Hi folks. Today we are going to talk about another experience of mine. Being laid off in the US. How does that sound? Have you ever been laid off from a company in the US? Please do not forget to share your experience with me in the email. I will avoid using the name of the company for free advertising. So, let’s go.
I have been in the US for about 6 years now, I have been working for the company for about 3 years. I first joined the company as a contractor. After 4 months, I got converted from contractor to full time employee. I could have chosen to continue as a contractor, but the FTE offer came with some “benefits”, that along the way I did not see that as benefits at all. Please notice that this is my opinion.
The American system is kind of tricky and if you do not understand it, you will think you earn some benefits, but in fact, it is not the case. The main rule you should keep in mind when leaving in the US is that nothing is free in this country. Even though you have the feeling that something is given to you for free, be careful, there is a catch somewhere. Given that assumption, then let move on.
Simply spoken, [2] being laid off refers to a temporary or permanent termination of work contract by an employee because of reasons relating to the business. [3] A layoff is usually and involuntary separation between an employer and an employee that occurs through no fault of the employee. Get me right guys, it happens through no fault of the employee.
According to Wikipedia, [1] A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing an organization.
Sometimes companies can encounter financial crisis, or organizational, restructuring difficulties. To overcome these, managers sometimes make the decision to lay off in order to save money and have a better global view of the future. The laying off often affects the employees but also the companies themselves. So, we should not always see the lay-off as having negative impacts only from the point of view of employee, because employers can also suffer from it.
My company was offering a benefit of paternity leave if you had a child that was born. The paternity leave was for three months that is equivalent of 12 weeks paid 100%. I came back from my paternity leave around mid of January 2020. I spent about one month and the Covid break-through started.
The company was already suffering from the consequences of Covid-19 in Asia, because China and other Asian countries were impacted long time ago. In order to overcome the situation, the management of the company decided to take some measures to reduce the workforce. Since, I was not at work for a good period, there was information that I could not be aware of. You know in companies, during lunch time and break, colleagues often exchange information on rumors that are circulating.
When I got back from leave, I noticed several people quitting and I wasn't sure why. I wasn't worried because I just thought that they had found better opportunities elsewhere. Anyway, I'll spare you some details and get straight to the point. Two days before my layoff, the management of my company did an interview on regional TV, and they said that the Covid-19 is hitting the business hardly and that the business figures of the company are taking a huge hit and that the company will have to lay off 500 people on its HQ site.
That was very strong information. The next day the rumors started. People were very agitated. We could feel the fear in the air. Everyone was in panic, and I could notice people wondering who will be impacted. In another sense, the work also continued, the stand-up meetings, the design meetings were proceeding normally. You know those meetings for people in software industry. I went to lunch break with a new colleague who had just joined the team. We talked about it. Based on our conversation, we felt no reasons to be afraid because our team was rather motivated, and we were delivering all our work normally. You know in this kind of situation; nothing is normal until the plan is made real. After the break, around 3:00 pm, I noticed that some people were pasting notices to reserve certain meeting rooms. This way of doing things was not usual. I got up from my seat and try to walk around my floor. I noticed that about 80% of the meeting rooms were marked "reserved for meeting". I began to understand that the situation was becoming critical.
After work, I came home. We followed the evening newspaper. My wife followed the news and we talked about it. Neither my wife nor I were worried but since it was about 500 people, a side of our heart was said what if we were impacted.
The next day I went to work, and the day was going well. I noticed that the rooms that had the reserved words had back and forth movements. People were coming in and coming out from those rooms. I began to imagine that it was the people who were to be fired entering there.
At exactly 10:45 AM, I received a message from a manager. We had a meeting at 11:00 AM. Since I was working with the new hire guys on a project. After receiving the message, I told him we are having a meeting and was surprised at his response. He said to me: "You have a meeting. I do not have a meeting." After I was told that, I understood that it was a special meeting to which I was invited. And I also noticed that he was aware of something that I was not. I suddenly understood that something was not smelling good.
At 10:55 AM, I started to go to the meeting room where I was invited. The room was on the top floor of the building. The room was not easy to find. I was nervous. I was trying to understand what the purpose of that meeting was. Also, I had a kind of sense of the meeting, it was probably related to the layoff. When I opened the door of the meeting room, there were several people in the room, about 50 people. The meeting had already started. There was a lady who was explaining what was to happen. The atmosphere was sad, gloomy. Lots of people were nervous, not sure about their future. You could read that on their face. It looks like you're in a legal decision-making room. Everyone was sad. I noticed that there was also a lady from my team who was also called to the meeting.
At that time, I immediately knew that I was impacted by the layoff. There were a few managers who gave recommendations on what to do, who to contact, how should we get our royalties, directions to follow once we will be out of the building. At the end of the meeting, they gave us our layoff notice in an envelope with a lot of other necessary documents. They also told us that we had two hours to copy our data and hand over our computer and work badge. After leaving the meeting room, I called my wife and announced the news to her. She was at work and could not stand up. She was confused on the phone. She was totally devastated. Yes, with all the reasons, because she was pregnant.
I returned to my desk to collect my data and hand over my computer. I was unsettled, very devastated, I did not realize what was happening to me. I immediately bought a storage space on Google cloud to be able to store my data. I paid $19.99 for one-year storage on 100GB. When I finished, I still wanted to stay professional until the end. I kept calm and used the situation to remain highly professional. I wrote an email to say goodbye to my colleagues. When some colleagues got the email, some of the colleagues came across me to express their emotion about the situation that was happening to me. I kept strong around them and told them that it was a random situation and that they do not have to be sad.
I went to the IT Helpdesk, I handed over my laptop and then I went to the exit and handed over my badge and that was my last day to that company. It was 1:33PM, I did not know where to go. I went to a bus station and sat there for about 30 minutes, thinking of what was happening to me. I was totally devastated. I just had a new baby, and my wife was pregnant. I was thinking about my family. The bus finally came, and I went up. Then I took the train to go back home. When I reached my last station. I thought, it will be very good for me to buy a new computer as I handed over my work computer. So, I went to the mall and bought a new computer. That was one of the best decisions I made from that sad event. That was the beginning of a new adventure.
Being laid off is a situation that can happen to anyone as an employee. The best approach to take is to stay calm. Yes, that is true that when someone is laid off, that person feels like he is a total failure. Do not forget the fact that the layoff has nothing to do with your performance or anything related to you. The layoff is a way for the company to catch breath after a situation. The fact that you have been laid off will never been counted against you in a hiring process.
A second approach to handle a lay off is to put in place a plan on how you will tackle the situation. Some people prefer to take some days to process everything. Then, you must put in place a plan to find a new job as soon as possible to make sure that you do not become obsolete or that the layoff takes control of your personality.
Third, after you got laid off, you will receive a lot of messages of comfort. Amongst those messages, people are sending you some managers’ email addresses from other companies that are hiring. People are also willing to help you find a job as soon as possible. Please be gentle, be kind with them. Don’t be scared, just be yourself and take all the messages as welcome so that you can find you way. In that kind of situation, you need to keep in touch with people, and to be honest, you need other to help you. Any help that you can have to get on your feet as quickly as possible is welcome.
The fourth way of overcoming a lay off is to avoid staying alone. Keep in contact with people, talk about your layoff, because you do not know where your next job will come from. Sometimes people have opportunity, but they do not know how to share. So, if you talk about your situation, people can see an opportunity to hire you.
I’m sure that people who have been laid off in the past can have many lessons that they can share with others. I will take the following paragraphs to enumerate some that I learned from my layoff.
First, when you work in a company, take your time to have lunch with your colleagues. During lunch time, people share some good information that can be considered as rumors. But never forget this talk that says: “There is no smoke without fire.”. Everything that you hear during lunch time, take it seriously and you will never be surprised by an event in your company.
Secondly, if you work for a High-Tech company, whichever level you are in the company, never stop learning. Learn the evolution and the updates in your domain, learn the technology stacks you are using, read about new developments, when you hear about a new concept, please dig in to know more about it, in a nutshell, keep learning. The more you learn, the better you will be ready to get another job.
Thirdly, another lesson, I learned from being laid off, is that you must create some passive sources of income. Companies do not like the fact that employees share their time with the work and their own business. The reality is other. When you have done your work with your company, when you are home, you can work on your personal project to develop some other source of income. Today with the internet, you can create multiple sources of income as creating a YouTube channel, create an e-commerce business and so on. With those activities, there is no conflicts of interest with your company work.
I’ve shared some lessons that I think I are useful to learn. I’m pretty sure there are many lessons to learned from a layoff. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts by emailing at yimengael@gmail.com
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layoff
[2] https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/careers/jobs/laid-off/
[3] https://fairygodboss.com/articles/laid-off