Now and then I learn something actually about layoffs that I didn't know already. Sometimes people express very clearly what I think is wrong with the company that is getting worse. Like it 's something I sometimes can't quite put my finger on, and its like yeah... that's why I'm feeling this way even though in other objective ways it is still a good job. And sometimes reading other people vent helps relieve stress, or at least keeps me from venting at work and damaging future prospects, though I probably did enough of that early on to limit certain career paths.
I don't like personal attacks though. Almost everyone I know at or close to the individual contributor level is at least trying in this messed up company and market conditions. Not everybody likes everybody else, I get it, but anonymous personal attacks on public forums are just mean. Anyway I'll be gone from COP in a few months, and hopefully won't have a compulsion to check this site regularly. But if I did check it'd be nice to learn something about the company, not just the general unhappiness level of certain posters.