The Story of My Dismissal

Today I want to talk about a more personal topic than usual, since it’s something that affects many colleagues in the sector and it’s possible that, like me, some of you will be directly affected by it.

1 - Layoffs in IT

First of all, I want to pause and talk about the layoffs we experienced about a year ago, especially at the end of 2022 and the start of 2023, which is when the effect became most visible. Unfortunately, it didn’t end there.

The whole world was coming out of covid and companies no longer had “free money.” On top of that, many companies hired more people than needed—a lot more—and when the free money ended, they realized their mistake.

This was especially the case for startups; during the pandemic years, startups could raise money with almost nothing, sometimes without even having a product. Obviously, many workers were affected by this, myself included.

We also saw companies with thousands of employees who “did nothing” also being affected. We all know which companies I’m talking about—there were viral TikToks and videos showing how day after day these people did nothing productive in the office, and I can confirm firsthand that those popular videos are very true.

2 - Layoffs at the Company Where I Worked

To be honest, I don’t even know where to start. When this wave began, I was working for a Silicon Valley startup and we were reassured that everything was fine and under control—or so it seemed, because the big layoffs looked like they had already happened.

This company went through four rounds of layoffs, although two of them were split in two—like, they fired 100 people one day and 80 two weeks later, so the numbers are a bit fuzzy. From my point of view, those are two distinct rounds, but anyway.

The first round of layoffs, honestly, I saw it coming. My team had 17 people—seventeen—with folks who did absolutely nothing. They had a ticket and took a week to do something that could be done in 5 minutes. My boss would go crazy sometimes. That was where many were let go—11 from my team, in fact. Like I said, in many cases it was obvious, in others, honestly, I didn’t get it.

By the way, the way people found out they were fired was by showing up to work in the morning to find the office locked, or, if they worked from home, that they couldn’t log into their computers. Just imagine that situation.

A few months later, basically the next quarter, came the second round of layoffs. This time my team wasn’t affected, but there were people who had just joined—or who were going to join the following week—and their contract was canceled. Imagine that: leaving a company, which was probably fine, for another company that tells you everything is fantastic and boom, two days after you start—or not even having started yet—you get an email saying “Hey, remember us? Well, we don’t want you. Byeeee.”

As we can see, the methods were terrible. This time there were also two sub-rounds: they laid off 20 people, then another 15 or so.

What bothered me most about all of this is that the CEO or founder or whoever he was, the very next day, gave the typical all-hands meeting wearing a wig with flaming hair. Either he had no idea what had happened or he just didn’t care. And of course, everything was still fine and there was money in the bank for years to come.

3 - Wastefulness

One of the main problems in companies is that they waste money like crazy. I won’t get into other companies’ business, but I will discuss what this startup had—or seemed to have—a lot of money.

It’s true they raised almost $130 million in 4 investment rounds, the business had clients and a lot of usage, but none of that matters if you waste three times what you earn.

I’m not even talking about having teams of 17 or 20 people, which is obviously unmanageable. I’m talking about the perks—you really don’t need to send your employees t-shirts every quarter (even though they’re comfy, I still wear them 😅), 15€ in Just Eat vouchers each week, and other nonsense.

You need to plan and grow cautiously, at least assuming a worst and best case scenario: “Okay, if we make zero income, how long can we last?” I think that’s pretty logical.

And of course, if 95% of your workforce works from home, don’t spend $40 million (30% of your total revenue) on a “cool” office that nobody uses.

4 - How I Was Laid Off

Finally, my day came: Tuesday, January 31, 2023, at 11 in the morning. Honestly, I didn’t expect it—well, that day I did, because I started work and saw the VP of Engineering had scheduled a meeting with me and another colleague at 11:30, and then I checked his schedule and it was all 30-minute sessions throughout the day.

So I attended the meeting around 11, where they told me my severance details, and as soon as the meeting ended, I lost access to everything. That’s it. Afterwards, of course, I got some messages on LinkedIn from colleagues, but that was about it.

What do I do now?

5 - The Best Month of My Life.

Coincidentally, I had planned to travel to Spain the next day to visit my family and all that. Obviously, it was a huge blow; now I had to explain to everyone that I was unemployed: “The guy who emigrated apparently isn’t doing so well, haha.”

But it wasn’t all terrible. Here, you can’t fire a permanent employee overnight—well, you can, but you have to pay them for the days even if they don’t work. And that’s what happened: basically, the company gave me the whole month of February off, paid my salary, and I didn’t have to work a single day. On top of that, the severance was another month’s salary.

So basically, I got paid double that month for working zero minutes.

Obviously, this only cushioned the blow.

What I mean is that, honestly, when they told me I was laid off, my world collapsed. I was going to leave for a few days—that ended up being the whole month, since I had no work to do. What if I couldn’t find a fully remote gig? What if I didn’t find a job? How long could I last without income, still having to pay a mortgage, living expenses, and the kid?

I needed to find something, and honestly, I was feeling a bit anxious.

As soon as I got to Spain, I started sending out resumes, and by the following Monday I already had several interviews lined up. Only two really interested me, and both were interesting companies. One of them gave me a second interview on Friday, and at the end of the day, they told me they were going to make me an offer, which was formalized a couple of days later. With the other, I went through the next rounds and they also offered me the position, but I preferred the first one.

So yeah, finding a job was relatively easy for me. The company seemed really great, though during the interview neither my manager nor my manager’s manager were present. My experience with that company is a story for another post, but in the end I left during the trial period to go freelance. If it wasn’t for my manager’s manager, I’d still be there, honestly.

What I want to say with all of this is that you have to look on the bright side. Personally, I had a new job within a week—a job I didn’t start until March, so as you can imagine, I took the whole of February off. I did get up early to take the kid to daycare, but at 10 I went down to the café, had a coffee and pastries, half the days I had lunch with my parents, other days with grandma, grandpa, or cousins I see once a year, and took the kid to the park to play.

A lot of parents never get to experience this because they have horrible schedules and only see their child right before bedtime.

And for giving me a month like this, without major worries, I always say that being fired was the best thing to happen in my working life.