I've been laid off three times.
None of them were classic "here's your pink slip" layoffs, but still...
In retrospect, the first time I was laid off, I was actually fired. I was the VP of Marketing for a small company. (Did we even have 100 people?) We weren't hitting our numbers, and we were going to let ten or twelve people go. I'd been with this outfit, through many ups and downs, for about ten years, weathering many lay-offs, but this was the one I was most deeply involved with.
The company's president and I were discussing how we were going to position the lay-offs to the survivors, and got into a pretty heated argument about it. It ended with me telling him, "You say what you're going to say. I'll say what I'm going to say. We'll see who they believe." Well, one look at his face and I
realized I was a goner. Sure enough, I had made my way onto the list. But I was prepared. Within hours of our meeting - after trying to reach him by phone (he'd fled after our convo) to confirm my suspicion - I'd gotten confirmation that I'd made the list. This was a Friday. On Sunday, I came in and cleared out my desk. I walked in on Monday and just told my now former boss that I'd just come in so he could get rid of me in person.
Turns out it was actually a good thing for my career and for me personally, but at the time I was pretty much in shock.
I'd been there a long time, and invested a lot of myself in trying to help that goofy little company make it. I was hurt and bereft for a good long time, even though I had a very good package and a ton of support, including from the much larger company which had recently acquired Goofy Inc. (Within a week after I got my pink slip, they sent me down to their user group to meet their marketing team to see if there was any opportunity there. There wasn't, but it still felt good.)
For lay-off Number Two, I had volunteered for separation. It was a large company that was having quarterly layoffs on its way to bankruptcy. There were rumors that the coming layoff was the last one where the packages would be any good. I'd had it and wanted out. The problem was that I had just been one of the chosen mid-level managers who'd taken part in a ridiculous week-long offsite at Babson College, where we took skinnied down business classes and tried to figure out how to save the company. Trouble was, no one who'd participated in this event was allowed on the layoff list. Well, I went to every more senior personage I knew and asked them to help me get on this list. The night before the big layoff, my boss told me I'd succeeded.
I came in the next day to a bloodbath, but there were so many heads rolling, my boss didn't want to bother rolling mine. I finally figured out how to surrender my laptop and Palm Pilot and grab my severance package (as promised, pretty good!), but it was sort of weird laying myself off. (Fired? I quit!) My biggest memory of the day is seeing all those (including a handful who'd been part of my group, some my direct reports) carrying their boxes out in tears, and saying my goodbyes to them. That and the fact that someone stole the Palm Pilot off my desk before I'd had the chance to turn it in.
The third time, the company I was working for was undergoing a pitched battle between the short guys in senior management and the tall guys in senior management. My boss was part of the tall guys, and they were about to lose. They were about to sail him out the door, but wanted to get rid of his pet direct reports first. The three of us knew we were going, but weren't sure of the timing. Anyway, on layoff day, the three of us were on instant messaging when I (working from home) texted the group "Incoming from Andover." I was getting the call. A few minutes after I was canned, my friend Sean texted "Ditto." Followed by John.
I worked at HQ, but Sean and John were elsewhere. (The company was an agglommeration of multiple quasi-related small tech companies located throughout the country.)
As it turned out, both Sean and John had non-refundable flights into HQ the following week, so we decided that our last act in office would be to invite everyone we worked with to a going away party the next week. After all, they were all going to be in town for the offsite we were no longer invited to, so why not? The party was a blast, and two of the still-standing tall guy execs picked up the tab.
By this point in my career, I'd had it with corporate and had long planned to start freelancing (which soon I was doing with Sean and John, as it turned out). So I was more than happy to get the hell out of that place, even though the package was crap.
I worked with Sean and John for a few years, and then we went our separate days, but I had a pretty successful freelance business doing marketing writing for tech companies for many years. (I finally retired last December, once I hit 75.)
A few times when I was freelancing, I was let go - quasi-laid off - by a company where I'd been getting regular work for years. It was mostly due to a change in management and/or budget contraction. But oddly, I found it more wounding than when I'd really been laid off.
Anyway, even when I was happy to lose full-time or freelance work, there is something unsettling about being without work.
There's the worry about money, of course. Will I ever work again? There's the loss companionship, the loss of purpose. Self doubt can creep in. Is it me? (Nah!) Why me? (Why not?)
My career was in high tech, and I know precious few people who weren't laid off at some point or another. It just came with the territory.
For all of them - including myself - it all worked out for the better. Seriously, if you're working for a place where they're having layoffs, you're generally better off moving on. (Even if the next place is going to eventually have layoffs as well.) The tension of working in a place with repeated layoffs - and in my experiene, layoffs are seldom one-offs - can be agonizing. Better off gone!
Melanie Ehrenkranz, 35, started [her newsletter] Laid Off last August, about a year after she lost her job at a financial technology company that has since closed. After being laid off, she said, “I didn’t really feel like I had access to a community or to stories of layoffs outside of a group chat with two of my former colleagues.” By the time she introduced the newsletter, Ms. Ehrenkranz, who lives in Los Angeles, had started working for Business Class, an online entrepreneurship course created by the “#Girlboss” author Sophia Amoruso, where Ms. Ehrenkranz is still employed. (Source: NY Times)
She now has 9,000 subscribers, and provides a forum for those who've lost their jobs.
Good for you, Melanie Ehrenkranz!
Back in the pre- early-social media days, I guess I created my own platform and started blogging with Pink Slip, often about layoffs. But it was mostly an outlet for me to write stuff every day, and I've stuck with it now for nearly 20 years because, well, I like to write stuff every day.
Laid Off’s Q&A interviews touch on topics people sometimes avoid when talking about unemployment. Ms. Ehrenkranz’s go-to questions for subjects include “What were the reasons given for your layoff?” and “What was the first thing you did after getting laid off?” She said the newsletter’s tone was meant to be edgy and fun; a tagline on its website reads: “The coolest place on the internet to talk about being laid off.”
Maybe I'll head over there at some point and see what they have to say. For old time(r)'s sake.
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Image source: Mondo
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