And now, fast forward to 2023, they are laying me off, along with another 99 people.
In a way I’m relieved because I was planning to change jobs due to burnout (burnout that my manager referred to during my layoff meeting as being “a little bit stressed”).
However, due to the same said burnout, I couldn’t do much job searching and needed a long vacation.
I got laid off while on vacation, a vacation I took late because of the deadlines set by the company, also a vacation which I spent recovering from burnout (and doing other fun things, don’t get me wrong.)
Mainly I blame their obsession with “growth hacking”. Now this company is a TV company and have canceled a large list of programs viewers like because they aren’t making enough revenue.
And everyone does it with a smile on their face, under the guise of ‘efficiency’.
How does one increase efficiency by reducing the number of workers and not really coming up with any tools so that less workers could do the same job?
The negotiations with the union ended in disagreement about my team’s layoffs but I got the boot anyway.
So what did I get myself burnt out for? Absolutely nothing worth it. I should have just quit-quitted. This didn’t come easy to me because I place a lot of importance on product ownership. I’m early in my career and wanted to build cool stuff that people use and enjoy.
I appreciate that my manager needed to tell me ASAP because others are nervously waiting in the line to know whether or not they are being laid off and he had to inform us (people being laid off) first. However, what I didn’t appreciate is that that vacation should have been sick leave to recover from burnout but my manager kept thinking that “burnout” meant “stress”, when what it actually means is “the job I used to love and cherish now feels like lifting tons of bricks up a steep slope then rolling down in defeat and crying”.
Yep, esp the burnout. I feel this on so many levels as a audhd person who experiences this so quickly with jobs. Esp since employers just don’t get it or value employee health. Because if they did they’d pay more and give more pto and sick leave. Instead the uppers at all these jobs need their bonuses and raises while we get crumbs or let go at the slightest downturn…