After Layoffs
It’s been two years since the big layoffs started in tech. Based on casual scrolls it looks like they continue, expanded across sectors.
Being laid off can be overwhelming. Unsolicited and well-intended advice abounds, your suddenly open schedule, grappling with the WHYs of it all.
Lots has been written about navigating this space. This is a note for the folks who were especially attached to their work. The ones who identified with it. Those that found belonging in the workplace, who made work their world. We aren’t supposed to do these things and are often shamed if we do, see the whole workplace-as-family thing. People in this category are often the ones most impacted by layoffs, for whom most advice is not written.
I was laid off from a job I loved last year. I wasn’t open about the mechanics of it on LinkedIn as my husband and I were in an adoption process that we feared would fall through under the circumstances. The short follow-on answer is that in recognising this fear we realized the circumstances weren’t right for us.
While layoff decisions are impersonal they have profoundly personal impacts. Take how they are done: an early morning email and immediate cut-off from everything you worked on, your team. For some this is traumatic. Something I’ve learned recently is that most complex trauma is relation-ship based. If your relationship with your work features large in your life, this insta-separation can be tough. Trauma, caused by a relationship or an event, is an actual injury to your brain. Give the circumstances the same care as you would a broken limb.
Based on this, here are the three things I’d do differently in a lay-off situation:
Set clear boundaries: I did emotional labor about six months after the fact. Tell folks that you need space for a certain amount of time, that you’ll be back but can’t be there right now. Turn your notifications off, especially if you had a job where responsiveness was valued. I’d trained people that I’d be there for them, it delayed my own recovery. #eldestgirl4life.
GTFO: We semi did this, escaping the Texas inferno for breezy New Mexico. It was great and good for the circumstances, I literally had a broken foot and as a new TD1 wasn’t all that comfortable with travel yet. If I had it to do again I’d go abroad for an absolute change of scenery, even more awe, and be unfindable.
Resist all pressure to act: Ignore all the career support being foisted upon you. The time to find a new job was probably six months before the layoffs, now the market will be saturated. Now that layoffs have happened I wouldn’t bother with the job hunt for at least three months. I know this can be hard financially. It is also a lot to pull up stakes and move to a cheaper location under these circumstances. People do it, make it look easy, and we all know it’s not. There is probably an argument to be made about ripping the rest of the bandaid off. You have to make the best, most imperfect decisions you can for yourself. For me I bowed to the pressure to job hunt and it wasn’t right for me.
After a few months the thing that finally dawned on me was that old adage that you get what you need, not what you want. It took me a while to embrace that, after several intense jobs, what I needed was a break. That after muddling through with a type-1 diabetes diagnosis I needed more than crisis-care for my body. I needed to re-learn how to sleep.
The post-layoff period is a great time to invest in yourself. Counterintuitive, yes. Your ability to learn and institutionalize learning is a great indicator that your Window of Tolerance is expanding. Google it. Understand what you need from the circumstances. It might be a break, it might be a career change, it might be going independent. No matter what, it is tough. Nothing lasts forever.