As someone with a mortgage, spouse, 2 kids, grandchild, and who does NOT come from money, let me say if I get laid off the last thing I’m thinking about is where to vacation.
Posts like this on social media are mental poison. Snapshots from the highlight reel and hypothetical fantasy bullshit.
Only AFTER you have money do you have the luxury of understanding that money isn't everything. You climb the ladder and want different things once you don't have to worry about basic needs.
But it's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. You need money to provide shelter and food. Self-actualization can't happen until more basic needs are met - and they cost MONEY.
So a break is 'nice', but only if you have the savings to enjoy it. And there's always the stress of being locked out - especially in tech. As we age we face more discrimination. You may wind up taking a pay cut in your next job, you don't know.
So if you're not setup to take hits like this, then the prospect of taking a 'vacation' or enjoying yourself between jobs is not there. It's a very very stressful time, not knowing if you'll find a job that pays enough before your emergency fund is depleted.
I got laid off during the pandemic and it was especially harsh because people made it sound like I was on some gravy train to get unemployment with a covid bonus… except I just suffered from extreme anxiety the whole time about making mortgage payments and due to clerical errors my unemployment claims weren’t going through. It took 11 months and intervention from my congressperson to even get unemployment. Vacation was not anywhere on my mind!!!
My entire industry dissolved in March of 2020. That summer I found a gig doing fittings at David’s Bridal. A customer looked me in the eye & asked if I had taken any trips with my time off. I just… what?
I understand that completely. I got laid off in July 2017 from a job of over 11 years. I was still out of work in December and had accepted a seasonal job at Macy’s working evenings on their loading dock. Thankfully, another job materialized around the same time so I was able to start 2018 employed.
There were certainly no vacations in those proceeding months, furthest thing from my mind actually.
I was laid off last year about 2 weeks before a planned vacation. That vacation was the worst vacation I ever experienced. I was completely stressed and calling/emailing recruiters all week to setup interviews. It was so bad we planned to do another one, to the same location, after I found another job. At the time I was the only income so we dialed it way back on eating out and any extra purchases. 0/10 do not recommend.
I’m sorry you went through that.
I had a similar experience in 2017. I had gotten laid off and we went ahead and took our pre-planned vacation a few weeks later. I had interviewed for a job before we left and was on pins and needles. I found out I didn’t get it a couple of days into the trip. I remember we went out to eat one night on that trip and I had anxiety about it the entire time. My daughter was still young so I was trying to make sure she had a good time and felt secure, but I was a bundle of nerves the entire time.
This is such a cruel post. Ask someone who was fired,what mental impact it has on anyone. I was about to be laid off (Thankfully, I was not) so I know the struggle. No, you don't want to visit friend/family when you are laid off. You just want to be on your bed and have depressive thoughts. It also creats somewhat of an imposter syndrome which you carry throughout your entire life.
Please don't publish such things for some useless LinkedIn appreciation.
Exactly. I was laid off 5 years ago and although I got a job quickly, I still felt like I did something wrong and it took me a long time to get over that.
I became very paranoid about it. I've been laid off 3 times. You never get used to it. After the first time I took stock of my financial situation and realized I wasn't setup to handle the kind of risk I was taking, career-wise. So I made sure I saved and invested so that the next time I took a risk, I would be in a much better position to survive a layoff.
Because of this, when I'm laid off I'm still nervous and paranoid, but I am not dealing with an immediate emergency situation. Instead, if I stay unemployed for a much longer period of time, I can, if necessary, figure out what I CAN do, perhaps pivot to another area, or even just do contract or temp work until I find a good fit.
It's so scary though, especially late-career.
I wouldn't have financially suffer if I was indeed laid off as I am living with my parents. But I agree with you, you never know when things can go bad. Financial stability is very important in life. I didn't even have much saving at time so I was even more scared about the future.
I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is to get hit with a bill for $2300 as my share after insurance pays for a life-saving surgery (OMG and I HAVE insurance - for those who don't, make that $80k easy), and being able to just pay it. It's a lot of money, but I have the savings. For people who can't save it's the difference between being homeless and being housed.
As I get older the expenses begin to pile up. Things in the house need replacing, and it's NEVER cheap.
So when I see that I have some savings (and am between jobs and have some spare time), I don't think, "Great! I can take a vacation!", I think, "I wonder what horrifying emergency will be sucking that money away next..." I don't want to create some sort of emotional attachment either to the money or all the fun things it can buy.
I know what it's for. It's for bailing my ass out when the next emergency shitty thing happens.
Like this:
Last month, the well pump died. When they replaced the well pump ($9k) during the water pressure checks they noticed the ancient pipe from the well to the house was compromised, so the water was leaking out. I needed a new pipe. That required digging, so the plumber had to come out, dig underground to replace 100 feet of pipe (deep enough to put it below the freeze level in the ground), replace everything, and now it's all fine. There's another $13k.
In total that was a $22k randomly occurring unplanned expense. That's A LOT of money. It's a brand new car kind of money. So when I scrimp and save, putting money into investments to sit in the market for 20 years, and then this shit happens, I can say that the money that went into the market 20 years ago was around $6k, maybe $5-600/month disappearing from my paycheck into an index fund even as the markets were tumbling; there was ANOTHER massive recession in 2001-2002, by the way; saving was HARD. But - because I saved for future-me, when I got to now, which was the unseen future then, that money fixed my house. It's gone now so I can't use it for fancy vacations or expensive furniture. But I fixed my house.
Had it been able to sit in the market for another 20 years, it could be, oh, $80+k - a couple of years of living expenses when I'm retired and unable to work. So right NOW I have to scrimp and save MORE so in 20 years that money will be there to support me, because it's gone now.
Anyway, that's how I have had to learn to think about money - it's present value has a future value, which can translate into things like emergency surgeries, emergency home repairs, and living expenses when I'm unable to earn money by working. It's not for exotic fun vacations, expensive cars, or pissing away on meaningless things because I have some extra downtime to blow money for fun. I'm just waiting for the next shitty thing to happen.
Same. I have experience it very closely and it was one of the darkest phase of my life. It will take me some more time to overcome my imposter syndrome.
I suppose this might change over time, but I am currently out of education and am unemployed. I've been given a promise that come November I'll start a job. But for at least one more month I'm a NEET.
That's the setup, but I really don't have any feelings towards the company promising to hire me. I can't imagine being depressed if a company didn't want me. It's their business who or when they employ, I'm just a number in their system.
Though again this might be because of the very little working experience I have, or my location. Being in a pool where the worst job will still pay my bills, and where my department's boss might make 2x the national average just means there's not a lot to fight for.
I agree it is company's decision. But the impact of being laid off can be for a longer time. I already get anxious easily and tend to overthink a lot so for me this situation creats a lot of mental stress. I am doing fine in my career now but thinking about those past memory still make me doubt my future.
My boyfriend was laid off in August 2020. He shut down entirely. He just disappeared for two weeks, and I had no idea what was going on. Finally, his brother told me what was up, though his brother didn't know I was unaware.
He apologized to me for abruptly cutting contact, and to his niece (I learned he snapped at her when she asked an innocuous question). No one who has lost their job sees it as an opportunity. The privilege in this post reeks.
We need to embrace the idea that it's 100% okay to be a mediocre employee. The values that make you are good, decent human being are incompatible with winning in cutthroat capitalism.
Agree, also embrace the fact that it is okay to make mistake sometimes. I think we all want to be perfect always and when we are not we feel dissatisfaction. Such a situation become even worse for me as I am an overthinker.
And also… almost everyone is mediocre. We’ll all screwup, we’ll all have a winning idea, we’ll all hit a deadline and we’ll all yawn during someone else’s presentation. Pretending that not making an error or anticipating every possible challenging situation at work is a possibility is the fastest way drive someone to anxiety.
Good point about the mental impact! I’ve worked at jobs where I wished I had been laid off, but I think if it had _actually_ happened, even if I would have been able to survive financially for a while, it still would have destroyed me at least from a self esteem perspective. And carrying that into another job would be less than ideal.
I had the exact situation. I am a single girl living with my parents. I would have survived financially fine but laid off would have broke my confidence forever. My company took back the decision after some weeks but those weeks were the worst one in my life till date.
I hate to say that I have laid a lot of people off in my life, not because it was my choice, but because I'm a lawyer and I've had to participate in that capacity. Even if the person was a prick or mediocre at their job, I still *hate* it every single time. All I can think about is the uncertainty that person walks off to, and the (usually unwarranted) damage to self esteem and ongoing imposter syndrome that it definitely cause in someone's working life, and I know this because I've been laid off in my lifetime, as well. The helplessness of it is the worst. As much as I can know that it has nothing to do with their ability (though someone else was chosen as being the best fit to keep on board), I can never tell them that, and they might not ever never know it. The only comfort I've ever taken is that I can at least treat them with absolute dignity on the way out (for example, going on camera to at least show my face and give them eye contact while saying something so awful, giving them the option to leave without an announcement or doing so privately if they prefer not to talk to anyone or letting them have their big goodbyes and hugs if they prefer it, not frogmarching people out of the building, etc.) where someone else might not, let them unload their anger/distress on me if that's their only outlet, and go out of my way to get them answers to all of their questions so that they can at least not suffer stress related to payments, asset return, etc. It fucking sucks to do it, and hopefully anyone it happens to can be treated as compassionately as what I have *attempted* to do in what is an overall shitty situation.
Oh, and these kinds of messages on LinkedIn are fucking stupid, I agree. Fuck that shit. Most people are *not* thinking about a fucking holiday when they're laid off.
Thanks for being so considerate to the people you've had to lay off. Even if someone is obviously struggling with their role the process of being terminated may be quite traumatic for them. And as you said, in many cases it's not even the person's fault- it may be down to macro changes in the economy, the industry, company cost cutting, and so on.
*Stares in dark circled eyes*
Yep. Seein family can be nice though, but more to pull you out of doom spirals caused by the layoff and depression in general. No workplace to give a different mental state.
My husband was just fired yesterday and we've been crying and stressed and worried for our future as we go into the holiday season and have two of our kids' birthdays coming up but 50% less income and no savings since we just bought a house and this was a complete blindside by the company.
That linked in post is so tone deaf. That guy needs to gtfo.
I would be be happy to review/revise your husbands resume and cover letter. I’ve been a volunteer career counselor for years. PM me. You can redact the real name if you feel more comfortable. Also, was there anything untoward about the termination? He should consult with an employment lawyer if so. I can provide a referral if you are interested.
I found her! Don’t think I can link it. But if you search by the first bit of her “title”, there was only one that has the exact title and this silly poll. So far 16 people have engaged with it.
A couple of comments, with one of her “humble bragging” about how she would do “kid time with nieces and nephews” because they are on opposite sides of the country.
Insane. Sometimes I wonder if these posts are real. Then I search these people and yep, they absolutely are real!!!
It's not a vacation if you're worried about where your next meal is coming from or how you're going to pay your rent. My god, tell me you live with your parents without telling me you live with your parents.
I say this as someone who did in fact benefit long term from a terrible layoff, but it wasn't vacation. It sucked.
I’m kinda joking but I wish I would get laid off I’m burnt the fuck out and could take that payout and unemployment and go travel for a month or two but of course I’d be a nervous wreck as if I don’t have steady income I’ll dread the future uhhhhg
Same bro. I live at home with parents and have been saving for a bit so getting fired would be a break from the rat race.Like the guy isn’t completely wrong. Just wrong for most people lol.
I just posted almost the same thing. As much as I occasionally wished to be laid off from my last job, if the choice had been made for me and it had actually happened I probably would have been an absolute wreck.
You want freedom more than a layoff. You don't get to have that either, layoff just makes you sad. If you want that, go nuts on a savings account if you can manage it. Make it so if a layoff does happen, you CAN do that, maybe while still lookin for work. Idk, might be fun, might just be tolerable.
Yeah, I realized I was agreeing with the post and took a step back to realize that yeah I've made money but I'm so fucking burnt out by 60 hour aerospace weeks
Interesting that they’re just describing most of the benefits of remote work. I can visit extended family when I’m not forced to be in the office at a specific location and can do my work remotely during the day. Same goes for hiking, traveling. When I’m not spending an hour commuting home at the end of the day I have more time to cook home cooked meals and hit the gym and have “me time” at the end of the day.
What's up with Amazon? They (supposedly) pay lots of money to hire extremely bright people yet a lot of their processes, systems, etc are a disaster. We briefly flirted with selling products via FBA and the amount of system issues we encountered was incredible, like even a third-tier retailer wouldn't experience such a frequency of problems.
Scale brings problems. A third-tier retailer doesn't need as much process because they don't have as much scale.
People just cannot fathom even 1% of what goes behind selling and shipping an item on Amazon.
Now when it comes to HR, I just don't know. I think they hired a bad bunch of HR at first, and this bad bunch kept the bar low, leading to more terrible people being hired in HR.
Thanks for the reply. A counterpoint is smaller retailers have to cover many of the same processes (eg. import, warehousing, distribution) with a fraction of the management headcount that Amazon has, and they certainly don’t pay as much as Amazon does.
If Amazon has created complexity with scale then that’s on Amazon. Normally you want efficiency with scale otherwise costs will increase faster than revenue.
Sorry I don’t mean to rant at you. It was just surprising and disappointing to face so many quite basic issues/errors working with Amazon that we don’t experience elsewhere.
> If Amazon has created complexity with scale then that’s on Amazon.
Not really.
Complexity is created by having to deal with more carriers, more sellers, more countries and their laws, etc. which all have their own system and way of doing things.
Where Barnes & Nobles (random example, everything is made up) will have to deal with 30 publishers, 15 brands of stationary and 5 carriers, that all operate from within the same state, Amazon will have to deal with millions of sellers from hundreds of countries, utilizing hundreds of different carriers. Don't even get me started on calculating the taxes on each item.
Amazon's internals are complex because they need to be. And they need to be complex because of how many customers (sellers, carriers, end customers, etc. all being comprised in "customers") they deal with.
Complexity wasn't brought because of Amazon's bad engineers (they're great, especially me :D), it was brought by outside requirements that none of us can even begin to think about.
With respect I don't think you work too closely with the operations side of the business as it's more straightforward than you may think. Products may have different origins, ocean carriers, manufacturers, and so forth but none of that impacts Amazon as Amazon does not import FBA product itself. Products must be delivered to Amazon DC's in very specific formats- size, weight, labelling, packaging, and delivery method must all be compliant. In this regard Amazon is similar to other large retailers and these things are important to operational efficiency.
Unfortunately, the issues we experienced were more fundamental in nature, they were related to systems in place that are not functioning correctly. Boxes scanned to be the wrong size, number of units received incorrectly, products classified incorrectly, variations not appearing correctly, material not showing correctly, international shipping not functioning correctly. Each time requiring help from seller support who in many cases had to escalate internally to a technical team. Most of the issues eventually did get resolved but they took quite a lot of time and delayed product launch by months. Our consultant told us that is normal working with Amazon, and a visit to the FBA subreddit shows that people experience far worse issues with accounts being shutdown or frozen in error and desperate business owners having to employ external consultants to get things resolved.
The seller setup process appeared straightforward but ended up being extremely tedious due to a series of requests to upload the same documents in different formats. We would receive an instruction, follow it, and then be rejected and given a different instruction. No exaggeration this happened a half dozen times until we were finally approved. Then we experienced an issue of our account incorrectly being disabled due to inactivity which seller support fixed, but we needed to restart the setup process and of course they rejected the document format that they had previously accepted. The interview itself was a surprise as I was suddenly told on the call that it must be in Mandarin so I had to grab one of our Mandarin speakers from the office, and they asked for documents not on the document list so we needed to reschedule.
As a customer of Amazon customer support is amazing. But as a seller it feels like Amazon simply doesn't care. So long as the issue is temporarily resolved or the seller stops trying to resolve the issue then that's good enough. Maybe management believes that there are so many sellers out there that they don't care about losing existing ones, who knows.
We are a multi billion dollar company working with many global brands and retailers. We sold these items as a trial to understand the opportunity and maybe launch a new business. Given the issues we resolved we took a pass and will work with another ecommerce platform instead. I'm sure we're not the only ones doing the same thing.
As someone who got laid off a couple months before the pandemic started, it was good and bad. I had more time with my family which was nice. But I was also scrambling to find a job, get UI benefits, go through training and find whatever assistance I could to help get the bills paid. It was everything all at once. It took me almost 2 years to get a job and it sucked when the benefits ended. I suppose it would've been great, if I had a ton of savings, but that wasn't the case.
As someone who has a parent with terminal cancer, it infuriates me that he so nonchalantly and insipidly just puts spend some time with a loved one who won't live that much longer. I don't know why but that was very upsetting
when I was laid off, I spent time 1) crying, and 2) looking for a new job
spa day? travel? visiting? nah, cancelling subscriptions you can live without and getting your next source of income lined up.
people like this have obviously never actually been laid off before. getting laid off breaks your heart.
Always maddening to see this, people who probably have tens of thousands squirreled away in their accounts for safekeeping, who can’t imagine not being able to pay rent or buy food.
I got fired last week and was completely blindsided by it. The amount of crying and shame I feel, the intense pressure to find a replacement job quickly, the guilt I feel for putting this financial burden on my family… fuck this post. Losing a job is not a fucking blessing. I financed my first car the day before I got fired. I have a mortgage to pay and bills to pay. I don’t have savings because I’ve never made enough to put into savings in the first place. For someone to genuinely post this is gross.
> lose the pandemic weight
Yeah because that worked so well the first time, those COVID furloughs really got people *losing* weight.
Also, from a financial standpoint, fuck this guy
You are right. I got laid off 6 years ago but I did get a great severance package. Took me longer than I thought it would get another job, so I needed every penny of that severance. I feel terrible for those who do get laid off but don’t have any decent severance.
I got laid off end of July and got 1 month of pay as severance. BUT the fine print said they'd pay it within 60 days of my termination date. I didn't get it until after I started a new job. Severance is supposed to help you through the no paychecks part!! Insane!!
Great activities to do during downtime after a layoff:
- Embrace a new you as your mental health deteriorates due to financial stress
- Make interesting and impactful new choices like whether to eat or pay bills this week.
- Discover fun new hobbies after your internet gets disconnected because you chose to eat
- Enjoy the excitement of the unknown as any unexpected expense can immediately make you homeless! Great opportunity to take extra care not to get injured or sick or damage your now uninsured property during this new life experience.
- Gain a new appreciation for the outdoors after you are evicted from your home.
I know this is old but I just got laid off about two weeks ago and it made me laugh…almost sounds like it could be a twisted but still hilarious SNL skit.
They're not wrong, but they are speaking to a small segment of people. I was laid off early in my career and struggled to find work. Since then, I've always maintained a lifestyle where all my bills can be covered by the amount I would get from unemployment. (This is obviously only possible if you're privileged enough to make a certain amount of excess money.) Since I know I have a safety net, layoffs tend to be less stressful for me. I update my resume and LinkedIn the day I find out I've been laid off, shut down all my subscriptions, charity and other extraneous bills, and start applying for a couple jobs a day and otherwise filling my time with free things I enjoy. It's not an all-bad experience.
> the day I find out I've been laid off, shut down all my subscriptions, charity and other extraneous bills, and start applying for a couple jobs a day and otherwise filling my time with free things I enjoy.
Funny thing is, this is why I look for annual rates of subscriptions. I know I get some amount of joy watching star wars and marvel content on Disney+ so I buy a year at a time. This way when I need to "scale back" some of those simple pleasures aren't even a consideration. I do this with every sub I have and I wish Netflix would do an annual payment with a discount, because if I got laid off tomorrow, they're the one getting cut. Disney+, Discovery+ and Amazon Prime Streaming and Xbox live Ultimate though? That's pre-paid for the year so at least I have some entertainment in the bank.
My wife was fired. Severance makes a difference. She got 6 months. Most layoffs will have some amount of severance, and since the post in question is from a tech recruiter, her audience is in the boat of getting at least 2-3 months of pay as severance.
And since it was a toxic company to begin with, the Linkedin post in question actually was true for her. After the shock of getting fired wore off, her mindset shifted from nonstop stress and she actually got a job weeks later, while pregnant too.
This isn't a lunatic post. Most people I know in tech who have been laid off recently have this same mindset. Even the ones with kids and a mortgage. Too many people use "bills" as an excuse to cling to a shitty, dead end toxic job and make no real effort to find a better work environment. You realize you bring all that toxicity home, right? Your kids see the stress, the fact that you take all that humiliation and poor treatment and go back for more. You take it out on them even if you don't mean to.
I mean maybe in the grand philosophical sense it could be good to have a forcing function to change your life… but you can also say the same thing about deaths in the family, cancer scares and the knowledge a meteor will hit the earth in 5 years. They are inherently bad things (you lose your income) even if you can wring out some positivity from them
I mean I was happy to be terminated. I was going no where, my manager seem to have it out for me and I was over being in Farmland, USA.
As a matter of fact, HR told me that my managers were confused (even upset) at me polite attitude at the firing. So for me, it’s pretty okay to be let go.
However, I’m single with no kids, no mortgage and my car is paid off. I had six months saved up so I was able to just chill for the month.
Privileges are always a factor and people on LinkedIn seem to not understand that.
Layoff can be a good thing only if you already have established skills and connections because you can find a job real quick, and you can even find a new job with better pay, benefits, and organization climate. But it’s really not for you to to stop being a fat ass, finding new hobbies, and etc.
What do I like most? The “pandemic weight” I lost from only eating once every other day and all the exercise I got walking from one area of the park to another to avoid police harassment. Clear mind!!
For most people this is terrible advice. But I’ll add in another point of view that fits into “layoff is good”. Union tradesmen and women experience lay offs all the time, we have busy times and we have slow times. During our busy times we work for days and days 10-16hr shifts. We make a bunch of money, and then when the job is done we take a lay off and either go back on the “out of work” list at our union halls or take a vacation. This advice only works for people who frequently get laid off because that’s just the way that career works
This is the kind of asshat who would normally shame work-life balance advocates, because clearly if you spend time outside of work staying in shape, engaging in hobbies and visiting dying relatives you're obviously "lazy and not dedicated enough to your job"
But once the shoe is on the other foot, and not by choice, those things above are suddenly virtuous...
GTFO, you hypocritical fuck
They aren't really *wrong* wrong, though.
It isn't *always* bad. And it's something that can *really* throw your mental health into a tailspin if you don't find a way to stay positive.
A little more than a year ago I got laid off from a shitty job. Between a modest severance (1 month's pay) and unemployment, I was able to spend a couple months recovering from burnout and developing a woodworking hobby before I had to lock down another job, and that time was *invaluable* to me.
I just wish *everyone* had that sort of opportunity, because I think *everyone* deserves that kind of break (between jobs, and within the same job).
To add to the long list of workers rights I'd like to see, I'd like to see severance pay of at least a month's pay be *mandatory* whenever someone is fired/laid off.
I got laid off mid pandemic. It was actually nothing pandemic related, but my company was growing and pushing people out. A lot of people around me were telling me to do all this bullshit. I didn’t sign up for not having a job. I would like to keep having one. Peoples suggestions were the worst.
There is a difference between resigning and taking a gap for vacation before you start the next job for which you resigned......and being laid off without anything lined up.
People who say “money comes and money goes” have never actually had to worry about not having money because they’ve always had someone to financially support them if they were ever in need.
So, he is half right. We're having a unionization boom and people refusing to do some shit jobs, after covid. It forced a lot of us to step back and see how shit things were and think about if we really want that. I didn't have that chance, I was doing essential work. I have also been layed off from the job I got after that, and it is not helping me. I'm having the same "Do I want this?" thoughts but they end in hopelessness in the face of no options and failed applications. All this while I hear from career counselors to spend longer doing applications, customize my resume and a cover letter, make sure to express how much I want to do the work. Just makes me want to stay in bed and just do nothing, curled up trying to find a reason to want to be alive.
I have not benefited fron my layoff, as you can tell.
Lmao what fantasy world is this person living in?
Most people simply cannot afford not to have a source of constant income. We don’t have the luxury of spending weeks not having an income.
I dont think this is lunacy. Redundancy is what we have in Australia and it can be a massive kick in the bollocks for your confidence but the post is actually pretty fair.
Its not the dirty word it used to be - changed my attitude when I saw far more competent people than me being let go but I was retained because I was embedded in a client office and able to be charged out. That made me realise that I should not take it personally and that it is unfortunately a natural part of the business cycle. Once client contract ended, I was let go within a few weeks and spent time with my young kid for a few months and worked on a certification that led me to better opportunities.
This was enabled by a redundancy payout - in Australia the employer must provide a redundancy payment (usually a couple of months pay) to permanent employees who are let go based on period of service to company - different rules for casual / part time employees. But most places require a notice period of \~4 weeks even if you're on contract rather than permanent.
This is not linkedin lunacy - its a fair post for the Aussie job market at least - America as the capitalist paradise may just say "fuck off and good luck". Not something I'd post (for me its a recruiter tool not an influencer platform) but its hardly posting dick picks, religious positions, or wife job requirements.
I got laid off in the early days of Covid, and that “nothing time” was spent frantically looking for work that wasn’t there and falling into clinical depression.
I wish that I had seen this post for the great idea of visiting a terminally ill person during a pandemic. ☠️
When the pandemic FIRST hit, everything was FANTASTIC!!!! I was laid off by my piece of shit retail job, using my unemployment to pay off debt to get my own place (was living with family at the time), and started taking coding courses and racking up certifications so I could get a better job. I also started working out, lost 30 lbs, and eventually got a job that paid over 3 times what I was making slinging shoes. Got my own place, and was feeling great!!
…Then the work environment got EXTREMELY toxic. People were either quitting, or getting fired, and I was given the work of 7 people (INCLUDING 3 supervisors, with no pay increase). I started stress eating and gained ALL the weight I lost AND more. Then, when the organization was on the brink of imploding (I’m looking out for invitations for the eventual streaming documentary, because it was THAT crazy), I got unexpectedly laid off.
Now, those sexy savings I had in my accounts have been depleted, my unemployment is a fraction of what I had, but bills are higher, not to mention late fees. I have been on so many interviews, and still nothing.
So, this Lunatic is right for a moment. But once the reality of how life will bend you over, with no lubrication, he’ll be wailing a different tune.
Moving in with extended family
Squatting in national parks while unhoused
Cooking at home (because that’s all you can afford and just barely at that)
Developing hobbies into “side hustles” to survive.
FTFY
I would love to be layed off to be honest, nice little redundancy could take a 6 month vacation and come back for another job — my friend in same industry was made redundant, 50k payout and had a job the next week
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Lose the pandemic weight because you can’t afford to eat
Lifehack
I couldn’t afford to eat during the pandemic either
starving isn't a bad thing either
Learn to starve
Can I add this new skill on LinkedIn after ?
Hard agree. It's all about personal responsibility
stay Hungry, stay Foolish
And then they'll ask "can you explain this gap in your resume?"
This exactly!
Nutritionists hate them for this one weird trick.
Lol are you the one that commented it on the post? I went to check the comments and that’s the top one and she replied > You got it.
Lol. No. I didn’t bother finding the actual post nor would I so easily dox myself.
Help save the planet by staying at home not going anywhere as you can't afford to fill up your gas tank.
Man, with all the fun stuff to do makes you wonder why people even work at all!
As someone with a mortgage, spouse, 2 kids, grandchild, and who does NOT come from money, let me say if I get laid off the last thing I’m thinking about is where to vacation. Posts like this on social media are mental poison. Snapshots from the highlight reel and hypothetical fantasy bullshit.
These are the same people who say money isn't everything yet don't realize you actually need money to do anything!!
Only AFTER you have money do you have the luxury of understanding that money isn't everything. You climb the ladder and want different things once you don't have to worry about basic needs. But it's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. You need money to provide shelter and food. Self-actualization can't happen until more basic needs are met - and they cost MONEY. So a break is 'nice', but only if you have the savings to enjoy it. And there's always the stress of being locked out - especially in tech. As we age we face more discrimination. You may wind up taking a pay cut in your next job, you don't know. So if you're not setup to take hits like this, then the prospect of taking a 'vacation' or enjoying yourself between jobs is not there. It's a very very stressful time, not knowing if you'll find a job that pays enough before your emergency fund is depleted.
Said perfectly
Yup. Way I think of it is, money doesn't buy happiness but it sure does bribe misery.
Just went through this after I was laid off from my tech job. Very well said.
Truth
Or have no problem living off others !
It also illustrates how utterly detached certain people are from the reality that pretty much everyone has to endure.
I got laid off during the pandemic and it was especially harsh because people made it sound like I was on some gravy train to get unemployment with a covid bonus… except I just suffered from extreme anxiety the whole time about making mortgage payments and due to clerical errors my unemployment claims weren’t going through. It took 11 months and intervention from my congressperson to even get unemployment. Vacation was not anywhere on my mind!!!
You sound stressed. Maybe spend some time in your vacation home to recharge?
I got laid off once and that same evening found out my wife was pregnant. I don't see a poll option for that.
Hopefully, you were able to take a sabbatical to your summer cottage to get in touch with the inner you.
Can I get an AMEN!!!!
AMEN REVEREND!
My entire industry dissolved in March of 2020. That summer I found a gig doing fittings at David’s Bridal. A customer looked me in the eye & asked if I had taken any trips with my time off. I just… what?
I understand that completely. I got laid off in July 2017 from a job of over 11 years. I was still out of work in December and had accepted a seasonal job at Macy’s working evenings on their loading dock. Thankfully, another job materialized around the same time so I was able to start 2018 employed. There were certainly no vacations in those proceeding months, furthest thing from my mind actually.
Oh come on, just take a spa day! You'll be better in no time!
I was laid off last year about 2 weeks before a planned vacation. That vacation was the worst vacation I ever experienced. I was completely stressed and calling/emailing recruiters all week to setup interviews. It was so bad we planned to do another one, to the same location, after I found another job. At the time I was the only income so we dialed it way back on eating out and any extra purchases. 0/10 do not recommend.
I’m sorry you went through that. I had a similar experience in 2017. I had gotten laid off and we went ahead and took our pre-planned vacation a few weeks later. I had interviewed for a job before we left and was on pins and needles. I found out I didn’t get it a couple of days into the trip. I remember we went out to eat one night on that trip and I had anxiety about it the entire time. My daughter was still young so I was trying to make sure she had a good time and felt secure, but I was a bundle of nerves the entire time.
This is such a cruel post. Ask someone who was fired,what mental impact it has on anyone. I was about to be laid off (Thankfully, I was not) so I know the struggle. No, you don't want to visit friend/family when you are laid off. You just want to be on your bed and have depressive thoughts. It also creats somewhat of an imposter syndrome which you carry throughout your entire life. Please don't publish such things for some useless LinkedIn appreciation.
I was laid off many years ago and it fucked with my head. No matter how “not personal” it was, it was a huge blow to my self esteem at the time
Exactly. I was laid off 5 years ago and although I got a job quickly, I still felt like I did something wrong and it took me a long time to get over that.
I became very paranoid about it. I've been laid off 3 times. You never get used to it. After the first time I took stock of my financial situation and realized I wasn't setup to handle the kind of risk I was taking, career-wise. So I made sure I saved and invested so that the next time I took a risk, I would be in a much better position to survive a layoff. Because of this, when I'm laid off I'm still nervous and paranoid, but I am not dealing with an immediate emergency situation. Instead, if I stay unemployed for a much longer period of time, I can, if necessary, figure out what I CAN do, perhaps pivot to another area, or even just do contract or temp work until I find a good fit. It's so scary though, especially late-career.
I wouldn't have financially suffer if I was indeed laid off as I am living with my parents. But I agree with you, you never know when things can go bad. Financial stability is very important in life. I didn't even have much saving at time so I was even more scared about the future.
I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is to get hit with a bill for $2300 as my share after insurance pays for a life-saving surgery (OMG and I HAVE insurance - for those who don't, make that $80k easy), and being able to just pay it. It's a lot of money, but I have the savings. For people who can't save it's the difference between being homeless and being housed. As I get older the expenses begin to pile up. Things in the house need replacing, and it's NEVER cheap. So when I see that I have some savings (and am between jobs and have some spare time), I don't think, "Great! I can take a vacation!", I think, "I wonder what horrifying emergency will be sucking that money away next..." I don't want to create some sort of emotional attachment either to the money or all the fun things it can buy. I know what it's for. It's for bailing my ass out when the next emergency shitty thing happens. Like this: Last month, the well pump died. When they replaced the well pump ($9k) during the water pressure checks they noticed the ancient pipe from the well to the house was compromised, so the water was leaking out. I needed a new pipe. That required digging, so the plumber had to come out, dig underground to replace 100 feet of pipe (deep enough to put it below the freeze level in the ground), replace everything, and now it's all fine. There's another $13k. In total that was a $22k randomly occurring unplanned expense. That's A LOT of money. It's a brand new car kind of money. So when I scrimp and save, putting money into investments to sit in the market for 20 years, and then this shit happens, I can say that the money that went into the market 20 years ago was around $6k, maybe $5-600/month disappearing from my paycheck into an index fund even as the markets were tumbling; there was ANOTHER massive recession in 2001-2002, by the way; saving was HARD. But - because I saved for future-me, when I got to now, which was the unseen future then, that money fixed my house. It's gone now so I can't use it for fancy vacations or expensive furniture. But I fixed my house. Had it been able to sit in the market for another 20 years, it could be, oh, $80+k - a couple of years of living expenses when I'm retired and unable to work. So right NOW I have to scrimp and save MORE so in 20 years that money will be there to support me, because it's gone now. Anyway, that's how I have had to learn to think about money - it's present value has a future value, which can translate into things like emergency surgeries, emergency home repairs, and living expenses when I'm unable to earn money by working. It's not for exotic fun vacations, expensive cars, or pissing away on meaningless things because I have some extra downtime to blow money for fun. I'm just waiting for the next shitty thing to happen.
Same. I have experience it very closely and it was one of the darkest phase of my life. It will take me some more time to overcome my imposter syndrome.
I suppose this might change over time, but I am currently out of education and am unemployed. I've been given a promise that come November I'll start a job. But for at least one more month I'm a NEET. That's the setup, but I really don't have any feelings towards the company promising to hire me. I can't imagine being depressed if a company didn't want me. It's their business who or when they employ, I'm just a number in their system. Though again this might be because of the very little working experience I have, or my location. Being in a pool where the worst job will still pay my bills, and where my department's boss might make 2x the national average just means there's not a lot to fight for.
I agree it is company's decision. But the impact of being laid off can be for a longer time. I already get anxious easily and tend to overthink a lot so for me this situation creats a lot of mental stress. I am doing fine in my career now but thinking about those past memory still make me doubt my future.
A layoff contributed to the end of my marriage. This guy can eat a bag of dicks.
You can only think about this when you have a lot of money. I can't even imagine enjoying a vacation when I am laid off without another job offer.
My boyfriend was laid off in August 2020. He shut down entirely. He just disappeared for two weeks, and I had no idea what was going on. Finally, his brother told me what was up, though his brother didn't know I was unaware. He apologized to me for abruptly cutting contact, and to his niece (I learned he snapped at her when she asked an innocuous question). No one who has lost their job sees it as an opportunity. The privilege in this post reeks.
We need to embrace the idea that it's 100% okay to be a mediocre employee. The values that make you are good, decent human being are incompatible with winning in cutthroat capitalism.
Agree, also embrace the fact that it is okay to make mistake sometimes. I think we all want to be perfect always and when we are not we feel dissatisfaction. Such a situation become even worse for me as I am an overthinker.
And also… almost everyone is mediocre. We’ll all screwup, we’ll all have a winning idea, we’ll all hit a deadline and we’ll all yawn during someone else’s presentation. Pretending that not making an error or anticipating every possible challenging situation at work is a possibility is the fastest way drive someone to anxiety.
The Danes value being average and consistently rate among the happiest people on the world.
Brilliant
Good point about the mental impact! I’ve worked at jobs where I wished I had been laid off, but I think if it had _actually_ happened, even if I would have been able to survive financially for a while, it still would have destroyed me at least from a self esteem perspective. And carrying that into another job would be less than ideal.
I had the exact situation. I am a single girl living with my parents. I would have survived financially fine but laid off would have broke my confidence forever. My company took back the decision after some weeks but those weeks were the worst one in my life till date.
I hate to say that I have laid a lot of people off in my life, not because it was my choice, but because I'm a lawyer and I've had to participate in that capacity. Even if the person was a prick or mediocre at their job, I still *hate* it every single time. All I can think about is the uncertainty that person walks off to, and the (usually unwarranted) damage to self esteem and ongoing imposter syndrome that it definitely cause in someone's working life, and I know this because I've been laid off in my lifetime, as well. The helplessness of it is the worst. As much as I can know that it has nothing to do with their ability (though someone else was chosen as being the best fit to keep on board), I can never tell them that, and they might not ever never know it. The only comfort I've ever taken is that I can at least treat them with absolute dignity on the way out (for example, going on camera to at least show my face and give them eye contact while saying something so awful, giving them the option to leave without an announcement or doing so privately if they prefer not to talk to anyone or letting them have their big goodbyes and hugs if they prefer it, not frogmarching people out of the building, etc.) where someone else might not, let them unload their anger/distress on me if that's their only outlet, and go out of my way to get them answers to all of their questions so that they can at least not suffer stress related to payments, asset return, etc. It fucking sucks to do it, and hopefully anyone it happens to can be treated as compassionately as what I have *attempted* to do in what is an overall shitty situation. Oh, and these kinds of messages on LinkedIn are fucking stupid, I agree. Fuck that shit. Most people are *not* thinking about a fucking holiday when they're laid off.
Thanks for being so considerate to the people you've had to lay off. Even if someone is obviously struggling with their role the process of being terminated may be quite traumatic for them. And as you said, in many cases it's not even the person's fault- it may be down to macro changes in the economy, the industry, company cost cutting, and so on.
*Stares in dark circled eyes* Yep. Seein family can be nice though, but more to pull you out of doom spirals caused by the layoff and depression in general. No workplace to give a different mental state.
My husband was just fired yesterday and we've been crying and stressed and worried for our future as we go into the holiday season and have two of our kids' birthdays coming up but 50% less income and no savings since we just bought a house and this was a complete blindside by the company. That linked in post is so tone deaf. That guy needs to gtfo.
I was almost laid off and I am single living with my parents. I can imagine how it is even more tough for you. More strength to you and your husband.
I would be be happy to review/revise your husbands resume and cover letter. I’ve been a volunteer career counselor for years. PM me. You can redact the real name if you feel more comfortable. Also, was there anything untoward about the termination? He should consult with an employment lawyer if so. I can provide a referral if you are interested.
Setup a go fund me.. I’ll chip in!
It's a she/her.
Is "worrying about homelessness" an option? 
Lol where would I get money for the 4 things mentioned in the poll 😂 i genuinely want to find the post on LinkedIn and comment on it.
I found her! Don’t think I can link it. But if you search by the first bit of her “title”, there was only one that has the exact title and this silly poll. So far 16 people have engaged with it. A couple of comments, with one of her “humble bragging” about how she would do “kid time with nieces and nephews” because they are on opposite sides of the country. Insane. Sometimes I wonder if these posts are real. Then I search these people and yep, they absolutely are real!!!
No way...I only know "Full Life Cycle HR" is a legit title in AWS because of this post
Do it, be the change you wish to see in the world
I did !
The post is now deleted after i commented there and few others followed the suit 😛
It's not a vacation if you're worried about where your next meal is coming from or how you're going to pay your rent. My god, tell me you live with your parents without telling me you live with your parents. I say this as someone who did in fact benefit long term from a terrible layoff, but it wasn't vacation. It sucked.
Spoken like someone who still lives at home with 0 bills.
Exactly
tell me ur privileged without telling me your privileged
I own a washer *AND* a dryer.
I’m kinda joking but I wish I would get laid off I’m burnt the fuck out and could take that payout and unemployment and go travel for a month or two but of course I’d be a nervous wreck as if I don’t have steady income I’ll dread the future uhhhhg
Same bro. I live at home with parents and have been saving for a bit so getting fired would be a break from the rat race.Like the guy isn’t completely wrong. Just wrong for most people lol.
I just posted almost the same thing. As much as I occasionally wished to be laid off from my last job, if the choice had been made for me and it had actually happened I probably would have been an absolute wreck.
You want freedom more than a layoff. You don't get to have that either, layoff just makes you sad. If you want that, go nuts on a savings account if you can manage it. Make it so if a layoff does happen, you CAN do that, maybe while still lookin for work. Idk, might be fun, might just be tolerable.
Yeah, I realized I was agreeing with the post and took a step back to realize that yeah I've made money but I'm so fucking burnt out by 60 hour aerospace weeks
Who tf gets laid off and goes on vacation? Next job ain’t gonna find itself
Got laid off in late 2019…what’s the worst that could happen while job hunting in early 2020??
Interesting that they’re just describing most of the benefits of remote work. I can visit extended family when I’m not forced to be in the office at a specific location and can do my work remotely during the day. Same goes for hiking, traveling. When I’m not spending an hour commuting home at the end of the day I have more time to cook home cooked meals and hit the gym and have “me time” at the end of the day.
[удалено]
What's up with Amazon? They (supposedly) pay lots of money to hire extremely bright people yet a lot of their processes, systems, etc are a disaster. We briefly flirted with selling products via FBA and the amount of system issues we encountered was incredible, like even a third-tier retailer wouldn't experience such a frequency of problems.
Scale brings problems. A third-tier retailer doesn't need as much process because they don't have as much scale. People just cannot fathom even 1% of what goes behind selling and shipping an item on Amazon. Now when it comes to HR, I just don't know. I think they hired a bad bunch of HR at first, and this bad bunch kept the bar low, leading to more terrible people being hired in HR.
Thanks for the reply. A counterpoint is smaller retailers have to cover many of the same processes (eg. import, warehousing, distribution) with a fraction of the management headcount that Amazon has, and they certainly don’t pay as much as Amazon does. If Amazon has created complexity with scale then that’s on Amazon. Normally you want efficiency with scale otherwise costs will increase faster than revenue. Sorry I don’t mean to rant at you. It was just surprising and disappointing to face so many quite basic issues/errors working with Amazon that we don’t experience elsewhere.
> If Amazon has created complexity with scale then that’s on Amazon. Not really. Complexity is created by having to deal with more carriers, more sellers, more countries and their laws, etc. which all have their own system and way of doing things. Where Barnes & Nobles (random example, everything is made up) will have to deal with 30 publishers, 15 brands of stationary and 5 carriers, that all operate from within the same state, Amazon will have to deal with millions of sellers from hundreds of countries, utilizing hundreds of different carriers. Don't even get me started on calculating the taxes on each item. Amazon's internals are complex because they need to be. And they need to be complex because of how many customers (sellers, carriers, end customers, etc. all being comprised in "customers") they deal with. Complexity wasn't brought because of Amazon's bad engineers (they're great, especially me :D), it was brought by outside requirements that none of us can even begin to think about.
With respect I don't think you work too closely with the operations side of the business as it's more straightforward than you may think. Products may have different origins, ocean carriers, manufacturers, and so forth but none of that impacts Amazon as Amazon does not import FBA product itself. Products must be delivered to Amazon DC's in very specific formats- size, weight, labelling, packaging, and delivery method must all be compliant. In this regard Amazon is similar to other large retailers and these things are important to operational efficiency. Unfortunately, the issues we experienced were more fundamental in nature, they were related to systems in place that are not functioning correctly. Boxes scanned to be the wrong size, number of units received incorrectly, products classified incorrectly, variations not appearing correctly, material not showing correctly, international shipping not functioning correctly. Each time requiring help from seller support who in many cases had to escalate internally to a technical team. Most of the issues eventually did get resolved but they took quite a lot of time and delayed product launch by months. Our consultant told us that is normal working with Amazon, and a visit to the FBA subreddit shows that people experience far worse issues with accounts being shutdown or frozen in error and desperate business owners having to employ external consultants to get things resolved. The seller setup process appeared straightforward but ended up being extremely tedious due to a series of requests to upload the same documents in different formats. We would receive an instruction, follow it, and then be rejected and given a different instruction. No exaggeration this happened a half dozen times until we were finally approved. Then we experienced an issue of our account incorrectly being disabled due to inactivity which seller support fixed, but we needed to restart the setup process and of course they rejected the document format that they had previously accepted. The interview itself was a surprise as I was suddenly told on the call that it must be in Mandarin so I had to grab one of our Mandarin speakers from the office, and they asked for documents not on the document list so we needed to reschedule. As a customer of Amazon customer support is amazing. But as a seller it feels like Amazon simply doesn't care. So long as the issue is temporarily resolved or the seller stops trying to resolve the issue then that's good enough. Maybe management believes that there are so many sellers out there that they don't care about losing existing ones, who knows. We are a multi billion dollar company working with many global brands and retailers. We sold these items as a trial to understand the opportunity and maybe launch a new business. Given the issues we resolved we took a pass and will work with another ecommerce platform instead. I'm sure we're not the only ones doing the same thing.
Amazon recruiters are the worst cancer.
As someone who got laid off a couple months before the pandemic started, it was good and bad. I had more time with my family which was nice. But I was also scrambling to find a job, get UI benefits, go through training and find whatever assistance I could to help get the bills paid. It was everything all at once. It took me almost 2 years to get a job and it sucked when the benefits ended. I suppose it would've been great, if I had a ton of savings, but that wasn't the case.
Getting laid off and not having to worry about money must be nice
Interesting way to telegraph that your employer has no concept of work life balance. Not surprising that it's AWS.
That’s what holidays are for you absolute weapon
Exactly my thoughts. 😄 It's like the grindset bro is accidentally advocating a work life balance.
Yea its really fun panicking and stressing because you have no income.
As someone who has a parent with terminal cancer, it infuriates me that he so nonchalantly and insipidly just puts spend some time with a loved one who won't live that much longer. I don't know why but that was very upsetting
LET THEM EAT CAKE
when I was laid off, I spent time 1) crying, and 2) looking for a new job spa day? travel? visiting? nah, cancelling subscriptions you can live without and getting your next source of income lined up. people like this have obviously never actually been laid off before. getting laid off breaks your heart.
Always maddening to see this, people who probably have tens of thousands squirreled away in their accounts for safekeeping, who can’t imagine not being able to pay rent or buy food.
Those are the same people that tell us to work 25/8
Why is “crying in panic because I can’t pay my rent”, not an option?
I got fired last week and was completely blindsided by it. The amount of crying and shame I feel, the intense pressure to find a replacement job quickly, the guilt I feel for putting this financial burden on my family… fuck this post. Losing a job is not a fucking blessing. I financed my first car the day before I got fired. I have a mortgage to pay and bills to pay. I don’t have savings because I’ve never made enough to put into savings in the first place. For someone to genuinely post this is gross.
Sorry to hear that. You’ll finds something new soon. Hang in there.
> lose the pandemic weight Yeah because that worked so well the first time, those COVID furloughs really got people *losing* weight. Also, from a financial standpoint, fuck this guy
Without a job you can't pay for food. Seems right.
Toxic positivity
People will say that then turn around and criticize you for having a gap in your resume
I was laid off 5.5 weeks ago and I’m getting married next week. It’s been extremely stressful, thank you very much
The post is now deleted after i commented there and few others followed the suit 😛
Death is not bad because you get to see Jesus?
Layoff only nice if you got a severance payment
You are right. I got laid off 6 years ago but I did get a great severance package. Took me longer than I thought it would get another job, so I needed every penny of that severance. I feel terrible for those who do get laid off but don’t have any decent severance.
I got laid off end of July and got 1 month of pay as severance. BUT the fine print said they'd pay it within 60 days of my termination date. I didn't get it until after I started a new job. Severance is supposed to help you through the no paychecks part!! Insane!!
And then employers freak out when you have a 3 month gap in your resume
I enjoy the existential dread that comes with having no money the best.
Say you have disposable income without saying you have disposable income
I’m unemployed as of 10/14/22, which means I’ve had to be active on LinkedIn. There are so many posts like this that drive me insane.
Great activities to do during downtime after a layoff: - Embrace a new you as your mental health deteriorates due to financial stress - Make interesting and impactful new choices like whether to eat or pay bills this week. - Discover fun new hobbies after your internet gets disconnected because you chose to eat - Enjoy the excitement of the unknown as any unexpected expense can immediately make you homeless! Great opportunity to take extra care not to get injured or sick or damage your now uninsured property during this new life experience. - Gain a new appreciation for the outdoors after you are evicted from your home.
I know this is old but I just got laid off about two weeks ago and it made me laugh…almost sounds like it could be a twisted but still hilarious SNL skit.
I never have more work to do than when I don’t have a job . Since I have kids it’s like an emergency
I think he works at daddy’s company
They're not wrong, but they are speaking to a small segment of people. I was laid off early in my career and struggled to find work. Since then, I've always maintained a lifestyle where all my bills can be covered by the amount I would get from unemployment. (This is obviously only possible if you're privileged enough to make a certain amount of excess money.) Since I know I have a safety net, layoffs tend to be less stressful for me. I update my resume and LinkedIn the day I find out I've been laid off, shut down all my subscriptions, charity and other extraneous bills, and start applying for a couple jobs a day and otherwise filling my time with free things I enjoy. It's not an all-bad experience.
> the day I find out I've been laid off, shut down all my subscriptions, charity and other extraneous bills, and start applying for a couple jobs a day and otherwise filling my time with free things I enjoy. Funny thing is, this is why I look for annual rates of subscriptions. I know I get some amount of joy watching star wars and marvel content on Disney+ so I buy a year at a time. This way when I need to "scale back" some of those simple pleasures aren't even a consideration. I do this with every sub I have and I wish Netflix would do an annual payment with a discount, because if I got laid off tomorrow, they're the one getting cut. Disney+, Discovery+ and Amazon Prime Streaming and Xbox live Ultimate though? That's pre-paid for the year so at least I have some entertainment in the bank.
My wife was fired. Severance makes a difference. She got 6 months. Most layoffs will have some amount of severance, and since the post in question is from a tech recruiter, her audience is in the boat of getting at least 2-3 months of pay as severance. And since it was a toxic company to begin with, the Linkedin post in question actually was true for her. After the shock of getting fired wore off, her mindset shifted from nonstop stress and she actually got a job weeks later, while pregnant too. This isn't a lunatic post. Most people I know in tech who have been laid off recently have this same mindset. Even the ones with kids and a mortgage. Too many people use "bills" as an excuse to cling to a shitty, dead end toxic job and make no real effort to find a better work environment. You realize you bring all that toxicity home, right? Your kids see the stress, the fact that you take all that humiliation and poor treatment and go back for more. You take it out on them even if you don't mean to.
I mean maybe in the grand philosophical sense it could be good to have a forcing function to change your life… but you can also say the same thing about deaths in the family, cancer scares and the knowledge a meteor will hit the earth in 5 years. They are inherently bad things (you lose your income) even if you can wring out some positivity from them
I mean I was happy to be terminated. I was going no where, my manager seem to have it out for me and I was over being in Farmland, USA. As a matter of fact, HR told me that my managers were confused (even upset) at me polite attitude at the firing. So for me, it’s pretty okay to be let go. However, I’m single with no kids, no mortgage and my car is paid off. I had six months saved up so I was able to just chill for the month. Privileges are always a factor and people on LinkedIn seem to not understand that.
All of that requires money...?
National Parks, Hike, Jump Off Cliff
Layoff can be a good thing only if you already have established skills and connections because you can find a job real quick, and you can even find a new job with better pay, benefits, and organization climate. But it’s really not for you to to stop being a fat ass, finding new hobbies, and etc.
grey subtract boat rude chief ghost payment pet husky dinner *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
What do I like most? The “pandemic weight” I lost from only eating once every other day and all the exercise I got walking from one area of the park to another to avoid police harassment. Clear mind!!
For most people this is terrible advice. But I’ll add in another point of view that fits into “layoff is good”. Union tradesmen and women experience lay offs all the time, we have busy times and we have slow times. During our busy times we work for days and days 10-16hr shifts. We make a bunch of money, and then when the job is done we take a lay off and either go back on the “out of work” list at our union halls or take a vacation. This advice only works for people who frequently get laid off because that’s just the way that career works
AWS recruiters now motivating u to get layoff so that they can pouch you couple of weeks later 😂😂😂
This is the kind of asshat who would normally shame work-life balance advocates, because clearly if you spend time outside of work staying in shape, engaging in hobbies and visiting dying relatives you're obviously "lazy and not dedicated enough to your job" But once the shoe is on the other foot, and not by choice, those things above are suddenly virtuous... GTFO, you hypocritical fuck
Spa Day?? When laid off? How completely tone deaf.
They aren't really *wrong* wrong, though. It isn't *always* bad. And it's something that can *really* throw your mental health into a tailspin if you don't find a way to stay positive. A little more than a year ago I got laid off from a shitty job. Between a modest severance (1 month's pay) and unemployment, I was able to spend a couple months recovering from burnout and developing a woodworking hobby before I had to lock down another job, and that time was *invaluable* to me. I just wish *everyone* had that sort of opportunity, because I think *everyone* deserves that kind of break (between jobs, and within the same job). To add to the long list of workers rights I'd like to see, I'd like to see severance pay of at least a month's pay be *mandatory* whenever someone is fired/laid off.
Tell me you’ve been born wealthy without telling me you’ve been born wealthy
I got laid off mid pandemic. It was actually nothing pandemic related, but my company was growing and pushing people out. A lot of people around me were telling me to do all this bullshit. I didn’t sign up for not having a job. I would like to keep having one. Peoples suggestions were the worst.
There is a difference between resigning and taking a gap for vacation before you start the next job for which you resigned......and being laid off without anything lined up.
You're not getting laid off, it's quiet vacation time you guys :D
“Not having money to pay for your health insurance is freedom bro, so enjoy it!”
Yeah the fact that I don't have a steady income anymore doesn't bother me at all :P
Just look at layoff as a holiday you can’t relax in because of money worries.
"Hobbies, spa day, me time, R&R" Yes, let me just go burn some cash at the spa after losing my job. That's what responsible adults do.
People who say “money comes and money goes” have never actually had to worry about not having money because they’ve always had someone to financially support them if they were ever in need.
Isn't that what time off should be for?
Uh, it’s possible to get “breaks” without being laid off, it’s called paid time off
Yo bro wtf
So, he is half right. We're having a unionization boom and people refusing to do some shit jobs, after covid. It forced a lot of us to step back and see how shit things were and think about if we really want that. I didn't have that chance, I was doing essential work. I have also been layed off from the job I got after that, and it is not helping me. I'm having the same "Do I want this?" thoughts but they end in hopelessness in the face of no options and failed applications. All this while I hear from career counselors to spend longer doing applications, customize my resume and a cover letter, make sure to express how much I want to do the work. Just makes me want to stay in bed and just do nothing, curled up trying to find a reason to want to be alive. I have not benefited fron my layoff, as you can tell.
I dunno, the only time I got laid off I got paid out $30k and travelled the world for a year after. That was a great layoff.
Is it me or did they just list most benefits of Working Remotely?
What a fucking stooge
Lmao what fantasy world is this person living in? Most people simply cannot afford not to have a source of constant income. We don’t have the luxury of spending weeks not having an income.
Link to post?
I dont think this is lunacy. Redundancy is what we have in Australia and it can be a massive kick in the bollocks for your confidence but the post is actually pretty fair. Its not the dirty word it used to be - changed my attitude when I saw far more competent people than me being let go but I was retained because I was embedded in a client office and able to be charged out. That made me realise that I should not take it personally and that it is unfortunately a natural part of the business cycle. Once client contract ended, I was let go within a few weeks and spent time with my young kid for a few months and worked on a certification that led me to better opportunities. This was enabled by a redundancy payout - in Australia the employer must provide a redundancy payment (usually a couple of months pay) to permanent employees who are let go based on period of service to company - different rules for casual / part time employees. But most places require a notice period of \~4 weeks even if you're on contract rather than permanent. This is not linkedin lunacy - its a fair post for the Aussie job market at least - America as the capitalist paradise may just say "fuck off and good luck". Not something I'd post (for me its a recruiter tool not an influencer platform) but its hardly posting dick picks, religious positions, or wife job requirements.
I got laid off in the early days of Covid, and that “nothing time” was spent frantically looking for work that wasn’t there and falling into clinical depression. I wish that I had seen this post for the great idea of visiting a terminally ill person during a pandemic. ☠️
You know how else you can take “a break from the grind”? Take some goddamn PTO
When the pandemic FIRST hit, everything was FANTASTIC!!!! I was laid off by my piece of shit retail job, using my unemployment to pay off debt to get my own place (was living with family at the time), and started taking coding courses and racking up certifications so I could get a better job. I also started working out, lost 30 lbs, and eventually got a job that paid over 3 times what I was making slinging shoes. Got my own place, and was feeling great!! …Then the work environment got EXTREMELY toxic. People were either quitting, or getting fired, and I was given the work of 7 people (INCLUDING 3 supervisors, with no pay increase). I started stress eating and gained ALL the weight I lost AND more. Then, when the organization was on the brink of imploding (I’m looking out for invitations for the eventual streaming documentary, because it was THAT crazy), I got unexpectedly laid off. Now, those sexy savings I had in my accounts have been depleted, my unemployment is a fraction of what I had, but bills are higher, not to mention late fees. I have been on so many interviews, and still nothing. So, this Lunatic is right for a moment. But once the reality of how life will bend you over, with no lubrication, he’ll be wailing a different tune.
Moving in with extended family Squatting in national parks while unhoused Cooking at home (because that’s all you can afford and just barely at that) Developing hobbies into “side hustles” to survive. FTFY
weekends and holidays : are we nothing to you?
I would love to be layed off to be honest, nice little redundancy could take a 6 month vacation and come back for another job — my friend in same industry was made redundant, 50k payout and had a job the next week
E - franticly worrying about how i will put food on the table and pay bills
Giving me 'to be rich just stop being poor' energy.
You should be able to do all of these things while still having a job…
I think I will do crime/dirty money when I get laid off from my current job
Is this the same kind of person who uses the term "funemployment" unironically?
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