This layoff does not define you: Revisiting my layoff experience
Being laid off, even for (bogus) "performance" reasons, are not a reflection of who you are
In the wake of a particularly brutal layoff by Meta this week, I decided to reshare an old post of mine this week - one I posted a year and a half ago on my own layoff experience from the company just mentioned - alongside some fresh reflections.
When I was laid off from Meta, it was the first wave of layoffs at that company. It wasn’t the first large tech layoff, but it was close enough that it felt shocking on a macro scale. The shininess of digital tech was starting to tarnish, and the blocks were starting to crumble.
At the time, even though it was a mass layoff, Meta felt surprisingly supportive. The severance package was generous - 6 months paid leave, full health benefits (I still miss how good the health benefits were). They even gave us a career coach to help us with finding a new job. It felt like an amicable separation, a supportive pat on the shoulder that dulled the pain of being shoved out the door.
This latest round of layoffs at Meta feels mean. Hardened, spiteful and company-serving. I don’t believe for a minute the performance-based nonsense that they’re spewing out. I know people that they laid off in this round, and in no normal world would their performance warrant being laid off. Unfortunately we’re not in a normal world.
If I could send out a message to anyone who was laid off I would say this:
Being laid off, even for supposedly ‘performance-based’ reasons, is no reflection of who you are. You are the same person you were yesterday when you weren’t laid off, and you’re going to be the same person you are tomorrow, even if you have been laid off. You won’t feel the same for awhile because a whole chunk of your world, of what took up space in your brain in the area called ‘Identity’, has been shut out. But you will recover. Your self will find ways to fill in that hole, and what it will fill that hole with will be beautiful. Because who you are is more than a job and more than this moment. You are an amazing, incredible human being.
I know right now the chances that feels true are pretty slim. And if you’re not ready to feel that way, that’s okay. Give yourself the time and space to let any twisty hurt angry sad feelings work their way out of you. I get it. I’ve been there.
In the post below, I share what my experience was. It helped me to process my experience by writing it down. I hope by sharing it, it can help you too.
On a Wednesday like any other Wednesday, I was sitting at my computer, happily typing away on whatever was my latest project at the time. My headphones blocked out tiny pings from my work phone.
When I finally looked up, I saw my manager had called for an impromptu team meeting about an email that had just come in. I had missed both.
Sitting at the top of my inbox was the email. As I read the contents, I turned to stone. The company made the difficult decision to reduce the workforce. Not again, I said to myself.
It was not so long ago, on a very different Wednesday, that I woke up to a very similar email at my last company. On that day, I had read the dreaded words that I was laid off along with 11,000 other employees.
This time, I was one of the lucky ones that wasn’t “impacted”. But experiencing another layoff, even from the other side, brought me right back into that place when I was.
Everyone is affected
When there are layoffs, everyone at the company is impacted. Much of the focus is on the folks who are leaving. After all, losing a job abruptly without any choice or time to prepare tends to dump one directly into a swirling pool of uncertainty.
The folks who still have a job are also deeply affected. A confusing range of emotions arise at the same time. Sadness at the loss of colleagues. Anger at leadership for making a decision that prioritizes business over people. Relief that they still have a steady job. Guilt that they feel relieved when their friends weren’t so lucky. Anxiety about what will happen in the future - they’re safe now but will they continue to be?
And everyone has a different way of processing. Some have to talk it out. Some need to take a rest day. Others want to keep working, to take their mind off of the world crumbling around them.
However individuals react, in general there is a shattering of collective reality that each person will have to figure out how to put back together for themselves. The brain thrives on making patterns. Even frustrating work experiences are comforting in their familiarity.
As much as we talk about separation of work from self and life, when you spend 8 hours or more a day in the same environment, it’s going to become a part of your identity whether you acknowledge it explicitly or not. You become known for a certain set of skills and experiences. There are growth areas you work on regularly. Friends and colleagues make up your main social circles. Even the systems and buildings you interact with on a daily basis become imprinted on your psyche. Your brain knows how to navigate all these pieces you’re exposed to everyday, and it happily zooms away on established neural pathways.
When you get laid off, a whole section of your brain gets cut off. The lights go out, and you are locked out of the building (metaphorically and practically). You’re suddenly thrust into a reality that no longer feels familiar. Your laptop is no longer an extension of you; it’s become a paperweight. Even the walls of your home around you look different. Your brain doesn’t know what to hang on to when a large chunk of its processing power has nowhere to go.
My reactions to being laid off
Mindfulness
Many months prior to the layoff, I had experienced a series of difficult work situations that led me to actively change how I respond to situations. I started a mindfulness practice. When I felt the possibility that panic, anxiety, and depression would run rampant throughout my body, I practiced bringing myself back to the moment, to shift into a state where I could let in curiosity, be open, and get grounded.
When I got the email that I was laid off, I felt like I was taking a final exam that tested my ability to stay present in my body. As I read the email, I would tell myself:
Nothing about this current moment is or has to be different just because I got this email.
I still have to put on my clothes for the day. I still have to get my kids ready for school. I still need to eat breakfast.
There wasn’t much I could do in that immediate moment about the layoff, so I focused on what I could do.
Excitement?
Close on the heels of staying grounded, another reaction I had was actually tempered excitement.
Back when I had that work experience I referenced earlier, I went through a dark period of reflection where I took stock of my life and where I wanted to go with my life and career. I considered cutting ties with my company at that time to pursue a new path. In the end, I had decided to stay because, well, hello, steady job.
So when I found out I was laid off, I wondered:
Maybe this is the universe telling me - Alyssa, go for your dream. Go for your passion. Try something different and crazy that you didn’t think you could go for before.
At the least, what this was telling me was not to jump immediately into finding a new job. I started to look forward to taking some time to regroup and intentionally think about what next steps I wanted to take.
Sadness
But my reactions weren’t all calm and optimistic.
After dropping my kids off at daycare and preschool and getting settled in at home, I opened up my laptop and started sending messages to colleagues to let them know I had been impacted and to share my gratitude and appreciation for them.
With every word, my chest started to tighten, and a sad, disappointed, overwhelming feeling of loss traveled up my neck and spilled out my eyes.
As I connected with my colleagues, I felt the stark reality that I was no longer going to see the coworkers I loved working with every day. I felt an ache that that part of my life was over with the snap of an email. There’s a reason why graduating students take months to say good-bye to each other before the final ceremony, and even then they still cry when the time of separation comes.
We take for granted the joy that comes from spending every day with people we love to spend time with. That time is special, and unless we are fortunate to work with those folks again, we will likely never spend the amount of time we did with them as we did in that job. In one fell swoop, with no choice given, that community got relegated to a bittersweet memory, and you had no time to prepare your heart and brain for the change.
Self-doubt
And then finally, the question of Was I good enough? popped its head up throughout the day. It’s a question that felt directly tied to my heart and stomach. I felt sick and crumpled over as I pictured my colleagues and senior leaders shaking their heads at me and pointing a condemning finger, the finger that says you were not worthy. You are a failure.
The brain feels like it’s splitting in two when these self-critical thoughts surface. There is the complete and utter feeling that it’s right, the depression that comes because I hate that it could be right and I don’t want it to be right. And then there’s the counter voice, the voice that truly represents me and who I want to be, that says, c’mon Alyssa, you KNOW this isn’t right! You were an amazing contributor and manager and anyone you talk to would have said so. You did everything you were supposed to do, and you should be proud of that.
I have to be intentional to notice when this self-critical voice surfaces, then to give myself compassion, and then to shift my attention back into the moment. A moment where I am not staring at these specters of perceived judgmental colleagues and instead at my laptop of gratitude emails or the sandwich I am making for lunch.
Echoing what I said at the start of this post, I’ll close by saying this - if you are or have been in a situation where your company went through a layoff, and the experience still feels sharp, and your emotions and reality still feel out of place, give yourself space to find your center again, to pave a path toward the self you want to be.
Experiences where we feel broken down hide within them a tiny light that points the way to a different you. Sometimes broken down really means something has broken open. When you’re ready, embrace the opportunity to remake your world into what you want it to be, to create new experiences you may not have been able to have in your old work life. Hopefully this experience is one of those once-in-a-lifetime ones, so how can you use it to do something you never would have imagined you could have done before?
And no matter what, keep telling yourself - you will be okay. You will find your way.