00:01 foreign a few weeks ago I got laid off
00:13 I signed this Severance agreement which
00:15 means I have to be careful what I say
00:17 since there are confidentiality and
00:18 non-disparagement clauses but everything
00:20 I'm going to tell you today is just the
00:22 factual truth sprinkled with some
00:25 so please don't sue me
00:29 today just like every single day for the
00:32 past few weeks I'm unemployed but in
00:34 order for me to explain exactly what
00:36 happened I need to take you to the
00:37 beginning this is a story about identity
00:43 in high school I took web dev and mobile
00:45 application programming and for the
00:47 first time in my life thought whoa this
00:49 stuff is cool then I took AP Computer
00:51 Science and realized this stuff is also
00:53 hard but mostly still cool so when I
00:56 matriculated at Rice University in 2016
00:58 I declared my major as computer science
01:00 and it never changed I interned at a big
01:02 oil and gas company called slumberger
01:04 then Microsoft and then a startup in San
01:06 Francisco called Gusto I did Tech
01:08 fellowships I had Tech friends and I was
01:10 in-house Tech consultant for my parents
01:12 being a software engineer was all I knew
01:14 and all I ever wanted so when I
01:16 graduated college I recruited hard and
01:18 joined quote a fintech startup with some
01:21 of the smartest people I'd ever met
01:24 it was covet so I was fully remote at my
01:27 parents home in Houston Texas
01:29 and remote I'd remained for my three
01:31 years of tenure I joined June 2020 and
01:34 left June 2023 and man did those three
01:37 years fly by when I joined we were
01:39 30-ish engineers which meant I got
01:41 thrown into the deep end and worked on
01:42 some insanely cool projects I worked
01:45 hard and got promoted in just over a
01:47 year my colleagues were my friends
01:49 worked brought me fulfillment and life
01:51 was really good and then the recession
01:54 hit the job Cuts in big Tech are piling
01:59 000 Tech workers which amounts to six
02:01 percent of its Workforce and like most
02:04 software businesses we had layoffs each
02:06 one we were told would be the last that
02:07 they cut deep enough but it was never
02:09 full we had three official rounds of
02:12 layoffs and then some unofficial ones to
02:14 hush hush and that last official round
02:17 of layoff the third one that's the one
02:19 that got me but it was so different than
02:21 the first two let me explain
02:25 the first and second layoffs are
02:27 identical the CEO would message in the
02:29 general slack Channel announcing the
02:30 decision if you were impacted you'd get
02:32 a calendar invite called both
02:34 restructuring conversation and if you
02:35 were safe you'd be invited to the town
02:37 hall later in the day and so I just lay
02:39 on the couch with my phone out
02:40 constantly refreshing slack email
02:42 calendar to see if I'd lost access to
02:45 Company accounts and anytime it glitched
02:47 or took an extra second to load I
02:48 thought it was over for me but each
02:50 round of layoff I survived it's so weird
02:52 to use the word survived
03:00 Choice some hit three four five years of
03:03 tenure and were ready to try something
03:04 different others wanted a career break
03:07 and some were starting families and
03:09 slowly little by little my co-workers
03:11 the OG's my mentors were no longer at
03:13 the company my direct manager switched
03:16 four times as more and more people left
03:18 there were reorgs and a general sense of
03:21 instability and morale well morale was
03:24 almost non-existent but could you blame
03:28 and then one Tuesday I get a message
03:30 from a friend at the company turns out I
03:32 missed a town hall that morning I just
03:33 lost track of time and they had
03:34 announced some news big news the people
03:37 off the team had rolled out a voluntary
03:39 resignation program or vrp which
03:41 essentially allowed you to leave the
03:43 company no hard feelings with Severance
03:46 but also let's be honest vrp wasn't
03:48 totally selfless the company had to cut
03:51 costs and they had a Target number in
03:52 mind so if enough people voluntarily
03:54 left great no reduction if not some
03:57 people would be volunt told to take the
03:59 program and if they didn't they'd get
04:01 laid off anyway in the coming weeks with
04:03 potentially less favorable Severance and
04:05 benefits this all happened on Tuesday
04:07 and the deadline to accept or reject the
04:09 program was Friday at noon PST the next
04:13 couple days are gonna be crazy so bear
04:15 with me and to make this easier we're
04:17 going to call my direct manager Peter
04:19 and my skip manager so my direct
04:20 managers manager Ian Ian sets up a
04:23 meeting with me on Wednesday morning
04:25 just to check in the Ops on and he asked
04:27 me a simple question do you want to stay
04:28 or do you want to go and I say I want to
04:30 stay let's do this when that meeting
04:32 ends I pick up the phone and call my
04:34 direct manager Peter I told him I want
04:35 to stay I'm letting you know the same
04:37 thing just so everyone's on the same
04:39 page and then Peter says you should take
04:45 in that moment I felt blind s but this
04:48 betrayal runs even deeper you see a
04:50 couple months back in March I started
04:52 actively looking for new opportunities
04:53 so I went out recruited and got some
04:55 really strong offers at some amazing
04:57 companies I went to my manager and said
04:59 hey this is my two week notice and then
05:02 he did something unexpected
05:04 he tried to convince me to stay around
05:06 this exact time period I'd also learned
05:08 that there were some pretty serious
05:10 development in my health I was also
05:12 moving to New York a new city and so my
05:14 personal life was not the most stable so
05:16 I was already kind of on the fence and
05:17 so when my manager asked me to stay
05:21 I was tempted and then just three weeks
05:24 later I was on The Chopping Block so
05:26 this conversation ends and I am reeling
05:30 emotional nothing makes sense to me I
05:34 have so much anxiety and you're just you
05:35 feel so alone and lost and fearful and
05:38 the only thing you want is for the pain
05:40 to go away so I took the next couple
05:42 hours off to calm down and then I called
05:44 my manager back and in a less emotional
05:47 more rational State I basically said you
05:49 owe me I turned out multiple job offers
05:52 because you asked me to stay and three
05:53 weeks later you want to let me go that's
05:56 not fair I'm not gonna put up with that
05:58 and I guess he could maybe hear it in my
05:59 voice or because I've been so persistent
06:01 that he was like okay no man let me see
06:03 what I can do so pictures of the phone
06:04 and he calls Ian so next day I go into
06:06 the conversation and before I even have
06:08 a chance to explain myself Ian just says
06:10 sorry numbing I talked to Peter I know
06:12 you really want to stay but we just we
06:13 just don't have the head count for you
06:14 there's nothing more to be done right no
06:18 you fight until you can fight no longer
06:21 I say look I deserve to stay and
06:24 honestly you all owe me and I really
06:26 drilled into that and so I guess Ian
06:28 also feels the energy as of the rest of
06:30 Thursday I get regular updates on slack
06:32 and then finally he's like I think
06:34 things are looking really good still not
06:36 certain but I think we might have it and
06:38 then he calls me Thursday night and I
06:42 I don't feel happy or even at peace I
06:45 just feel relief so we go out with my
06:48 friends and I drink and just try to
06:49 forget and the whole time I'm thinking
06:52 should I actually stay or not because
06:54 now the choice is mine
06:57 so I went back and forth pros and cons I
06:59 made lists and I talked to my friends
07:00 and all those thoughts of you'll never
07:02 get a job again what if you can't pay
07:04 rent they were coming back and they were
07:05 strong but I said no and so it just came
07:08 down to realizing I was comfortable and
07:11 I never want to be comfortable I grow
07:13 the most when I'm uncomfortable when I'm
07:16 in the unknown when I'm stressed when
07:18 I'm anxious when I have some fear and
07:21 this was an opportunity to just send it
07:23 to bet on myself and I knew 10 years
07:25 from now if I looked back I would never
07:27 regret taking some time for myself so
07:29 Friday morning I woke up I texted Ian
07:31 and said let's hop on a call
07:33 I have like a lump in my throat
07:39 hey good morning can you hear me cool
07:41 yeah so I wanted to thank you for kind
07:43 of like doing everything he's been a
07:44 tumultuous couple days uh but I think
07:46 I've come to the decision that I I'm
07:48 gonna take the voluntary Severance and
07:49 that's my layoff story from not having a
07:52 job to getting it back to choosing on my
07:55 own accord on my terms
07:58 so what's next for me well for the
08:00 foreseeable future I'm gonna take a
08:02 well-deserved break I also have some
08:04 things up my sleeves some big projects
08:07 upcoming stay tuned for those otherwise
08:09 stay safe take care and I'll see you
08:12 very very soon cheers
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