Getting Laid Off

On Thursday, January 5, I got a late night Slack from a colleague asking me if I had a meeting on the calendar with our fractional CMO the next day. Indeed, I did have a new meeting on my calendar for 5PM Friday, January 6th. After a quick scan of a few calendars, it seemed like the CMO had a stack of meetings back to back with a bunch of my teammates. With 2 company layoffs in the prior 7 months, it seemed that another layoff might be coming, this time, coming for me. 

I woke up Friday and headed to Rumble Training and let my friends Megan and Adela know that either my boss was getting let go, and everyone on my team was getting time with the CMO to discuss next steps, or my whole team was getting let go. We hit the treadmills, bid farewell, and I promised to text them at 5:15 when I knew my fate.

At 4:45, my boss’s Slack was deactivated. The next 15 minutes passed slowly as I waited to dial in. As soon as I hopped on to the Zoom and saw Karen, I knew my time had come. Someone from HR joined. I was given the speech that I did an amazing job, but the company had different (read: cheaper) needs. I would get 1 month severance and a box to ship my computer back in. That was round 3 of what ended up being 5 layoffs the company experienced over the course of 15 months. The tech industry has seen several layoffs since the start of the pandemic, so my layoff was not totally surprising. The ship I was on was not well made and sailing through an ocean full of icebergs. It was just a matter of time before we hit yet another one.

I texted Sung first, followed by Adela and Megan of course. I’m really good at following up on gossip. I would never drop a story with a cliffhanger and not follow up. And I wasn’t embarrassed. It’s not like I got let go for poor performance, leaking company secrets or taking too many Lesser Evil Coconut Oil popcorn bags from the pantry (but dang that shit is delicious). I took a risk leaving ClassPass, chasing a Director title, a signing bonus and bigger paychecks, and the risk didn’t pay off. Or did it? 

While working full-time, I hosted a few project management workshops and courses. I always enjoyed this work but didn’t think it could be a full-time job. The demand for organizing your life, your team or your company is really high in Q1 and slowly drops off just like your New Year's resolutions. 

Fortunate to be on my husband’s health insurance, I wasn’t desperate to lock a full-time job. With the widespread nature of tech layoffs, I also didn’t want to get just any job. I was curious if I could freelance full-time and if there was ever a time to try, now was that time. I could go on and on about the start of my freelance journey, but you can follow me on LinkedIn for that content. 

After 11 months of my freelance life, I’m making my full salary from my previous job. I’ve met with over 250 people through interviews, client teams, and networking. I’ve had a variety of jobs from Asana consulting, operationalizing startups, regional marketing, and program managing mergers. I am constantly looking for more work, never complacent. I’m living in a full-time hustle, a hustle that is addicting. 

Maybe it is unfair to say that getting laid off was a top moment of the year, since the moment itself was not all sunshine and rainbows. But that moment led to a new chapter in my life, maybe even a new book in the series of my life. I don’t think I would have ever been brave enough to quit a job to work for myself. A layoff was the push I needed.

From fireworks on January 1st, promising a bright year ahead, to a layoff 5 days later, I decided to keep the fireworks exploding and make sure I found a path where the sky remained lit for me. Going into 2024, there is so much uncertainty since freelance is all about uncertainty. And I live for the unknown. It’s on me now to make the fireworks, and I plan to light up the skies.