Reactions to Getting Fired

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I posted on LinkedIn last week about getting fired. It struck a nerve.

The piece got almost 1,000 comments and that doesn’t count scores of direct messages people sent me to share their stories about getting “packaged.”

One person was fired three times, another terminated by the same guy twice. One person’s wife was caught up in the Doge reductions. People said they were fired by General Motors, PBS, Blackstone, Merrill Lynch, Bloomberg and many others.

I suspect it struck a chord in part because I was fired at 57 after working at the same company for three decades. For anyone in their 50s, that’s relatable. To young people, it’s a wake-up call.

At a deeper level, I think the piece resonated because it illustrated a new reality about working in corporate America that people are just coming to fully understand and accept.

The way in which layoffs occur these days mean that even top performers at insanely profitable companies can and likely will be fired at some point.

What we are seeing is a fundamental shift in employment expectations.

In the 1990s, people understood you were at risk if you worked for a struggling company like Kodak. In the 2000s, companies like Goldman normalized firing “poor performers.”

Since Covid, however, we’ve seen large scale firings by hugely profitable companies like Meta (25,000), Google (12,000), Tesla (14,000), Amazon (27,000) and Microsoft (12,000). Often these feel performative, done to demonstrate fiscal prudence for stock market investors.

Because the decisions are made quickly and also because of legal concerns about targeting individuals, people are often fired by eliminating departments or groups. That way companies avoid charges of ageism or discrimination.

That combination means effectively that you cannot insulate yourself even by working for a great company or by doing an outstanding job. There’s no safe space.

Extreme labor market flexibility is a great things for companies and has undoubtably contributed to both robust corporate profits and the outperformance of U.S. stocks, particularly in comparison with Europe.

In that way it’s a good thing for the economy in aggregate.

But it does come at a cost, as the comments and DMs I received show.

And right now that’s born by individuals who feel increasingly insecure and as a result less loyal to their companies and organizations.

My father retired after working for the same company for 38 years. He was presented with a gift he selected from a catalogue. That experience looks increasingly anachronistic.

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BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

MODERN LANDSCAPING: Blogger makes the case modern landscaping is done the way it’s done because its easier to maintain not because its more beautiful.

FUN TO FIX: This is the attitude we should all have about life in general.

TIP JAR: Every tip jar in Manhattan coffee shops seems to be basically empty.

WORK FROM HOME: The unintended consequence of requiring people to return.

FOOD LINES: Every Tuesday, near my home in Harlem, a long line of people forms in front of church waiting for handouts of food. It’s sad that this has become normalized.