Soul crushing.

Worked at a place for 16 years, made many close friends there, helped the company grow from a $2M company into a $2B company. Then one day they decided that it looked like they might not be add profitable in the coming quarter so they needed to cut 20% of the company. I was my family’s sole provider and now wasn’t sure how we were going to survive. I did get a nice severance of 6 months pay, but only 3 months of COBRA coverage. I was very fortunate to find a better paying job a little over 3 months later. Financially it was a good thing for us, but mentally I’m pretty fucked up now. I’ve never had anxiety issues but now I’m on 2 different medications for it. I’m depressed. I hate my new job and coworkers. I have no joy in work. I know if I get laid off again that I won’t get nearly as good of a severance package. I realize that my lifestyle only exists as long as my employer chooses to keep me employed. I feel like I not only have no safety net, but if I fall I take my family with me. It sucks.

Weird angel investor took us all out to a fancy dinner and made a weird extensive speech about the importance of the future; kind of “Godspeed my young protégés I know you’ll do wonderful things.” Kind of sounded like he finally believed in us and wanted to let us know with a nice gesture. Idk. No one could make any sense of it.

The next day his lackey informed us we were all fired. Oooh, that’s what that was about; makes sense, oh well, we have to get real jobs now apparently.

Which time?

First time happened after I’d been with my first real job for ten years because the business was changing and there wasn’t a role for me. I was out of work for 7 shitty months trying to have my own business starting from the few customers we had left when they let me go. It was right after I bought a house and had a baby. It was fucking awful.

Second time was after COVID. First we all took a 10% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Then two months later when federal assistance expired, they cut 1/3 of the company across the board. I’m a little fucking bitter about that to be honest, but I had a new remote job lined up within a couple of weeks that paid quite a bit better.

Last time was 5 months ago. Just got hired this week. Start next month. It sucked. Wiped out my whole retirement savings, so I get to start over at 51. But we made it through and potentially I won’t have to switch companies again.

My partner was the only one holding her company together as operations manager. She got put on a HUGE project and promised two weeks vacation after, then laid off right before the vacation. Now the company is trying to make her sign a contract that forces her to give up her severance in exchange for four weeks of labor.

On the bright side, the professional relationships she built outside the company are paying off, and she has a dozen or so job leads

I worked many years at places where I really despised the work. Finally found a job which I liked and made few good friends. Pay was good, was being appreciated for being good at my work, I felt happy being at work in office. Covid19 and was asked to resign as part of layoffs. Me and one of my best friends in office used to say that this is the final job for us where we shall retire from. A month after being laid off got a call from him and could sense he was clearly not doing well. He died few days later.

Though it’s been 4 years but the hurt of losing that job and my good friend remains.

My employer sued IBM in early 2k for breach of contract but lost all their money, rep, staff, dreams, hopes and future in the ensuing legal/PR fight.

I was laid-off after dodging so many proverbial bullets. I got a call on a Thursday from my boss, and he checked the HR was on the line and didn’t say another word until the official stuff was done. Then he made sure I was okay, asked if I had any options, and rang off.

I didn’t cry, beg, rage, or question: I felt relieved that I could stop working 16 hours a day, guilt over being let-go, and a general feeling of worthlessness. And then I was out.

My last job laid off over half of their staff. They hired a bunch during COVID after getting relief grants and then laid off whole departments once ChatGPT started to get popular. First it was marketing and communications. Had a work buddy who had some health problems there but he passed away a week after being laid off from a heart attack.

Then it was HR, to be replaced by ChatGPT as a bot. It started giving incorrect information so they hired 2 teams of consultants to work on that.

Then when that wasn’t working a third crew of consultants were hired but we never got a straight answer to what they were working on. Turns out they were working on a report to senior management of additional efficiencies the company could make? And guess what they concluded? More cuts!

So the company cut the IT department 15% and they figured it would be fair if they did it at random. I was one of the “lucky” 15%. I was asked to help train one of the consultants on one of our internal programs so I walk into the meeting room but it’s my manager and two security guards and she says “Your employment with company is complete, your position has been eliminated. Vacate your desk and hand over your laptop and badge”.

Very cold, no emotion. This was a woman who would joke with me on Teams and shoot the shit all day. Both security guards walked on either side of me out the door with my backpack. Felt like I was being arrested.

Found a job two months later. Blew through my entire savings and lost a friend of mine (yes heart attack but I still hold firm that the layoffs triggered it - he has money problems at home with kids. They didn’t deserve this). No severance pay but I was able to collect a little bit of employment insurance so I could still afford food to eat.

I was laid off in late July of 2023. I dodged a massive layoff in November of 2022 so I knew it was a possibility.

It fucking sucked. I miss that company. I miss it all. It made me feel worthless. I kept comparing myself to the others that didn’t get laid off as if there was any sense made in the decision.

I get work through my skilled trades union. We’re constantly getting hired onto jobs and laid off when the work is complete. Jobs can last 1 shift, up to a few months, or even years. Getting laid off is a time for celebration after being on the job for a while.

I was with a SaaS company for 5 years. It was my first job in software. I busted my ass and worked my way up. I ended up managing the support department while leaning how to code in my spare time. I move to Engineering and was a developer for two years.

The company had a great culture and I was genuinely proud to work there.

Then a growth equity firm came in. They said they weren’t going to change the “magic” we had and were just there to give us the tools and expertise to grow. That is when the steady erosion of our company culture began.

The third CE0 since I’ve been there took over a few months ago. Of course he promised there would be no layoffs and he didn’t see a need to change anything. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, I was getting panicked messages from coworkers saying they were getting let go and then I saw the 15-minute meeting with my department head on my calendar.

When the dust settled, the first layoffs at our company were over. A third of our engineering department was gone and our work was being outsourced to an outside firm.

Now I’m looking for work and it seems really daunting. My wife is self-employed and lost her biggest client that made up 80% of her income right before I got laid off. I got 4 weeks of severance initially, but I was able to negotiate 8 weeks.

Now I’m reaching out to my network, applying to as many jobs as I can find, building more portfolio projects to pad my GitHub account, and believing things will work out so I don’t have a complete nervous breakdown.

I don’t recommend it. Don’t be laid off.

My company laid off a percentage of the workforce randomly, i.e. by lottery, or so they said. I’m 95% sure it really was random, because they laid off one of my coworkers, when, if they had any sense about them, they’d have laid off me. Worse still, he needed the job much more than I did.

I was laid off in January, I had worked as an IT technician for the company in 8 years, I got a great severance package and in March I started on my current job, even had time for a vacation between jobs and got to see the south of spain.

For me it was fine, maybe about 15 years ago. Small startup company I was at ran out of funding, we got something like 1-2 months severance. We all got along fine so it wasn’t like everyone hated the job or the owners, sometimes startup companies just don’t make it through those first few years.

Summer is probably the best time to be unemployed, spent a lot of time exploring my neighborhood during the weekday afternoons and was practicing making cold brew & other summer drinks LOL.

Was doing freelance work while being on unemployment / looking for a new steady job. Think it was about 4-5 months before I landed a new job (did get 1-2 job offers during that time but was maybe being a bit picky & turned them down).

… Also helps that I keep savings so short term unemployment won’t wreck me. I’ve seen posts about people being out of work for years, that would be a far worse scenario.

It’s been close to a decade and I’m still traumatized by it. Fuckers almost cost me my marriage, my family, my home… Have never hated a company more. I can’t wait for the revolution.

I was working up in Whistler back in my twenties, at the end of the season, they lay everybody off except for a small crew of full-time employees. I went on to EI(employment insurance) for the summer pretended to look for jobs, and went on road trips with friends. Once summer finished, I found another job and I have unfortunately been employed ever since in various Warehouse jobs from order picker to warehouse manager.

Edit: Added words