On being affected by layoffs

Today is a good day. For me, writing is a great way to channel my unorganized thoughts into a pipeline through my fingertips, helping me to organize ideas as a tangible output.

I didn’t think I would write something about layoffs and my own experience. After writing a bunch of shapeless thoughts in my notebook, I decided I should publish this. If this resonates with someone else being affected by layoffs, great!

Receiving the layoff news

I was making some coffee, getting ready to start my day when my coworker sent a Slack message. “Are you okay?”. My first thought was “What happened? Oh no, what did I do?” And then boom. Slack gets disconnected. What’s going on? Is my ISP having issues? Checked my email and there it was. I was being laid off.

A rush of emotions, feelings and doubts happened in a split of a second. I can’t put a name on how I felt that morning, so I guess I’ll call it confusion.

Overwhelmed and confused

Receiving news of layoffs was, at least, unsettling. Personally, I didn’t feel angry. I wasn’t feeling scared either. Only a week after I felt the emotional weight of the news. The following Monday was when I happened to realize that my routine was changed and not because I decided it. Working remotely you spend a big amount of time in front of a screen, interacting with your team, Zoom meetings, etc. All of a sudden, the structure around your life is gone. Projects and ideas I had on the backburner are now pointless. There’s a lot of headspace being continuously used with workplace stuff and that just doesn’t have a meaning.

What do you do with all of that?

Lack of closure

Life goes on and some hurdles just need time to overcome. Funny enough, overthinking how to put a closure to these things really hasn’t been helpful. Maybe because I’m wired to finish things. What do you do with all the projects and ideas you had in mind? You create bonds with people that interact with you everyday. For me this has been the most complicated part to process.

Sometimes letting go is the best we can do.

Financial stability

The tech industry has gone through layoffs for a while now. That has been a huge red flag and a latent sign that everyone is disposable in the corporate world. I trusted my gut and I prepared financially by bumping up my savings.

But I know this has been much harder for folks that need to provide for their kids and/or those who depend on some sort of work sponsorship provided by an employer. If you’re going through a health procedure, therapy or any procedure, that also adds up to your anxiety since you might be losing health benefits. Let’s also factor the possibility of being in debt and missing a monthly payment. Awful.

There’s always a good outcome

I believe that everything in life has pros and cons. Things can land in our lives on either side and it’s up to us to find the good outcome for a bad situation. For me, being laid off has brought a bunch of good things too:

• Couple of extra hours of sleep. Big perk.
• Allowing myself to have less structure around things and pushing myself to be more flexible.
• I just relocated to Portland, Oregon and it’s been great to have some time to explore my new neighborhood.
• Extra time to work on my side projects. Spent a few days learning Vue.js. Thinking of trying Svelte soon!
• Got a membership for the Multnomah County Library and I can rent books from my phone with Libby.
• Got to spend more time with my partner and value her companionship and support in my life.
• Invested some time doing photo walks around Downtown Portland.

It is what it is

It’s been a great opportunity to get to know myself and identify the things I really care for. I’m grateful for the experience and learnings acquired over the last month.

I’ll continue to let things come and go, observe the flow of time without pressure until I’m ready for whatever comes up next.

Thanks for stopping by!