A Buzzfeed worker has responded to the globally renown media firm’s highly publicised layoffs by uploading a ‘grim’ quiz to the site.
Last week, the media firm announced that it was cutting its workforce by 15%, beginning the job losses last Friday.
This has sparked an online backlash, the most high-profile being the creation of a quiz satirising the layoff situation at the firm.
Jason Sweeten, who is listed as a Community Contributor at the media outlet, created the multiple-choice questionnaire, titled Do You Still Have A Job At BuzzFeed?, and made it public yesterday.
[text:28941]
Anonymously, one industry insider told HR Grapevine that the quiz was “grim” adding that every fourth answer “seems to be a genuine account of working for Buzzfeed.”
Possible answers suggest a highly fraught working atmosphere in the Buzzfeed offices before the layoffs. Questions include “Are you a manager,” with the option to select “Yes. But that’s because it was the only way for me to advance here.
Then there wasn’t much training, and now I fear I’m doing a poor job. But also, I can’t revert to being a writer because they say that I’m needed. It’s so confusing.”
This BuzzFeed quiz is wildhttps://t.co/APfvVIRt62 pic.twitter.com/zYRR6I2fG3
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) January 28, 2019
Another asks the reader to choose their favourite Buzzfeed memory. “The Try Guys spent eight hours trying to pop a weather balloon right by my desk,” says a potential answer. “It was for Facebook live, and the noise was very distracting. I missed a deadline, and my boss called me incompetent via Slack.”
Others suggest that staff had nowhere to turn when they had problems that needed addressing. “Once I was so burnout that I sobbed in my HR representative’s office,” reads one answer.
“She hugged me and said everything would be okay. We were going to work out a plan, but then she stopped responding to my emails.”
The quiz ends with a mocking question, asking the viewer to pick a colour, in the style of Buzzfeed’s more light-hearted questionnaires. “Unionize your media company,” one answer states.
At the time of going to press, the quiz was still live on the site – but it bears the warning “This post has not been vetted or endorsed by BuzzFeed’s editorial staff.”
Buzzfeed are infamous for their quizzes on the trials and tribulations of professional and personal life.
Job security
Journalism is an industry which is receives a lot of attention for its job losses. Press Gazette reports that Buzzfeed UK’s restructure plan will see the firm lose 17 journalists – or nearly half of their editorial team.
[card:29128]
Across the business, 600 staff have lent their support to laid-off colleagues in the USA after it was revealed some would not be paid earned and unused PTO they were owed. On Monday afternoon, the firm agreed to honour PTO for all laid-off staff.
In addition, Buzzfeed is still hiring in departments where staff are being laid off. They are hiring for ‘fellows’ a programme which states it is looking for “the next generation of writers, editors, and content creators eager to master the tools and techniques of social storytelling on BuzzFeed.com.”
One twitter user responded to Buzzfeed’s apparent hiring of cheaper, less-qualified staff whilst layoffs were occurring by tweeting: “so are you trying to replace people you just fired with people making less? is that’s what is happening here?”
Another added “this is awful”.
