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Totally sane. Most layoffs are an effort to boost stock prices because some executives made a dumb fucking decision.
Being laid off is absolutely not a comment on your worth as an employee or a human being. You should give companies as much of your blood sweat and tears as they'd give you - none. With some extremely rare exceptions being an employee is just a transaction.
Most layoffs are an effort to boost stock prices because some executives made a dumb fucking decision.
..what? You want to elaborate on that a bit?
Executives need to present company forecasts to shareholders at annual business meetings. If they mess up the forecast so the business plan doesn’t match the reality, they scramble to make the books balance somehow — the easiest place to do this is by cutting staff so that expenditures line up with earnings. Modern accounting means that even though they still have payouts to employees, they can count this in a separate loss bucket so that the bottom line item that investors watch still comes out where they “predicted” it would, which props up the stock price, making investors happy and preventing them from replacing the executives.
That is one part - the other half is just simply that the market expects a response to any perceived failure. If a publicly traded company has a bad quarter the market wants to see some corrective action and it wants it now (long term plans don't mesh with the constant news cycle of the market). Layoffs are a way to lower your expenses and cause a sudden shift in profit numbers... even though they nearly always result in long term damage to the company.
Mate I'd be worried if you were anything but disgruntled. Companies are shit, layoffs are shit, feeling like shit after being through shit is pretty normal.
are utterly void of any camaderie
Contrary to what all these companies claim in their internal propaganda, they are not your friends, they are not your family, and you are not even a person to them - you are just a human resource. Your work shouldn't be your life or your way to "fulfill yourself" or "grow" (whatever the fuck that means). It is a way to obtain money so you can live your actual life. Never feel like you owe anything to a company.
However, the individual friendships you made at the workplace are often real. Stay in touch with people you know, and help each other out.
Yes, I agree.
This. I’ve been laid off at the beginning of the month as well. Three of the four interview leads I have right now are through references from old colleagues I’ve enjoyed working with and never completely lost contact. Not necessarily friends, but people you know are pleasant coworkers or have good judgement is more than enough.
All other companies I’ve applied to have either completely ghosted or rejected me pretty damn quickly despite being rather senior. This market is the worst we’ve seen in this field in a long while…
Yup. At one point, I was loyal to a fault. Always in early, staying late, helping out when no one else would. Turns out none of that is as important as sales, so they taught the salesmen my job, and let me go a month before Christmas.
Haven't put up with bullshit or given any extra since.
Yes it's normal. I got laid off some time ago, and even though I was able to find a better job fairly quickly, I feel like I lost my mojo.
I always knew that a job was a relationship of convenience, but I figured being good at my job, relatively cheap, and well liked, would protect me from this sort of action.
It's demoralising to realise just how shallow the relationship is.
Anyway good luck on your job search.
We’re up to 5 layoffs in the last decade in between my wife and I. I’m obviously extremely biased towards “job security” being a freaking joke lol
It is normal but you may want to keep it in check. It can easily spiral down into depression and you won't notice.
Source: personal experience, 1yr+ unemployed, now seeing a therapist
Bitter Bri'ish guy who's just asking if being infuriated with this isn't like a mental disease
Stiff upper lip. (Couldn't resist lol)
No, it's perfectly normal to feel disgruntled or defeated after a setback like that. That said, do try not to dwell on those feelings and find time to do something that brings you joy.
Dunno if job searching is as bad in the UK as it is in the US (thankfully haven't had to go through that recently), but from what I've heard it can be a nightmare with all the AI nonsense and filtering you have to jump through to even talk to a person.
It'll definitely pass, and it's okay to feel that way, just don't let it consume you.
There is no camaderie in capitalism.
Completely normal to be bitter. You were doing your job and had your life in order, then your company disrupted all that by laying you off.
But that's the past and now you need to put on a positive face and work smart and hard to find another job. Don't let your bitterness cloud your attitude. You've got to show the best you to potential employers, not the disgruntled you.
Word of mouth is often a good way to find positions, ask friends and acquaintances if they know of any positions.
Universities need a lot of staff and tend to be more stable than businesses. Also I've heard many times that working for temp agencies often leads to permanent jobs when the temp job is over.
Yeah it's normal. It will pass, this is temporary. Good luck in your search, the right thing is coming for you
I've worked somewhere that they laid of some of the best employees in the department, simply because they were higher seniority and "made too much money" and had to cut costs. There were plenty of better candidates to let go, if the focus had been productivity, but it wasn't. They just wanted a short-term solution to balance the books.
So a month and so later, I’m still searching and I just feel bitter and jaded, I’m not getting calls back.
The past few months I have put in some applications for jobs I am qualified or slightly over-qualified for, and same thing - 0 calls back. Best I've had is a rare rejection email.
Yes, I would say that is a fairly typical reaction.
Try to get some fresh air, or go out with friends, or whatever, clear your head a little bit from time to time. There's only so much that can be done at once, and it's good to try and get a break from dwelling on it too much. Changing your immediate scenery for a short span can aid in this.
I was never gruntled in the first place.
Yes.
Disgruntled yes. Gruntled, not so much.
There's little in the world to be anything but disgruntled about.
Absolutely. I worked my way out of my existential lay-off crisis by volunteering. It got my mind re-focused on cool stuff, which in turn lead to a much better job.
This is what I was taught.
You've got 24 hours in a day. The time you spend being angry is time you're not doing something constructive.
If being upset actually helps motivate you, then revel in it.
If it hinders you, realize that being productive is the best way to screw the ones who fired you.
Yeah, that’s totally normal.
No matter how much you think of a job as just a commercial transaction between you and your employer it’s hard not to have a visceral, emotional reaction to being told ‘we don’t need you’.
I don’t know your financial situation, obviously, but my advice would be to try and take a bit of time out to clear your head of the old job and the layoff before you really get stuck in to finding your next gig. If you can afford to step back for a bit and clear the understandable negativity you’re currently experiencing then you’ll be far better set up for job hunting than if you just try and push through while you’re still in that negative mental space.
It really depends. I did not at all when funding ran out from a university position. The lab tried its hardest to get funding and keep the positions. Part of that though is they had rules and regs such that I got termination contracts for some years before the end. They don't mean termination per se but they basically mean they do not not have funding to do it again next year. My lab eeked out a few more years by managing to get some small grants and projects and such before the end. Also though the university pays poorly so I basically started making better money once I had a job again. Had another one where the guy who owned the place made poor decisions and needed a scape goat to bs to his clients about. ie he could not say he was cheap and directed me to reformat and install laptops under assumptions the former employees backed up properly. Pretty bitter on that one. One was for covid and like the company was literally doing the keep the lights on thing so totally understandable and of course there was gov action to soften things. Most of my other jobs were straight up contracting so it was expected. So I only have one bitter situation and even then its more like. F that guy and I hope he gets whats coming to him.