As you’ve likely already heard, Facebook’s parent company Meta is laying off large numbers of people in an effort to remain financially viable. This stressful situation has been exacerbated by the absence of much of its management who are working remotely, some from other countries. How could things have possibly gone so far downhill so quickly? Do you suppose there might have been something less than ideal about their business practices and how they managed their workforce? Perhaps that idea will resonate a bit more after you hear from Madelyn Machado, who was a recruiter for Meta earning an eye-popping $190,000 per year. And what did she do for Meta while she was there? Nothing. She wasn’t even asked to do anything. So she was obviously quite sad when they let her go. (Yahoo Finance)

Madelyn Machado claims she joined Meta as a recruiter in the fall of 2021 with a stunning salary of $190,000 per year — but wasn’t able to actually do the job she was hired for.

“We weren’t expected to hire anybody for the first six months — even the first year,” she said in a TikTok video discussing her experience at the social media company. “That really blew my mind.”

The clip has gone viral and has been watched more than 436,000 times since being posted March 16.

Below is the brief clip where “Maddie” explains what her job was like. It wasn’t that she literally did nothing all day. There were training seminars to attend and some relaxing spa treatments. She just wasn’t doing any recruiting. In fact, nobody was. Meta wasn’t hiring at the time.

@maddie_macho

Replying to @laurendaniellehtx those were the days man. *sigh* #meta #layoffs #google #workingintech #metalayoffs

♬ original sound – Maddie | The Career Finesser

So Meta hired a recruiter at almost $200K per year when they knew that she wouldn’t be asked to recruit anyone. And yet they didn’t find any other related work for her to do either. They just let her hang around, take some training courses, and enjoy the spacious office building. And you’re telling me that Meta wasn’t making money? It’s certainly a mystery.

All kidding aside, this seems to be little more than a symptom of what many industry analysts have been warning investors about for ages. Big Tech, particularly in the Silicon Valley region, was seen for too long as a “can’t miss” investment. Everyone with a new online idea that looked even remotely viable had money showered down on them and stock values continued to rise. Meta had locked up so much of the available online advertising revenue that it was ridiculous. There was so much money sloshing around that it could be easy for things to fall through the cracks. (Like hiring recruiters when you had no job openings to fill.)

But in the reverse of a common saying about the economy, a low tide lowers all boats and the love train in Silicon Valley began slowing down. It appears that most of the executives there began to stop and say, ‘Maybe we should look at where we’re flushing all of this money.’ And then the layoffs began. There’s probably a lesson in all of this for everyone. The question is whether or not they’ll actually learn anything.