I wanted to share my perspective to the folks that are being affected with the recent flight of layoffs happening. I am two years into my previous layoff when covid hit first and I hope I can share my experience so that people going through the same can relate and feel better. First about me, I worked at Uber for almost 5 years and went through all the turmoil back then. Through the end of my tenure there me and my wife wanted to have our first child. I didn't take my parental leave due to some deliverables for the year, worked 12 hours every day to get that done and took care of my son at night for months. Once the project was stable and we had a clear roadmap I decided I will take my parental leave of four months to spend my time with my newborn, who wasn't really a newborn then but still I wanted to chip in and help. First month of my leave the news of layoff emerged. I wasn't following what was going on but given that I had great ratings for the past year I thought I was going to be safe. I received the call strolling my son in a park one morning from HR that I was getting cut and similar communications you are receiving probably right now. I felt devastated and worthless. I thought we turned the corner and I had more to give but I wasn't needed. I remember I was looking at my son in the stroller after the call and things didn't make any sense. He was smiling at me, and I had this profound feeling that I failed him. I was a failure. I was angry, confused and didn't know what was going to happen next. Back then I identified with who I was at work, a successful engineer who was doing great things that was going to make a difference. I didn't understand how this could have gone wrong, all the memories and the plans were just wiped by a phone call. I had some time to reflect after this happened and went through phases of anger, self doubt and uncertainty. I continued spending more time with my family, my friends and people who cared for me, who really didn't know what I was going through because most didn't know. I didn't tell them because I was ashamed. The market wasn't great. Everything was on standby when covid hit, offices closed, interviews paused. I didn't know what to do next but I decided that I wanted to spend more time on the things that mattered. The things that made me happy. I spent the next few months spending time with my family and thought about what would make me happy in my next phase in life, all the while thinking about what my family needed for a stable transition. I stopped thinking about attachment, belonging and career. I started thinking about what I needed. I realized that after all this time, this is nothing but a job. The companies you work for, you bled for and you sweat for, the companies you sacrifice your prime youth years for do not care about you. We are nothing but a number when it comes down to the bottomline. Companies do not work in ways to care about us, our livelihood and our future if things don't pan out. The messaging is usually different. "We will change the way people connect", "we will make transportation as easy as running water blah blah", "we will revolutionize the way something is done" are just punchlines that companies push to keep their employees engaged. The only thing that matters is YOU. Your family, your friends, your life, your loved ones. You won't get another life to enjoy the things that you worked so hard for. Everything else is noise. These companies want you to believe there is more purpose. There isn't. Here are the bullet points of the main lessons I have learned after two years following: - Optimize for your life. If it is money, siphon as much as you can from whatever your endeavor is. If WLB, make sure you abuse it to the fullest extend. - Make sure you have a plan if things go bad. Make sure your savings are in order, brace for impact to cover for a while. If you are on a visa, think about what that means for you. There is a lot more life outside of US that can offer you a great life and opportunities. Honestly there are so many places I would rather live if it weren't for my kids. - Do not ignore the things that you care about for the sake of sacrificing for a project, deadline, whatever. - Elon "robber baron wannabe" doesn't care about you, neither does Mark Zuchy who is living his second puberty in his Hawaiian castle. They don't live the life that you do, and they will never understand what each of you go through. For me now any job I take is about numbers. I look at my paycheck, figure out what I can do minimally to get the most leverage for what's next. I view my current job at Amazon the same. We'll go through layoffs as well. Whatever. I know my priorities and I wouldn't even think twice if I lose my job. For my next one, I wouldn't care about a 2-week notice, having that nice transition doc for my leave. Pay me more if you want me to work more after breakup, because you suck. Things will turn around. You are talented people that can land and have a lot to offer. More importantly, a lot to live for. World isn't going to collapse to wipe us all out. If it does, we are right behind you. You are not alone. We are all in this together, today it’s you, tomorrow it will be me. If you are laid off trying to keep things in perspective, go hug the people you love and enjoy life like you never did. Things will be fine. edit: I wanted to clarify some things that weren't very obvious in my post. 1) I love what I do. I loved building things ever since I was a kid! Even just looking at some of the things that were built recently gets me excited to try them out (looking at you Faiss team). However, I would never kill myself building those things for Amazon. I would much rather do it on my own, or with a some good friends I can enjoy building them. I am not going to bankroll Bezos' 400 ft yacht and him trying to dismantle historic bridges to get that thing through, while employees have to pee in water bottles to make the deliveries on time. 2) Never ever screw over your fellow employees. Never have them pick up any slack left from your decisions. They are on the same boat as you. The angriest I have been past year was when two younger engineers were burning the midnight oil to get to their promos. I told them "I will help you any way I can, I will help you write your promo docs and write some code you can take all credit. Just don't do it all yourselves and burn yourself out. I will go up the chain and fight for your promo". One of them got promotion this quarter and the other one got a great rating. That is the happiest I felt at work past year. We delivered this project about "something something customer obsession something" which really nobody cared about, I don't even remember why we did it. I will make sure my teammates that are left to pick up my work will have full information so they can leverage it to the fullest to get to their goals. I will describe them exactly what they need to say, they should copy over the code and design docs in a way to make upper management believe the full impact. I will only tell them. 3) I have another post about the visa issue somewhere down there. I am an immigrant too and my visa story coincides with the previous downturn in 2008. it is long so I won't paste it here. 4) Finances are always tricky and not everyone will be in the same situation. I try to be on the safe side always with logistics of our lifestyle, where we live, where we spent, where we go for a vacation etc. to not over extend. I do not know what the right answer is here, cut expenses obviously, your UI starts the day of termination file for it, downsize if possible. I thought about buying an acre land somewhere cheap and plant some trees and watch them grow if financial situation is dire. There seems to be cities that offer money to move there, that can work out for a while perhaps. I also remember checking my bank accounts almost every day after my layoff as if some money is going to appear in there magically. It is stressful. Everyone's situation is different, but I feel like there is reason for optimism too. 15 years living in Bay Area the happiest person I have ever met is the guy who collects the carts at Home Depot. He always walks over when I go there because he loves my dog, he pets him for 10 minutes and makes both of them so happy. The joy in his eyes doing this is something that makes an impression on me every time. Money, TC, finances are obviously important, but at the end they are just means to enable you to do things that make you happy. I can't think of a lot of things I purchased in life that has given me continuous happiness. As a matter of fact, something like buying a house especially over here gives more anxiety than happiness in my opinion. It is something you do because everyone does it so you do it too, but you are paying for something that is easily replicable in some other place much cheaper and you can have your family live there and share the moments just the same.
Great post, the bottom line is, we are all replaceable, so always prepare for the worst and put your family first, you are not your job and title.
Are you happy at Amazon? Is pip culture true? Asking bc i am joining Amazon in 2 weeks
Not going to be easy, hope they had a good offer extended you can cruise for a while. Think 6 months-1 year timeframe. More might not be worth it to go through. Amazon is a weird place with lots of tribal knowledge that's kept hidden under locks for job security.
Amazon PIP is 12% this yr. Amazon managers are worst kind. If you have a choice, join somewhere else.
Irony is a thing to be successful in corporations.
Great message. We need to work on having identities and lives that are not based on our jobs. Jobs are means to an end - whether that is enjoying time with family, friends, etc.
That's a great perspective!
Great post. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing… I had a negative experience with Uber and ironically it gave me perspective too…
This is good
Wow thanks. We are humans after all!
Good that you are spreading the lesson that nothing should substitute your family and your precious time with them :) No one should feel guilty for the company. They are paying you for the time to work for them after all!