Layoffs Don’t Announce Themselves. Slack Does.

👔 Tales from the W2

I had my first one-on-one with Rohit, my senior manager.

I wasn’t worried. I’m on his good side. The conversation was fine—mostly me giving feedback on what the team could improve. He seemed distracted, rushed. Another meeting waiting.

Later that morning, a ten-minute meeting briefly appeared on my calendar. I didn’t think much of it.

Then Nathalie, my manager, pinged me.

“Did you attend the 10-minute meeting?”

“No,” I replied. “I was in a meeting with Rohit.”

A pause.

“Was I supposed to attend that meeting?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for confirming.”

Then she sent the follow-up. The kind you reread twice.

This was an update from Leslie that Technology is doing major restructuring, eliminating some job roles, and informing some folks that today is their last day. Everyone on that call can rest assured they still have a role in the Technology organization. More information to come later.

Holy shit.

I guess I’m safe.

I went back to wrapping up a research story and figured I’d message Tyberius to spin up the follow-up tickets in Jira.

Strange. I swear he messaged me earlier that morning.

I searched Slack.

No thread.
No profile.
No Tyberius.

His Slack account was deactivated.

Is this really happening!?

I had spoken to him in stand-up that same morning.

I pinged Kevin, the senior engineer everyone politely tolerates.

“Looks like Tyberius’s Slack got deactivated?”

“Yeah,” Kevin replied. “He’s cut.”

Then, without missing a beat, Kevin added that Nathalie had told him Tyberius “didn’t like him.”

Kevin assumed it was because he talks too much.

It is because he talks too much.

Anyway.

Another meeting popped up—this time thirty minutes. Rohit again. Full team.

He explained there were cuts due to a “reorg.” The company wanted to focus more on AI and ML. We should be empathetic to those impacted.

Empathetic to who? They’re already gone. Digitally erased.

He said the cuts mostly hit middle management. Manager and senior manager roles were “redundant” in some cases.

Then he mentioned a new role coming soon: AI / ML Engineer.

Interesting.

Jobs disappear. New ones appear. Same machine.

Minutes later, all my other meetings were canceled. A final meeting appeared—Nathalie and the smaller team.

Round two.

I knew the drill. No one expects real work after a day like this.

I took a breath, muted myself, and joined.

PS
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