There were a bunch of closed door meetings with upper management and the busy season was set to end in a few weeks, so the writing was on the wall.
I had some of the most consistently highest metrics so I went into our VP of Operations office and straight up asked if I would be let go on X date. He told me no.
To be fair, he kept his word. About 70% of the staff were let go on that date. I was let go 2 days after that.
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.
I thought those were skiing or biking or local terms I just didn’t know since I’ve never being skiing or to Whistler, haha. I read EL rather than ei like thinking it was referring to a place everyone from that area would know that started with those letters. This makes much more sense now.
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 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 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.
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 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.
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.
There were signs it was coming, but I didn’t really accept it. When it did happen it was pretty distressing, but I had been planning to leave anyway. It ended up working out because I got to leave with some extra runway. They gave us 60 days notice, during which time we collected paychecks. I didn’t work at all during this time though. Instead I searched for a job. At the end of the 60 days we got about 6 weeks worth of pay, a prorated bonus, and our vacation days. I ended up finding a job that paid 3x as much before my 60 days were up and was able to pocket the severance money rather than live off it.
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 started a consulting business with my dad in 2021. We were growing well for the first 18 months. In about 2022 we saw a HUGE decline in the industry. Many of our competitors went out of business. Some shrank by 75% or more. We lost $250k in 2023 and the actual drag was our leadership team. So I, along with 2 other leaders, were laid off at the end of last year. I am proud to say we did not lay off any staff. I got a job at a giant company that pays me a shit ton to do the job of a monkey. I hate it there.
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.
I can imagine in a small startup with good interpersonal relationships it hurts less. I was never laid off but I worked in a small company like that and there were risky periods. It might have been an exception among most companies but we all had access to the revenue and expense data. There can be no surprises if everyone knows the financials.
One time, we were given six month’s wages plus a month’s wages for each year we had worked there (I had been there 12 years). The company paid for career counseling, resume training, self awareness (similar to Myers Briggs only it was useful), use of an office space and computers and printers to hunt for jobs.
Another time, we were told that our entire IT department wasn’t important enough to keep and our jobs had been outsourced to India. But they still wanted us to stay for four weeks and train our replacements. Bitch, if I’m not important enough to keep, then I’m not important enough to train anyone. I collected my stuff and walked out that day.