Much Ado About Getting Laid Off

What follows is my personal narrative about recently getting laid off. I found humor in the day and hope you do also.

November 11th started like any normal day, my wife and I worked to get the kids out the door to kindergarten and daycare followed by getting myself ready for work. Upon arrival at the office, I walked into the building with one of my co-workers discussing the All Hands meeting that was abruptly sent out by our VP the day before. I speculated that it was just an effort to communicate about the recently announced Voluntary Separation and Voluntary Time Off programs.

As I was going through my schedule for the day, I checked the All Hands appt in Outlook to verify the location (I hate being late). I noticed that there wasn’t a dial in number for the All Hands, I thought it a little unusual for a global organization but didn’t pay any attention to it.

Just before the scheduled start, another co-worker came by asking if I was ready to head upstairs.
“Upstairs?” I replied, “My invite says the meeting is in a first floor conference room.”
“Odd” was his response.

Thinking nothing of it, I tagged along to the meeting with a few other friends who’s invites had the same room listed. When we got to the room it was full of 30-40 people I recognized, the usual mix of managers and individual contributors. Having a penchant for sticking my foot in my mouth I decided to break the tension in the room by cracking jokes. Since everyone had had layoffs on their minds for the last week, you can guess what direction my attempts at levity took.

“If gas starts coming out of the vents, ya’ll better get out of my way cause I’m making a break for it”
That got a few laughs, time for round two.

“It’s going to be like an old James Bond movie, our VP is going to come on the screen, push a few buttons, and a couple chairs are going to disappear with their occupants”
A few more laughs around the room.

A few minutes later, the VP stood up and began her presentation. She was covering the various cost reduction measures that the company was taking, which I thought validated my earlier speculation on the subject of the meeting. My attention lapsed and I began looking around the room. I didn’t notice anything unusual in the faces of my peers, but I did see someone I didn’t recognize in the corner. For some reason, possibly because of her dress or her manner, I pegged her as an HR rep. “Uh-oh, this isn’t going to be good” I thought. In my mind it was at this point that our VP dropped the hammer and made it clear that we were going to be laid off at the end of January, but I’m sure it was just that I started paying attention again at this point.

The implications left me numb for a few minutes as I processed it. She just laid off 30 people at once. She just laid me off. Holy shit.

The VP continued her presentation, giving us a high level overview of the separation package that we were being offered. She ended the meeting with “Please wait for your individual managers to sit down with you this morning to cover the details of the separation, then take the rest of the day off to digest this.”

Afterward, we found out that the people in the OTHER conference room were given a similar presentation but without the blunt force trauma to their personal economics. While we were waiting to meet with our managers you could tell who was previously in which conference room just by the look on their face. I think most of us were surprised and in shock. A few were visibly upset. Personally I fell into the surprised category.

A few days removed, things are definitely brighter. Honestly, the package is pretty nice although not as good as actually having a job that was going to last beyond the next two and a half months; but if you’re going to get laid off it’s not a bad way to go. That being said, I’m already looking for the next position and am excited about the opportunities ahead.

Have you experienced a lay off before? Would love to hear your stories from either side of the table in the comments section.