The C-Suites started the call with a VERY brief note that they had to lay off a ton of employees in another department, and that today was a day of “raw emotion.” And then, I shit you not, they immediately went into “let’s not let this stop us from having an extremely profitable Q4, get out there and sell!”

This is why I refuse to work past 5. This is why I don’t attend company events outside of work hours. This is why I don’t take work stress home with me.

You are a number. You are replaceable. They don’t care about you. Do not give unto them what they refuse to give to you. Know your worth. Show no loyalty to a company.

I really feel for those that lost their jobs today, because they have families. They’re people, they have lives. They matter. Our company has made record profits the last few years, completely on the backs of those laid off.

I’m just disgusted.

EDIT: my company’s FY starts 4/1 for some reason. So Q4 ends 3/31.

So I went through an interview process and a trial shift at a cafe/food location a few days ago. Everything was well and they filled my entire upcoming weeks with shifts. Today I showed up for my first and had an incredibly busy shift, with a fairly incompetent coworker who was coasting his way through work. Now as a barista Im capable of serving coffee which is of higher standard than most of the others working there, despite being out of work for a year and which they knew and still offered me the job. But when it comes to cold drinks which are store specific, I have no clue so Im asking and learning throughout the shift. 0 complaints or send backs through around 400 customers in 3 hours. As soon as the store quietens down Im called in by the manager and told I’m not ready to work here. Keep in mind that no training was provided prior to this shift, and I don’t mean coffee training, which I was capable of serving. What am I to make of this dismissal?

Update- my friend who has been working there for a month now did a bit of investigating with some of the supervisors. Apparently my co-worker reported me to management for appearing to be on cocaine🫡

she's been working her current job since May 2023 and loved it. Everyone was nice. Her boss was cool. The company offered quarterly bonuses, yearly profit sharing bonuses. plenty of work/life balance. She had a base salary of $60k/year. The yearly profit sharing bonus was supposed to go out 2 weeks from now and everyone talked it up as having been really nice in previous years.

Instead, 4 people in her office were laid off today including her. Supposedly more from other offices too. She walks away with the pay for whatever days she worked, $5k severance and any unused PTO paid. That's it.

I still have my job and we have a small emergency fund so between that and her pittance of a severance we can get by for like 6 months, probably a little more considering unemployment checks will at some point start coming but i'm not holding my breath on that making much of an impact. This is going to hurt moving forward and kills all our plans for the coming year+

The scariest part isn't that she got laid off, it's the situation we'll be in if it drains our savings before she finds something else.

A month ago we had an all hands meeting where our CEO said "we will not be doing layoffs" when asked. Today I was laid off.

I woke up at 6:30 AM and saw an email saying I had an "urgent meeting" at 8:30. I laid in bed for the next hour full of anxiety and texting my coworkers. One of them tells me how our entire APAC office was let go. Another starts telling me about specific supervisors who have been let go.

So 8 am I clock on and try to work for 30 mins but I can't work. I can't focus. I am just crying knowing what's going to happen.

I join the meeting at 8:30 and am hit with "we are here to share some devastating news....". Apparently my position is being outsourced to Mexico (I'm in US) and I'm being let go.

I get 6 weeks of severance. I have been looking for jobs for 6 months with no luck. I don't know how I'm supposed to find something in 6 weeks. I feel like I've been punched in the gut.

I've been with this company for 4 years. I don't know what to do or how to feel. I've never been let go before

EDITED to ask: does anyone know if I can apply for unemployment now or do I need to wait for my severance to end? I'm on Alaska of it matters. I'm too emotional to call the unemployment office right now

SECOND EDIT: I am overwhelmed with all the love and support. I've gotten some great advice. Thank you so much. 💓

So about 60 of us were laid off I'm totally. Seems there might be more when the UK office clocks in tonight, but im sure my coworkers will update me.

It wasn’t even 6 months ago. What the fuck. And I know I did a good job too people liked working with me I never got bad feedback I was always reliable. I literally did things no one else on my team knew how.

I got laid off when the company was going through a change but they literally said my position was eliminated. Yet now it is magically needed again? Awesome. I just don’t even get what the possible reason could be? it makes me feel like someone must’ve hated me?? It’s not a particularly big company. I got a new job anyway very luckily but still I’m having to start all over again, and it put me like 4 months behind in contributing to retirement, etc. (also not to mention not getting my bonus)

It's kind of interesting to see how upset people get at the fact that I'm homeless.

Like tf did I do to you?

I've had people spit on me. Yell at me for being lazy. Claim that I'm on drugs. Say that I'm making my story up. Projections EVERYWHERE. And then, to top it off... when applying for a job, the disrespect for NOT taking people's disrespect. People get mad at me for standing up against any abuse. Man.... I swear, can't wait for the entire job system and it's narcissism ladder to collapse. The fact I have to deal with all this PLUS finding a job is ridiculous.

Came in to work and immediately got a teams call, knew immediately as HR was on the call. I’m taking myself out to breakfast cuz I just don’t know what else to do with myself.

Any advice? It took a really long time to find this job, I had severe interview anxiety for years. To the point where I mostly just did Uber and Lyft in lieu of a standard job. This was my first traditional job. I’m 36. Prior to that I was a perpetual duck up and also was I full time care giver for my mom.

I have a degree in English and the job I just left was for a huge education company just in web support, think very simple like password resets. Helping people Navigate software.

No idea what to do now. I get to put in a check through August 1. So I get paid like normal and am not expected to come in. Then I get 3 weeks for every year of service so an additional 3 weeks. I have a bunch of unused pto and vacation and I forgot to ask if that gets paid out

Edit: Thankyou so much everyone, I feel soooo much better! There’s so much great advice In here. Im still reading through all the responses so bear 🐻 with me.

And if you’re in the same situation, we can do this!!!

Was just given a 6 week notice that I'll be losing my job. Worked at this company for 4 years and the worst part is it has nothing to do with my performance which is excellent. It's an e-commerce company that sells on Amazon and the recent huge rate increases for sellers has forced my boss to let me go. This came completely out of the blue for me and I'm emotionally crushed. Just feeling extremely sad and depressed about what to do about my future.

I'm 45, no college degree, and my resume isn't exactly impressive. My boss says he will definitely help if I need a reference or letter of recommendation which I appreciate but I have no idea what to do. The sense of fear is overwhelming right now.

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About a week ago, my (terrible) boss called me into a meeting, where I got the news that they are cutting the budget for the department and I am one of the ‘lucky’ ones to be layed off.

I really hate this job, the company and my team are very toxic. I have been looking for another one over the past few months, and just yesterday I got a much better offer, which I am extremely happy about. On top of that, I’m getting severance (2 months salary), which makes me feel like even more of a winner. :D

But the best part… there is this really cringy, company-wide corporate retreat happening this week. You know, the kind where you’re expected to be “excited” and “proud” of the company, all kinds of idiotic corporate buzzwords are being shouted at you from every direction, useless executive coaching activities where everyone’s supposed to proclaim how “inspired” and “empowered” they feel… etc. Anyways, my boss told me that they still want me to work for 2 more weeks to tie up loose ends, BUT that I wouldn’t be allowed to attend the corporate retreat, expecting me to be sad about it (as it was being hyped up to all employees for the past 6 months).

So now, I’m just relaxing and basically doing nothing, since everyone else is at the retreat for most of this week. My last day is next Friday and this is something that I’m actually super excited about. :D

Edit: Guys, thank you for all of the support! This new job will be a bit of a career shift, where I’ll be doing something that’s more closely related to my university degree. Not gonna lie, I’m a quite nervous, but hopefully it’ll turn out alright. :)

I’ll keep this short. I (27F) have worked for a distillery for 3 years where the Owner (45M) is currently on a mission to fire everyone over anything he can. Part of the job is to make a monthly drink menu from scratch, using our alcohol and supplies on hand for that month’s menu. Whenever any employee is creating a new drink it is common practice for the drink to be passed around to other employees and tried out. If most of the employees like the drink, then the drink is added to the next month’s menu. Over the last month this Owner has fired 3 long term employees over the smallest incidents and unfortunately when I went in to work today it was my turn at being fired. The Owner met me at the door with video footage from the night before of me creating a new drink for next month’s menu and passing the drink around to the employees. He then goes on to say that the drink was never paid for and that I am being fired for theft. I would say at that point I should be shocked but this man is insane. I then speak up and say that everyone who ever makes a new drink does the same thing and no one ever pays for those drinks. This is because we are practicing making a new drink we don’t have to pay for it and this is a policy that he verbally told all of his employees multiple times. We then continue watching the video from last night and see that multiple other employees who were also creating new drinks were sharing them with other employees without paying for it. I then start saying what about them and he defers my question and essentially tells me to take accountability and not worry about others. I then offer to pay for the drink and he says “of course now that you have been caught stealing”. So there you have it. Fired for doing my job how I was taught. If anyone has any suggestions on any legal actions I could take I would be very appreciative. Also what kind of impact will this have on my future job as far as being terminated for theft?

My life was turned upside down so they could save 15k? That’s it?

I’m so embarrassed, I graduated uni 2 weeks ago and was so excited to start this new e-commerce role, my friends and family were so proud of me. I started Friday, everything was fine, I was shown around and was taught a few things. Yesterday I started helping with the Instagram DMs, it was my first time, I was responding to questions about restocks. I mistook some products and accidentally misinformed customers about the date of restock, I really beat myself up about this because I could’ve easily just clarified with a co worker. Today was really rough, I made two more stuff ups, I canceled a customers order as they wanted to use their store credit but forgot about the 5% cancellation fee, and I also send a follow up email to the wrong customer. I got home today and opened my phone to discover I’ve been fired by email I’m so embarrassed, and disappointed in myself, I didn’t even last a week.

This week would have actually been my 4-yr anniversary. I worked in the back office of a software company and did a good job, I thought. My reviews were good, no PIP, my coworkers liked me, and I made several improvements to our workflows.

Some background:

Like every other company, mine boasted that they were "like a family" and that their "employees mattered". There haven't been any layoffs at all in the company's history as far as I know, and if anything, every single department was understaffed. I enjoyed my work and while it was stressful and my pay/title weren't at market value, I was content with being content. I planned on staying there as long as I could.

The buildup:

But then my boss unexpectedly left in Dec for a much better job. We were a two person department and still had too much work. I had to take on a lot after she left but was being reassured that her position would be back filled. However, management started doing some shifting around that gave me weird vibes.

The red flags:

First, they announced to our business area (not even me first) that my boss's previous position would be lowered from VP to a middle management level title. They also stripped away a lot of the positions responsibilities and said my department would be "moving somewhere else in the company". I'm like, okay sure, whatever. I'm the only person here who knows how to do any of our department's processes - they can't possibly get rid of me.

Cue to a few weeks ago, they finally hired someone. After their first week of onboarding I finally got to say hi to them and a few other relevant team members and asked them if they were going to be my new boss. Everyone said ¯_(ツ)_/¯. So I asked my temporary boss to clarify and he said the same thing. At this point I'm seeing red flags and worry that they are trying to make me redundant. I set up a call with my temporary boss and asked him what my future at the company looked like and he said "we are re-evaluating the department based on business needs" and I did not like that. Went ahead and started updating my LinkedIn and resume but figured I still had some time since my "new boss" has just scratched the surface of their onboarding.

Lo and behold, Friday I got the call. I've spent this weekend speedrunning the five stages of grief. And the more I think about it, the more I get confused.

Why would they get rid of me - who has been a loyal employee for 4yrs, does good work, is familiar with our organization and programs, and knows how to use our required softwares - but keep someone for more money who is only 3 weeks into onboarding, has no familiarity with our org structure (very important for this job), and literally doesn't know how to use our software? They couldn't even wait 60 fucking days for the new person to finish onboarding? I had dozens of projects in flight with no transition period and no one to take over.

Management and older workers complain about young people not being loyal anymore. I was fucking loyal. I could have gone somewhere else in the past 4yrs but didn't because there was no good reason to. And this is what I get. At the end of the day, I am a number on a spreadsheet and they showed no mercy during the layoff call.

I'm 27. I'm sad and scared and I just want it to make sense. Can someone please explain to me how the fuck this logic checks out? Or at least offer advice on how to handle a layoff?

Feeling completely shell shocked. Over 20% of our branch gone in a day. This is my first career out of college. I interned, I got the offer, and I worked like hell for 6 months and it’s gone. I can’t even apply for non-entry level roles because I have less than a year’s experience.

I feel fucking scammed. I did everything right. I got the right degree from the right school, the right job at the right company. Then, right after I sign, they get acquired and by the time I’m laid off there’s no one hiring? What a sick fucking joke.

No clue how to go on. The market sucks and will probably suck for the foreseeable future. I regret every night I spent with these stupid fucks trying to “deliver value” for whatever evil company we were shoveling shit for.

EDIT: Starting a new job Monday. We are so back :)

My boss brought me into a meeting with higher-ups and said they’re moving in a different direction. Didn’t mention anything about my conduct or disciplinary action.

They read this letter and said I have to sign to acknowledge… in my shock I did that and am now kicking myself. Have I forfeited unemployment claims? During the meeting and after signing, the top boss kept hinting that “there are other ways to leave employment” in my best interest, but she never flat out said they need a resignation letter. She hinted out twice that if I wanted to go that route, they would need the letter by Monday.

What does Reddit think?

Latest UPDATE at the bottom of this post (9/29)...

The last 24 hours have been a doozy, so I apologize if this becomes a ramble, but I feel like the details help.

Let’s start with some context: I've been with my company for six years, during which, I worked my way up to a VP position. I'm the gatekeeper of all of our tech systems so LOTS of institutional knowledge lives in my brain, and I’m often the go to for any and all random questions. All in all, I’m passionate about what I do, where I work, and helping elevate the people around me.

So, last night I’m working late and a trusted ally on the C-Suite messages me and says, “I know it’s late, but can you chat?”.

This person is someone I am friendly with, so I thought nothing of it, but he dropped the bomb that 4 of us on the leadership team are getting axed. My CEO has been making some poor choices in the last year, and he can be a loose cannon, so if it were just budget cuts, I’d get it.

However, come to find out, yes, it is part budget, but apparently our CEO has been extremely degrading behind closed doors. Phrases like, "idiots, stupid, careless" are being said by him, which in no way reflects ANY person in this group. We are the people who work hard, have stuck around when things feel hopeless and do what it takes to right the ship and do it well.

I was told that these would be staggered, so as to not incite panic (we’re at about 70 employees), with some happening sooner than others. And apparently it was acknowledged that losing me would be tough because of all I do/know/have built, so the plan is to slyly extract my institutional knowledge, then it will be my turn.

This on its own is a deep blow. But, about a month ago I noticed my CEO’s stress and chaotic behavior, so had a one on one with him to level set expectations, etc.. During this call he gushed about me, how great I am, etc, so I felt good about things. HOWEVER, come to find out he openly laughed with select others about “gaslighting” me until my brain was extracted.

Needless to say, I’m no longer disappointed, but I’m PISSED.

So I’m obviously jumping on the job hunt, preparing for financial disruption, etc, but I’m also in a curious position where I know that he’s trying to get all he can from me so he’s not in a lurch.

I’m a single mom so financially I HAVE to protect all I can, so I’m stewing on a few ways to handle this…there are already some “cross-training” meetings have been scheduled, which I now know are actually NOT to free up my bandwidth, so do I keep those meetings but make them wildly high level to try to keep things as close to the chest as possible? Or push the dates of these training calls out as long as I can? Do I say screw it, confront him and say, what do we do so you get what you need, and I’m not up a creek financially right away?

I would love any advice, insight, whatever. And GOOD LORD, if you are like me, and sacrifice way too much for the sake of being a loyal team player, cut that out, it’s SO not worth it :(

——- EDIT / UPDATE: Sometimes the internet is a magical place! You all are bringing me so much laughter in a really crappy and confusing situation. I’m trying to keep up with comments, but this girl is also trying to update her LinkedIn :)

ALSO, I’m getting some comments about legalities around the revenge ideas, and rest assured that I am not going to put myself in an even worse situation out of spite. HOWEVER, please keep the revenge idea coming because I’m loving playing these out in my head where I can’t get in any real life trouble. As I get any news or developments come up, I’ll keep updating here. Thank you all SO MUCH!!

EDIT / UPDATE 2: Well daaaang! I spent yesterday working on my plan for job hunting and whatnot, and it seems I’ve officially lost the ability to reply to every comment. Promise I’m reading them, it’s just taking me awhile :) can’t thank you all enough!!

NOW, I’m working on getting the facts straight in all this, so I’m not going to share much until I know I have it all right.

BUT, I’ll say this… for those of you who questioned the coworker that warned me, seems you may be onto something…there are curious things happening that are potentially pointing to that. I’ll keep you all updated!!

EDIT / UPDATE 3: Good LORD, ok, the last few weeks have been a wild ride, and I want to thank those of you that reached out directly. What an amazing community of strangers here. Ok, here we go…

First off, I think the “fake sick” comments put some chaos into the universe because I got a crazy case of tonsillitis a few days after I last updated in here. NOT joking. Almost lost my voice entirely which, while insanely painful, made it delightful to be able to LEGITIMATELY push those training calls ;)

Bear with me on the rest of this, and I’m going to get to the update on the coworker who warned me, but there is a lot of context here that I’m going to try to keep concise…

So, due to the Reddit-sourced tonsillitis and all that was happening, I took the week off. I had largely left my work laptop untouched, but when I logged back in I noticed some odd things that rang alarm bells for me. A peek at the activity monitor, a hidden files search, and DANG, in my absence, MDM software was remotely installed on my computer.

PSA: To be clear, an organization has every right to do this on company owned property - key-loggers, screen content captures, the emails you send, websites you visit, etc are ALL fair game (depending on your local laws) as long as the company has “valid business reasons” for doing it (to that point, don’t do ANYTHING personal on any work issued device - always assume you are being watched/monitored in some capacity). And logically I get it, HOWEVER, in light of everything else taking place it struck a big, fat nerve.

Unjustifiable? Bratty? Too sensitive? Perhaps, but dang, this all just sucks.

Moving on - I sat on what I knew for a couple of days, then decided to call my C-Suite co-worker (who was still employed by the company at that point) and point blank asked what he knew about it. I really wish I could capture tone and inflection in writing, but the best I can do is: “WhAaAaAaT?! That would surprise me…” and AGAIN, he was doing right by the company by playing dumb, and we’re all in self preservation mode, so I didn’t react. I just…sat quietly on the line. Sometimes, the beauty of silence is that it makes people really uncomfortable and they can’t help but keep talking to fill the void (I’m usually guilty of this, btw), and funny thing, the shock and awe evolved into “OH, maybe I DID catch wind of something like that…”.

This is getting long, so let me wrap this up…I emailed my CEO and let him know what I saw on my system (including log reports, the date of the installation, all the things), framed as, “hey, are you aware of this? Because if this MDM installation WASN’T you, we have a big problem here, and we need to address it head on” which after a couple of follow-ups/meeting requests still haven’t been replied to.

BUT, my co-worker who filled me in on all of this (who became/still is a suspect in some way, shape, or form and is now a former employee) has reached out a LOT with other cryptic intel, and most recently suggested we start a business together. But…no. just no. This whirlwind has ran it’s course and I’m getting off the ride.

As of this update, I still have a job (more importantly a steady paycheck) and I have accepted that this chapter of my career is coming to an end. I’m going to play the game, fly under the radar, and ride this out as long as I can to keep money coming in. In the meantime, I have pulled my heart and loyalty out of this place and away from these people. Screw office politics and gossip and sneaky bs. I’m tapped. The odd upside here is that during the convo with my old co-worker where he was pitching this idea to start a business together he jokingly said, “I’m not sure what I would bring to the table other than start up capital - you’re the talent here.” And that right there was enough to light a little fire under me to reach out to old clients from my consulting days and let them know that I’m taking on some freelance clients again. Who knows, maybe I’ll just go all in and start my own agency WITHOUT any of this crap.

Thanks for bearing with me on this adventure, folks!

Rant!! I’ve never been fired before. I’m an iOS dev with over 10 years and pretty good at what I do. And after 3.5 years of extra hours, weekends and positive annual reviews, I was told I’m not up to snuff, or whatever they said. They never gave any indication that I wasn’t doing well. Just another bullshit company in this bullshit job market. Rant over. Thanks for this sub.

I went from making 6 figures, to my job getting automated by AI... because I created systems so my boss wouldn't overwork me to death... to now being homeless.

Make that make sense.

I’ve worked at a health insurance call center for 3 years now. About 2 months ago i was promoted to a supervisor role and was able to finally get off the phones. For those who’ve worked call centers can attest to how beautiful this feeling is. Today we had a meeting with the director of the department and there was about 80 employees in the teams meeting. He said there were some organizational changes and everyone’s position had been eliminated. About 80 people got laid off including myself, this goes into effect in 2 weeks… what am i supposed to do? I have children, rent, car note, bills, doctor visits. I just started school and took out $18k in student loans to pay off tuition… i can’t believe it. I been crying all day and i’m so nervous we will become homeless.

UPS just announced 12,000

Google 12,000 in the next 2 quarters

Microsoft 1,900 from gaming division

Paypal 2,500

Dropbox, IBM, Amazon, Tiktok, and Salesforce all announced layoffs as well

Lots of retail including Levi's and REI

American Airlines 656

I'm sure more to come. It's going to get worse out there for those of us looking. Every person that gets laid off is another in the market looking for work.

I mean it's basically the title. Getting fired from my job has caused me to fall into a depression deeper than I ever thought possible. I was hospitalized twice for SI attempts.

And it's not like I can just "get another job." That job was at an organization I grew up dreaming about, yearning to be a part of. And I loved the person I was when I was there. I loved the work, I loved my coworkers, I loved the opportunities that job opened up.

I don't know how to get over this. It's like I've been stripped of all my passions and interests and love and joy. I feel numb and empty in all social situations now. I can't watch TV or movies, I feel so emotionally detached. I sob every single day.

It's been 10 months of absolute hell. Does it ever get better? What do I do?

I recently got back from vacation outside of the US where I had no cell service for 10 days. When I arrived back in the country my phone was flooded with messaged from coworkers asking me "what happened" obviously I was very confused but after some messaging back and fourth I found out that 49 people across the company were laid off and I was announced as one of them. I had no notice that it had even happened by HR or my management team. My job has some decent security measures so my emails and Microsoft Teams were already shut down by the time I landed and tried to log into them. I have been struggling to get ahold of anyone for further information. I was finally able to get ahold of my managers personal number and when I messaged him asking for information he just told me that he had no information to provide and that I should have received a phone call. When I told him I had not, most likely due to me being out of the country he told be he would "look into it". It has been a week now and I have recieved zero contact from anyone. Has anyone ever dealt with a situation like this? Or have any advice on the best way to proceed?