Today I Survived My Third Round of Layoffs in Five Months
May the odds be ever in my favor.
Three Layoffs in Five Months
As I type this, I can see on LinkedIn my employer just had another round of layoffs today, this time impacting our Ads business.
This is our third layoff in less than five months.
In late November 2022, the first round came barreling directly at the team where I worked. So I took a flying leap into a new role, on what I thought was a less vulnerable team. Then the second round of layoffs came to my new org. Thankfully, I survived both.
Today’s third wave — again, thankfully — is not impacting my current org. But as an empath, and as a thinking human who knows this likely isn’t the end of it, it’s deeply dismaying to see so many talented colleagues losing their jobs.
I wrote a couple of LinkedIn posts back in January 2023 about the layoffs, and am sharing them below to capture my writing before it disappears into the ephemera of LinkedIn.
I wrote first post on the evening of the second round of layoffs, when I was unsure if my role would be cut, and the second post right after I learned my team had been spared.
I’m archiving them here in part because I like the writing itself. But more importantly, I’m preserving them as a moment in time — one that will hopefully pass. Perhaps in the future we’ll live in a professional world that feels more stable and grounded, where people feel like their jobs are anchored enough that they can make future plans without an asterisk *if I still have a job* looming around their hopes and dreams.
I’m Sharing These Here Because…
- I’m old enough to know career hasn’t always felt like living on a fault line.
- I’m young enough to still be dependent on a job as a pipeline to fuel the rest of my life (and right now that pipe feels compromised).
- I’m optimistic enough to hope that within my professional lifetime, we may all feel a sense of professional footing once again.
And with that, here are my posts.
My LinkedIn Posts About the Layoffs
Today is the proverbial calm before the storm at Amazon. Layoffs are tomorrow.
This has me pondering how many layoffs I’ve experienced during my career in tech. It’s a longer list than I’d like for it to be, and italics denotes when I was impacted.
2007 — Jobster
2008 — Amazon (contractor role)
2016 — Sears Home Services
2017 — Sears Home Services
2018 — Sears Home Services
2020 — Expedia
2022 — Amazon
I’m still holding my breath for tomorrow.
All this is to say — I’ve been there, I’ve done that, survived/not survived that. I loathe layoffs and wish they weren’t so prevalent in tech.
As an interview bar raiser, I know the huge hurdle it is to meet the bar at Amazon. It seems wasteful to let all that talent go.
I could write so much more about this, and also, there’s nothing new to say. We all know this feels as miserable as it does inevitable.
What I will say to my fellow Amazonians is:
* If you need to chat, please reach out.
* If you are impacted, I’m here to help with resume review and/or interview prep.
Blerg. That’s it, today is a day of just waiting and blerg.
(This post got nearly 90k page views, so it clearly resonated with many. I’m endlessly grateful I was spared then, as I was today. But my feelings of instability have only escalated. And it’s not without reason. Things have escalated times two since I wrote this, as today now marks the 9th round of layoffs I’ve endured since 2007. I’m now batting a 66.6% survival rate, and that seems inauspicious at best.)
Because many of you asked — my role was thankfully not impacted during yesterday’s layoffs. You all are so kind to check in. 💜
Today I’m mulling how angry I am that this is the way we live now; it’s a sad, slow, simmering anger after facing down what was my eighth tech layoff since 2007.
I’m contemplating how destabilizing this is as a society. I’m older than most here and thankfully have reserves, as well as the fortitude to know I’ve survived this before. But still, I’m deeply rattled, every time.
How can we as a culture be expected to do normal things like set up homes and families, or seek medical care, or pursue higher education for our kids, when all of those things in our society rely on job stability? How can anyone be surprised by the astronomical increase in mental health issues when we’re all basically characters in a career Hunger Games reaping every year or so?
I’m a bar raiser, which mean I volunteer my time to run interviews and ensure we’re hiring the best. I helped hire a shit-ton — the technical term — of people last year. It’s so hard to meet the bar and get an offer. Now a round of worker-bees got kicked out of the hive to “lower our cost to serve?” Was this the only option? Is it worth the destabilization it causes not only the economy but also our society, via those 18k households now without a financial pipeline?
I’m profoundly relieved today, but now that the immediate crisis has passed, I’m processing how damaging it all is. I’m reading posts from those who are pregnant, or need vital medical care, or are here on visas and face deportment, who desperately need to find new employers when every major tech company is dumping off by the thousands. It’s disheartening. Many say when one door closes, another opens — but I won’t. My layoffs were brutal. While I eventually rebounded, it was at a cost, both to my psyche and bank account. And I know I’m more privileged than many. Telling the newly let-go to see their situation as an opportunity — especially when jobs are scarce — is a special sort of cruel.
I saw Humans of New York just made a beautiful post, from a woman who’d worked 50 years as a legal assistant, stating how much she loved her work. She lamented that younger people were “quietly quitting” and what a shame it was to do the bare minimum and not experience the pride of a job well done. The post was sad, because she was right and also, so very wrong. If she were a legal assistant now, the odds of her surviving for even a tenth of her tenure seem small. Hers was just the kind of hard-working support role that gets tossed in the name of profitability; her earnestness wouldn’t be rewarded now.
My colleagues did not quietly quit. They took took pride in their company, worked hard, maybe had some fun or even made history. But they’re not staying 50 years. Most of them probably didn’t even make five.
So yes, my role is fine. May the odds be ever be in my favor.
*I work at #amazon but this is my own opinion.
