Big Tech layoff personal story

Last November, Jordan Gibbs headed into the office for what he thought would be just another routine day at work. For a while it was: there were meetings to go to, emails to answer and colleagues to talk to.

Then the world stopped. Gibbs received an email telling her that she would be released, effective immediately. He had four hours before he lost access to his work computer.

“I just sat there in shock for the first hour,” says Gibbs, 31 Happiness. “It was surreal.”

Gibbs has worked in human resources at Lyft for almost four years. She was part of what she considers one of the first waves of layoffs in the tech sector last year, when Lyft cut 13 percent of its staff.

Although it didn’t seem like it at the time, Gibbs now considers his dismissal in early November a blessing. That allowed her to start looking for a new job before the current “bloodbath” began, she says. Since the start of the year, more than 210 tech companies have laid off more than 68,000 employees (as of Friday, Jan. 27), according to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks industry job cuts.

Not that the search process for finding a new role was entirely easy. Getting fired destroyed Gibbs’ self-esteem and made her feel like a failure. She is still working on those feelings.

“I’ve never felt like a failure in my life,” she says. “It’s uncomfortable, but I define myself largely by what I can do for myself. When that tenant of your personality goes away, it’s like, who am I without this job?”

Layoffs are traumatic. Those affected may suffer from anxiety and depression, and their self-esteem and self-esteem may plummet. Feelings of shame and worthlessness are common. And that’s before the financial stress hits. In general, it can take years for someone to recover from a job loss.

By all accounts, Gibbs has exceeded her performance indicators. He couldn’t understand why she was the only person on his team to be let go, and this created resentment. At the same time, friends at other companies who were also laid off received more generous severance pay — Gibbs received 10 weeks’ pay and her equity vesting period was accelerated — adding to her sense of frustration.

Wallowing in pain and anger, she says, is much easier than maintaining a positive attitude, especially when there’s no specific reason why something is happening to you that you can control. She also watched the tech industry lose jobs, complicating her search process; she lost weight due to all the stress.

“You go down the dark, nasty rabbit hole of ‘Why was it me?'” she says. “Comparison is death by a thousand cuts. It became overwhelming. You really let the negative stuff creep in.”

But Gibbs says she’s a practical person with bills to pay, which is why she started recruiting at a tech firm in the first place. Although she allowed herself to cry and overeat Real hosts the day she lost her job, the next she started calling and filling out applications.

In the following days, Gibbs applied for 173 jobs. She had 42 interviews — some with multiple people — and received several rejections from positions she was excited about. She vlogged her job search process on TikTok, growing a small community that supported her and held her accountable. Since she was filming the job search, she had to get up every day and do something.

On day 69, just before her 10 weeks of benefits technically expired, Gibbs received a job offer with comparable pay (but lower equity compensation than her previous role), which she accepted. She won’t be working for a tech company anymore, which is good for her.

“I’m really grateful that it taught me humility and resilience,” she said in a TikTok video about the search process.

“Finding a job is a full-time job”

Gibbs declined to share exact numbers, but said she reached six figures in her previous position, between her base salary and equity compensation. She knows being so well paid is a blessing, but it also limits what jobs she’s willing to apply for. She wanted to receive at least the same basic salary, given her expenses.

“It becomes very overwhelming to mold your life around that salary and then lose that money,” she says.

Luckily, Gibbs had prioritized building her emergency savings before the layoff. She also received the benefit as a lump sum so she knew how much she had to spend. The financial stress was not as acute for her as it is for many people facing unemployment.

Still, she endured many of the indignities familiar to anyone who loses a job. Dealing with New York’s unemployment system and COBRA health insurance made Gibbs a more empathetic person, she says.

“Finding a job is a full-time job. “Making sure you have health care, filing for unemployment and doing it every week … the administrative costs of unemployment are so mentally taxing,” she says. “This is something very scary. The government does not make it easy to understand or obtain these resources.

She also cut out almost all non-essential expenses, including her coffees, dinners out, trips to the nail salon and gym memberships, and moved back in with her parents in California so she could sublet her apartment in New York. She realizes the privileged position she was in.

The best advice Gibbs has for those currently dealing with a layoff is to embrace the help of family, friends, and even strangers if you can. Her parents let her live at home rent-free. Friends sent her $5 for coffee and a spa gift card; others took her out to dinners. A stranger on TikTok offered to send her work clothes for her interviews.

But help comes in many forms, not just financial aid. Gibbs credits some of her success in finding a new job so quickly to the words of encouragement she received from people who followed her.

“You realize now you feel like shit, but it’s going to be okay,” she says of having a support network. “Having that little peace of mind, even for a second, helps you get through the next four hours of hell.”

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