Layoffs are not a joke.
A few years ago, I worked at a company that went through pandemic layoffs. It was a disaster.
We got word that a wave was coming, but no details. No timeline. No criteria. Just rumors and anxiety.
A month later, I woke up to messages from people outside the company asking if I was okay. That's how I knew the layoffs had hit.
The day it happened
I showed up to work that morning like any other day. Started working, sent my colleague a message about what I finished yesterday. His account was gone from the chat.
A bit later, I saw another coworker carrying a cardboard box, walking out without looking at anyone. Not saying goodbye to anyone. Just walking.
I went home that evening. A third colleague called me asking if I wanted to buy a desk, a chair, brand new furniture for dirt cheap. He had two weeks to leave the country and needed to get rid of everything he'd just bought.
Then there was the fourth guy who posted his apartment for rent because he was leaving the country. He'd signed a year lease and needed to find someone to take over the payments or face a huge penalty.
The next day at the office
The office was empty. But here's the thing: nobody wanted to take a coffee break or a lunch break. Everyone was killing themselves working from morning until night, eating and drinking in maybe 10 minutes total.
That's when I understood what was happening. This was the goal. They want you to work under pressure. They don't want you to feel safe.
Forget the story about AI taking jobs. That's propaganda for investors. These waves happened before AI and they'll happen after. Every wave has its excuse.
The excuses change, the pattern stays the same
Sometimes it's COVID. Sometimes it's AI. Before that it was the dot com bubble. Before that it was the global financial crisis.
It's all garbage. They fire people and destroy their lives, and a few months later you'll find new hires in the same positions.
It's not even uncommon for the money they "saved" from layoffs to get spent multiple times over hiring new people who have to learn everything from scratch.
The few million dollars they saved from layoffs doesn't even reach 1% of the billions in annual profits the company makes. They could have kept everyone and been fine. But there's a reason they do this.
It's theater
It's a play. A show. They do it every few years so you can see what happens to your colleagues who have loans, who have rent to pay, who got relocated to a new country.
You see what happens when you don't work 16 hours a day. When you take too many sick days. When you take too many breaks.
Forget the talk about "you need to upskill" or "AI will take your job." Work hard, do what you're supposed to do, and what's meant for you will reach you. There's nothing in your hands that will change it.
If it happens to you
If you're the one who gets hit with a layoff, forget what people think. Forget what anyone tells you.
People will say it's your fault. That you didn't upskill enough. That you're a failure. That you didn't hustle hard enough.
Ignore all of it.
| What people say | The reality |
|---|---|
| "You should have learned AI" | Companies lay off AI engineers too |
| "You weren't working hard enough" | Top performers get laid off all the time |
| "You should have seen it coming" | Nobody knows until it happens |
| "This is your fault" | It's a business decision, not performance |
The truth nobody wants to say
Layoffs are rarely about performance. They're about numbers on a spreadsheet. They're about appeasing investors. They're about creating fear in the people who remain.
You can be the best engineer on the team and still get cut. You can ship perfect code every day and still end up with a box in your hands.
The criteria are often random. Last hired first fired. Entire teams cut at once. Sometimes it's just who your manager is and whether they fought for you.
What you can actually control
Not much, honestly. But here's what helped me:
Save money. Have an emergency fund. Six months of expenses if you can. The people who had savings were way less stressed than those living paycheck to paycheck.
Keep your network alive. The people who found jobs fast were the ones who stayed in touch with former colleagues and friends in the industry.
Don't burn out for a company. Working 16 hour days won't save you from layoffs. It'll just leave you exhausted when you need energy to job hunt.
Document your work. Keep a list of what you shipped, what impact it had, metrics if you have them. You'll need this for interviews.
The AI excuse is especially insulting
Companies are laying people off and blaming AI. Then you look at their job postings and they're hiring AI engineers, data scientists, ML researchers.
If AI was really replacing everyone, why are they hiring more people?
It's not about AI. It's about cutting costs in one quarter to show good numbers to investors. Then hiring back next quarter when they realize they actually needed those people.
I've seen this cycle three times now. Same pattern every time.
Stop blaming yourself
If you got laid off, it's not because you weren't good enough. It's not because you didn't grind hard enough. It's not because you took a sick day or a vacation.
It's because someone in finance decided they needed to cut X% of headcount to hit a target.
You were a line item on a spreadsheet. That's it.
Your worth is not determined by whether a company keeps you during layoffs. You're still the same person with the same skills the day after as you were the day before.
What I tell people now
When someone asks me about job security or career advice, I tell them this:
Do good work. Save money. Keep your skills current because you want to, not because you're scared. Treat your employer like they treat you, as a business relationship.
And when layoffs come, because they always do eventually, don't take it personally. It was never personal to begin with.
The company will be fine. The investors will be fine. The executives will be fine.
Make sure you're fine too.
In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom. — Gautama Buddha
This post is based on my own experience. Your situation might be different. But if you're going through layoffs right now, know that it's not your fault and you're not alone.