A middle manager at Facebook parent company Meta who is making $550,000 a year took to social media to gripe about corporate belt-tightening — which could potentially sabotage their hopes to reach $1 million of total annual compensation by 2026.
The unnamed middle manager took to Blind, the social media app that offers career employees anonymity so they can post freely without worrying about retribution from their bosses.
In a now-viral post titled “Angry/Worried that it’s all going to be taken away from me!,” the anonymous middle manager wrote: “I’ve fought so hard to get where I am, and now it may be all taken away from me this month in the great flattening.”
“Flattening” is a reference to a recent ultimatum handed down by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, telling his middle managers to either shape up or ship out.
“Listen to me humble brag and my first world problems,” the unnamed employee who goes by the Blind handle “sadduck” wrote.
“Thanks for not being there for me.”
The Meta employee wrote that they were employed as a tier 1 manager — a job that comes with a salary of $550,000 per year. Last year, the employee turned down offers of as much as $750,000 per year from tech rivals, including Google, Square, Uber, and Stripe.
In hindsight, that may have been a mistake as Meta’s fortunes have turned. The company’s stock price tanked more than 65% last year as revenues declined.
Zuckerberg recently laid off thousands of employees. In a recent earnings call, he hinted that more layoffs were coming in 2023 — which the CEO has dubbed “the year of efficiency.”
“Things have gone to s–t,” the employee wrote. “Not just stock price but now with the great flattening my odds of survival are 50/50.”
The employee wrote that they were “feeling buyer remorse.”
“Maybe should have went with one of my other offers,” the employee wrote.
“F–k this I’m so angry,” the employee continued. “Was planning on fast M2 (second-tier manager) promo[tion] and [to] hit $1mil TC (total compensation) by 2026.”
“Had financial projections to FIRE by 2026 before I hit 40,” the employee wrote.
The manager wrote that his calculation showed that “best case scenario” would be for them to “work til 45 now and that’s assuming I can maintain a TC [of more than] $500k job.”
The employee ended his post by writing: “Made it to the top despite all the odds against me, and now in under a year I’m going to lose it all.”
“F–K. F–K!!!”
Naturally, Twitter users had little sympathy for someone who annually earns around ten times the median American income.
“It’s time for Mark to fire all middle management,” one Twitter user wrote.
Another wrote: “Those poor rich people might get 300k [in severance] to take a 6 month vacation boo hoo.”
Another Twitter user snarkily noted: “Probably living paycheck to paycheck on that 550k too. No joke.”