Tech Employees Say They Were Being Paid to Do Nothing All Day

upstart writes:

Big tech companies were apparently hiring workers to keep them from joining rival firms:

Many former employees at big tech companies are admitting that they had very little to do at their jobs, despite earning high salaries. One such under-worked and overpaid former tech worker is 33-year-old Madelyn Machado, who left Microsoft to join Facebook's parent company Meta as a recruiter in the fall of 2021.

In a viral TikTok video, Machado claimed she was hired for a $190,000 yearly salary, but had basically nothing to do during her stint at the company. "I do think a lot of these companies wanted there to be work, but there wasn't enough," she said. Talking to The Wall Street Journal, Machado said that on most days, her work included attending virtual meetings from noon until 3:30 pm before logging off for the day.

Curiously, Machado says she was told by her recruiters at Meta that she wouldn't be hiring anybody during her first year at the company. She also claims that some of her colleagues told her that they had spent two years at the company without ever hiring anyone. Unfortunately for her, she only worked for six months at Meta before being fired last year for posting TikTok videos that the company said posed a conflict of interest.

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