Survivor’s guilt and other joys of not getting laid off

I bet if you’re reading this you’ve been on one side or another of a tech layoff at some point. 

There’s tons of great advice and resources out there for folks who get laid off, but maybe it’s not so easy to talk about the emotions and realities you deal with when you’ve got to keep calm and carry on at work. 

No doubt you will feel the expectation to pretend like all is well, when it very much might not be. Survivor’s guilt is real, and so is the chaos that ensues after major layoffs. It’s no fun for anyone. 

You’re not alone.

My backstory

I was recently laid off for the first time in my 17 years in tech. But I started writing this article nearly 2 years ago when my employer laid off 50% of the people who do what I do (content design), citing AI efficiencies.

I never published this piece because I didn’t feel comfortable taking any attention away from those who had lost their jobs. But surviving the layoffs felt terrible. From where I stand now—recently laid off + recently a new father—I can tell you that surviving the layoffs was in fact more emotionally taxing, if you can believe it.

When I started my career in tech (at Apple), the day I started training was the day the stock market crashed in 2008, kicking off the great financial crisis. There was an immediate hiring freeze and I was lucky to have started that day vs. one day later.

Sometimes layoffs and big changes miss you, sometimes you’re in the thick of it. Chance has much more of a part to play than we like to imagine.

So now, I’m ready to share this little article, mostly out of love, admiration, and understanding of what so many folks are going through even if they didn’t get laid off. Consider it a parting gift to all those wonderful souls and compatriots I’ve called colleagues for the past 8 years.

Part 1 – My first dance with layoffs

June 2024: I was 3 years into the next great leap for my career, having gone into content design leadership. I built a 6-person team from the ground up, mentored, coached, and developed them as I leaned into being a new manager.

We delivered awesome experiences in the budding field of building AI-powered features customers actually wanted to use with our fintech SaaS product. Everything was going great. 

Then, layoffs. I had the final task as a manager of personally delivering the layoff news to my entire team, and then being given their workload for the foreseeable future. 

In one very real sense I was the lucky one. I still had a great paying job in content and working with language and serving small-business customers I genuinely cared about. 

But, I felt like my career was now officially going nowhere, and I was flailing. Olympus had fallen. Although I was still at the same pay grade/level, going back to IC work felt like a demotion, or at least some sort of inescapable embarrassment optically. 

Beyond the sense of injustice to myself, there was a deep sense of anger at the whole scenario and the impacts to the lives of those I considered myself somewhat professionally responsible for. “My” employees. Every manager I’d ever had at the company was also let go, and our renowned content design org had been decimated.   

Part 2 – It’s not just you…dealing with yourself after surviving a massive layoff is not fun

With a few year’s perspective to look back on, here’s a view of what you might face, and what you might do in the ensuing months after a large layoff. I’m happy to report that by embracing what follows, I was able to pivot a major setback into a promotion within the year.

I was promoted to an even higher level than I’d been at as a manager, but as an IC. I was able to have a huge impact over that year, and it was recognized. I couldn’t have done it without some mix of the following factors. 

1 – Give yourself grace 

Give yourself the grace to have your feelings, and take some time away if you can. Find safe spaces to express your displeasure, but try not to do it in ways that damages your brand with the larger org. 

Processing your emotions is key, because not doing so will mean you spend the next year or so being indignant and having negativity leak out in unforeseen ways. You’re still here, so you want to keep benefitting from as positive of an attitude and reputation as you can.

But you’re not going to feel like being positive or saying yes to things all the time. But sooner than you’d like, you’re going to be asked to do more with less and scale yourself. 

2 – Connect

Do some of said processing with friends, therapist, family, etc. 

I recommend doing a little more reaching out than you might usually do, especially to co-workers you trust. Find your people at work that you feel safe to be honest with. You’ll realize that others, after the dust settles, are working on the same set of problems and challenges. See what you can leverage and what you can contribute. 

Additionally, be in touch with the folks who were laid off that you had a great connection with. Offer to write a recommendation for them on LinkedIn, keep an eye out for them on job listings (or repost them on LinkedIn), and put them in touch with anyone in your network that might be useful for them.

Maybe even turn those LinkedIn notifications on so you can be there for folks in a timely way. 

A quick note—it smarts to have worked with someone for years and just get a brief “I’ll miss you, you were great” or something similar. Those laid off want to hear “It’s utterly insane you were let go, the company will certainly fail without you,” or something like that.

Anything short of that feels like tacit agreement with the Bobs (sorry, Office Space reference). But for real, be surprised and aghast for them—it will mean more than you know. 

3 – Separate what hurts your ego vs. your work. 

This is part of the processing you’ll eventually have to do. While layoff decisions were likely very unfair from a variety of perspectives, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. 

Yeah leadership probably didn’t appear to consider you or your team personally. But what now? Is there a silver lining in what you get to do now, or not do? What are the actual gaps in work coverage or working model that you’ll need to solve? Will AI really cover those gaps, or will you need to reassess your service model to focus on just the most important work? 

Us remaining content folks ended up developing a low-medium-high support model, defining which tracks would get our full support, and which could be self-solve with enhanced tools or just reviewed for structural issues. 

Don’t feel like you need to do this tomorrow, but have it in mind and chew on it. Look for the professional opportunity amidst the rubble to identify gaps this creates and new ways you can show up as a thought leader on how to bridge those gaps.

What still sparks joy in the work? I’ve found reminding myself “don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty” was helpful in getting me into the mode of getting stuff done amidst the chaos. 

A note on IC vs management work.

If you too find yourself going back to IC work, embrace it! I can’t tell you how refreshing it (eventually) was to just get lost in the work. There’s great fulfillment in doing the work yourself if you enjoy any part of what you do.

I plan to return to design leadership (and was being fast-tracked to do so in past months), but the opportunity to work directly on the deliverables and get into the weeds is something you lose as you climb higher. Enjoy it if you can, when you can. Nothing is forever. 

4 – Start dreaming

Your org structure might be unrecognizable. That’s OK. When things fall apart, it’s always an invitation to take stock. Question assumptions about what you want to do and what you could do. I guarantee you will have thoughts like “maybe I’ll just become a baker and follow my bliss.” Doing some baking or some art certainly won’t hurt, but take it slow.

I can’t tell you what voice in your head to follow, only to engage the big ideas a bit more. I suppose this advice counts double for those who were laid off, but it is also important for those left at work. If you’re like me, you could be next. It’s an uncomforting thought, but looking for where you have creative spark or energy can free up reserves to help you stay at your best.

A friend of mine who is a successful Hollywood actor told me once about the low point of his career, having been fired from what had felt like his first big break. His wife found him moping and told him: “Let’s make sure this setback is in hindsight the biggest blessing that ever could have happened for you.”

They got down to dreaming into what they could do, how they could attain new things, and assessing what new strategies to take in his career. Fast forward a few years, and he became an incredible success through reassessing what was and wasn’t working for him.

He ended up landing a big role in the Marvel franchise shortly after. Take a page out of their book and you just might write a different story for yourself. 

Some practical ways of doing this:

• Do some journaling or brainstorming sessions without any thought to feasibility. This can help let the steam out of the pressure cooker in your head that is upset you didn’t have full/any control over the business’s decisions that are impacting your life. Some prompts: What would I do if I knew I could not fail? What am I thankful for? What businesses would I run if there were no barriers?
  
• If you get some personal or professional goals out of this, break them down into smaller pieces by making lists you can check off. This way you can let the worry land on the page instead of spin in your head.
• Goal setting not for you? Try fearsetting instead. It turns worry and stress into possibilities. Highly recommend giving this a try.
• Sometimes we have creative breakthroughs indirectly, like when we’re walking or in the shower. It might be a good idea to lean into those things, especially the things and hobbies that bring you joy. I’ve found myself much on long walks and combing through a long-time collection I have, just because it makes me happy. I highly recommend giving yourself permission to do as much of this as you can.
• Talk to a pro. Here’s a plug for my first manager at my latest employer, who now has a successful career coaching practice. If you’re wondering what could be next, Lesley Kew can 100% help you assess and grow into it.

5 – Get positive

This is last on the list because you can’t “just do it,” you have to do the work first to authentically be ready to show up as your best self. The processing, keeping connections, dreaming, and strategizing all have the magic of enabling you to put your best foot forward, but they in themselves are not true progress.

But the energy they free up in you from focusing on the negative can now be positively spent. 

So when you’re ready, get going. Don’t wait too long to start kicking ass at whatever is next up for you. Hell, I set a literal alarm on my phone to go off 2 min before work every day of the week, just to remind me to find something to be positive about.

It took forcing my mind to do this day after day in order to find the narrative arc in my story for what I had to be happy about. From thankfulness came calm and eventually greater purpose and success. 

Final thoughts

When I think about it, I sense that the most damaging part of layoffs to our psyche is the sense of not being in control. This puts us in a negative place subconsciously. We’re hard wired to want a sense of control and agency.

Here’s a great talk on MIT research that found more pay does not equal more output… but more self-agency and purpose does. Thus, a sense of losing control or agency is inherently demotivating. 

I speak from experience when I say you can find yourself in a negative space as a new default mode if you’re not careful. Don’t make it your brand. Be proactive about getting positive. Layoffs aren’t personal, even if they hit super close to home. 

Follow some of what I’ve outlined in this article as it suits you, and I sincerely hope it will help you reclaim any missing sense of purpose, potential, and positivity.  

Take care of yourself and each other out there.