This is something you learn the hard way about neoliberal meritocracy..."They only hire the best and you fight to get there, you're the best until you inevitably aren't at your best...and once you aren't at your best even for a moment of weakness, then you are not the best...and you never were". This is why everyone needs protection from a work culture that burns through people.
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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This is why everyone needs protection from a work culture that burns through people.
You are all welcome to Europe for that. Come on over.
You don’t want us…..
I dunno, if they create a braindrain, I’m okay with that.
They don’t need to leave the US to create a brain drain. It’s happening naturally haha
For now anyway. Europe is not immune to fascism.
Definitely not, but we still have much more favorable worker laws.
definitely. we have to fight, and HARD, to not fall into what America is becoming.
Hear hear 📣
No thanks, I don't want to see this side of the ocean get ruined too
Actually we're managing that on our own soon, I think. 🫣
those aren't the ppl that want to come here.
Right, I'll just conjure up a work visa for my bullshit job, sell my house and belongings, and leave my family and friends behind. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
🤷♂️ Just saying you're welcome to come afaic. 🙂
The sad thing is what is expected now: the manager who made this decision will get fired, if we’re lucky. But their bosses who set the policy, incentives and company culture to do this will apologize profusely, initiate some corporate training and proceed to change nothing. And neither will any other company.
All over database software, that functions alright as is.
The state of things feels pretty depressing to me. It feels like accountability at the highest levels is vanishing, especially when I see people like Bezos, Zuck or Musk (or more local leaders outside of my online habits) pursue completely irrational things, with zero consequence. It’s not getting any better; it’s getting so bad even the impact the economy and quality-of-life is getting hard to ignore.
I actually think the expected reality is worse:
The family will likely settle out of court. MongoDB will admit to no wrongdoing and the settlement will be sealed and there will be an NDA signed by the family, essentially making it impossible for future employees to get the help they need.
If the family really, really cares about their daughter's legacy, they need to hold out until MongoDB is willing to admit to wrongdoing, even if it means they don't see a penny.
Mongo's strategy will be no different than any other corporate: circle the wagons, put out some "empathetic" release, then get back to maximizing revenue.
I had this happen to me at a company that is now an IBM subsidiary. I took FMLA leave to get mental health help to cope with the burnout, and about a week after I got back, they took me into an office for a "quick catch-up meeting" where they told me it wasn't working out and that I had to go. I'd worked my balls off, getting promoted directly from product support up to software engineering within a year, but apparently that didn't indicate anything positive to them.
Does it rhyme with bedcat?
I'll just come out and say it was SevOne, although it was well before the acquisition. This was right around the time they got a huge infusion of cash from Chinese investors.
Sorry, must have been rough.
Thanks, it was. What's sad is that, when it was just owned by Bain Capital (Mitt Romney's company), things were actually excellent. Great benefits, great work-life balance, if you needed a break you took a break. Then the Chinese money came in and all of a sudden everything went to shit.
yup, taking fmla just signals to these jackals that you actually know your rights...and they don't want you potentially spreading that knowledge via cultural osmosis into their company
Disgusting. Regrettable.
Preventable.
In my experience, when you bring up FMLA, then you're going to be fired.
Its a well-intentioned protection, but not enough legal teeth. Corporations have learned how to work around it.
This problem will continue to get worse until workers gain power in our society. Mass unionization or socialist revolution would solve the problem; both are very unlikely.
All that is left is violence; may a thousand Luigi's bloom.
this must be an american thing.
it really is wild how toothless american labor is
Land of the free (to be exploited by a rich white minority)
Yes we have no mandatory paid breaks. If you get a holiday you are lucky. We have no medical protection. Few states have mandatory accrual of some days off or sick day. It's horrible here.
My body is ready.
Heartbreaking. And revolting. All these companies nowadays bang on about mental health, and supporting diversity, all lip service, of course. But this is utterly despicable, I hope the company doesn't recover from this.
And Mongo is now on the eternal shit list. As far as I’m concerned this is not merely abuse, it is premeditated murder.
At this point the AIs would be more humane managers anyway
Actually, saying please would get the ai to change their earlier response
That or it will burn more GPU trying to understand human nature.
in idiocracy the movie, the AI actually controls society in 500years. it replaced all ceos, managers, of course the stupidfication of humans occured at the same time.
Ah so it’s just like real life where the stupiditication of humanity occurred several decades before the invention of AI which then made the effects permanent
I’m sure this happens to thousands of people every year in America. It’s good that awareness is being spread about our dystopian hellscape
Social murder
Man, I read this as the technology being blamed, vs. her being their employee. I hope her family gets justice for this, but companies seem to be immune from consequences, so we'll see...
>Capitalism doesn't kill people
They fooled us.