I worked many years at places where I really despised the work. Finally found a job which I liked and made few good friends. Pay was good, was being appreciated for being good at my work, I felt happy being at work in office. Covid19 and was asked to resign as part of layoffs. Me and one of my best friends in office used to say that this is the final job for us where we shall retire from. A month after being laid off got a call from him and could sense he was clearly not doing well. He died few days later.
Though it's been 4 years but the hurt of losing that job and my good friend remains.
It's been close to a decade and I'm still traumatized by it. Fuckers almost cost me my marriage, my family, my home... Have never hated a company more. I can't wait for the revolution.
For me it was fine, maybe about 15 years ago. Small startup company I was at ran out of funding, we got something like 1-2 months severance. We all got along fine so it wasn't like everyone hated the job or the owners, sometimes startup companies just don't make it through those first few years.
Summer is probably the best time to be unemployed, spent a lot of time exploring my neighborhood during the weekday afternoons and was practicing making cold brew & other summer drinks LOL.
Was doing freelance work while being on unemployment / looking for a new steady job. Think it was about 4-5 months before I landed a new job (did get 1-2 job offers during that time but was maybe being a bit picky & turned them down).
... Also helps that I keep savings so short term unemployment won't wreck me. I've seen posts about people being out of work for years, that would be a far worse scenario.
My company laid off a percentage of the workforce randomly, i.e. by lottery, or so they said. I’m 95% sure it really was random, because they laid off one of my coworkers, when, if they had any sense about them, they’d have laid off me. Worse still, he needed the job much more than I did.
I was laid off in January, I had worked as an IT technician for the company in 8 years, I got a great severance package and in March I started on my current job, even had time for a vacation between jobs and got to see the south of spain.
15yo me gets an angry phone call from the dad where I'd scored a weekly long-term babysitting gig after the first or second night: don't think for a second that you're coming back! (I'm paraphrasing here).
I give a one-word reply and he hangs up.
All I did was leave after getting paid without saying bye while they were checking on the kids. (They were asleep). Because I didn't want to be coerced to get a ride like last time.
Took me years to realise they were in the wrong.
Got laid off four times when I was a temp worker for all of them. First time was when a major customer had a downturn in the oil market and I was the obvious choice by being one of the latest hires. I was brought in for a 15 minute meeting in the only conference room of the office and perp walked out by my asshole manager that same hour.
The other three were due to the contracts timing out (CA law forces companies to either convert contract workers to FTE after 2 years or lay them off). It's a lot less shocking when you know the date but it still sucks to count down the time. It didn't hurt to leave so much considering temp workers were treated as second class citizens like being excluded from company parties or not receiving bonuses so it was hard to get attached.
Dude. Those stories all suck and make. To explain mine sounds like complaining about nothing, but I started the thread, so I'll tell it.
It's not exactly being laid off. I am a Visiting Assistant Professor at a liberal arts college. Our duties are primarily teach, and we work on one year contracts. I went into my chair's office to show her an online homework system I deployed on a 15 year old optiplex, because fuck the publisher. She was really impressed but that was when she gave me the news.
Now I've not had my contract renewed before (fucking assholes gas lit me about it last time), but this is where it becomes a layoff. The college didn't renew ANY of the VAP contracts.
The part that sucks about this is I love my department. Typically VAPs teach only intro courses, but they let me teach a junior level computational physics class. They understood I had a lot offer, and they gave me a shot. I love this department and it sucks to go.
I have one more shot. The provost really wants an interdisciplinary data analytics program. The head of it contacted me to teach a course. I emailed him telling I would but can't do it. Here's the kicker. As far as I know, I'm the only one who has done computational work with the humanities. I pitched him on creating a different position, he seemed interested, but this was last week.
I have my fingers crossed, but am not holding out hope. It's also worth mentioning. All of this comes from the buisiness and finance division. Academic affairs (the faculty) is pissed about it. The two have been feuding for a long time anf academic affairs almost always loses. I think it is a general lack of leadership from all levels and just generally paying too much to their own research, but that is another post haha
