. I would have much rather it gone around the rumor mill than to have to explain it to the ones who got to keep their jobs.
The whole deal is rather humiliating, and I don't envy her position. Gotta be tough to come up with the words to address the teams. I wish she'd contacted teams first, but in her position I'd probably have done the same.
DXO, gah don't even get me started... I'm going to hold out hope that she was laid off too and just hasn't talked about it.
Good folks are bailing out of etsy. Various excuses have been used by Etsy on why folks left, but a lot of good folks are gone, and Maria is still there.
Large parts of the product management structure are gone. Lots of admins, Sarah of Teams, the two top tech guys.
A goodly number quit, often without alternative jobs. In today's economy, what does that say about the real state of how happy folks at Etsy are? Other were driven out, explicitly by being shown the door, or implicitly by having their contributions ignored or wasted.
You bitches are completely talking out of your cigarettes when you say Etsy is over staffed. It may have the wrong staff, but people there work their butts off.
Of course, under the current regime, they all may be running in different directions. But that is not the fault of the mid and lower level folks.
"It's not a layoff - she says they are eliminating her position." Eliminating a position is a layoff.
"Layoff is also not a term usually used to refer to management-level positions. It's the hourly staff and workers who are laid off. Management go through "reorganization" and get severance packages, etc." They get a severance package because the are laid off in a reorganization.
I didn't quote the dictionary, bluh. (That was the righteous one.) I said that your statements and reasoning above are incorrect.
Sometimes it's okay to be wrong. You can just say something like "I stand corrected." Or "I didn't know that."
Insisting you are right in the face of evidence to the contrary and resorting to name calling just make you look stubborn and unreasonable.
Well, I honestly don't feel bad if Sara gets reamed or not by Admin. Posting on her blog about it at all was not a smooth move. And is partly to blame for many people's innuendo and gossip.
bluh, my DH is a Project Manager and was working for a smallish company with clients in the pharma field making over $100K...early last summer he was LAID OFF.
That IS the correct term. The company ran out of money and he was LAID OFF.
Lay offs happen to everyone, in every part of our workforce.
Face it bluh...you were wrong.
I like this comment from Lauren on page 10
"Speculation about the hows & whys of this decision are potentially hurtful to the company and to Sara,"
Potentially hurtful to the company? I can't imagine why... Letting someone know on Thanksgiving that at the start of the new year she will not have a job anymore is so classy! It shows how much Etsy cares.
Who the fuck cares if she posted in on her blog or not? It's her blog and what happened to her. That is really none of Etsy's business! Etsy doesn't own the world like some of the Admin and cupcakes think they do~ Get over it!~
Re Wonderamy/wondercabinet's post - she wrote: so give them a break, trust sara to be the communicative ally she has always been for you, go back to running your shops and teams already, and get a life!
Apart from "get a life", which is always obnoxious - does she realize that team leaders have not been hearing back from teams@etsy.com re updates to the team member pages for weeks? And that there has been no communication about this? I'm sure people would like to "get back to their teams", but it's understandable that people would wonder what the hell was going on - and I, for one, appreciate DangerousMezzo's effort to inform.
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5946469&page=4
Matt posted here, it's very interesting.
Apparently they are eliminating Sara's position but siimultaneously creating a new position that does almost the same thing.
And ugh, daniellexo is staying. WTF?
MI Zombie said...
Who the fuck cares if she posted in on her blog or not? It's her blog and what happened to her. That is really none of Etsy's business!
.............
Well actually, it is their business. She's still an employee until the end of the month, and thus she can be restricted to what she can say about her employer, both on and off Etsy. (although Sara's blog doesn't contain anything scandalous, but if it did that would theoretically be something actionable). Likewise even former employers are restricted in what they can talk about. I am sure that at the time they were hired, their contracts included non-disclosure agreements which apply forever, even after termination.
This is why usually when people want to rant about former employers, they do it anonymously and do not name the company. They don't do it with their real name on the company's own website, like Amy did.
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