It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine.

At least once a week, I think about the meme of the dog sitting in the midst of a fire at a table with the caption This is fine. And like a true millennial when it made the rounds in 2020, I related to the comic on a soul-deep level.

Still do, apparently.

I’ve said some variation of It’ll be fine more this year than I think I ever have. And it will be. We have no choice otherwise.

Layoffs are nothing new. It’s a common experience, a quite traumatic one at that, but a tale as old as time. No one is immune. No one is too important. No one is that essential. And the people that make the decision? They don’t even know you. That’s probably for the best. How do you choose between the single mom and the guy whose wife has cancer? The decision would be too hard to make. Unless you’re a sociopath, I suppose.

There were signs leading up to my layoff. Aside from the obvious downturn in the market, mass tech layoffs, tariffs, take your pick of awful global circumstances.

It was the graphs they showed in company meetings. The ones that showed the projected revenue and the actual revenue, and how they carefully sidestepped questions about how to make up the difference with 6 months left in the year.

It was the change in executive leadership. Starting with the CEO, followed by the CFO, and then the Chief of Staff. Then there was the reorganization. The Technical Communication department moved to marketing – that was one of the biggest indicators.

Then the Chief Product person set off on a new adventure. A few senior leaders were quietly cut. A new Chief Marketing Officer starts, and she assures us she believes in the direction of the company and backs the CEO completely.

Not even 45 days later, she’s on the call that announced our termination.

The President of the company reads from a script with no inflection whatsoever. The HR attendees keep their cameras off. He pontificates how hard the decision was, and how they are as deeply affected as us. That rings hollow when he still has his high-paying job worth so much more than your own job they cut.

A few days before it happened, the former Chief of Staff wrote a blog post about layoffs – another major red flag. In his words, layoffs are just math. Employees are numbers and sometimes companies have to rework the math. That was, perhaps, one of the most tone-deaf takes that someone of privilege could have on the topic of layoffs. It’s easy for them to talk about math when it doesn’t affect their income.

They terminated my health benefits at midnight the day I was laid off. Every person I told that to immediately responded with Is that legal? Yes. Yes, it is. Because our government, much like corporations (or I guess they’re one in the same at this point), doesn’t give a fuck about their people.

I’m in an extreme position of privilege; I acknowledge that.

My husband started a new job three weeks ago, so we can switch to his benefits. It’s inconvenient, but at least we have nothing urgent happening with our health right now. The same cannot be said for other people, whether single, married, with kids … you don’t know what their situation is.

I’m getting two months of severance. It took four months for my husband to find a job after his layoff in March.

As a gesture of good will (actual words in the termination document), they’re graciously allowing us to keep our company-issued laptops. In the next sentence, they make it clear they’re not responsible for any tax implications of keeping said laptop.

The whole process is devoid of empathy.

But hey – I get to focus on my writing now.

I’ll be fine.